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Everyman, 1 will go with thee, and be thy guide, 
 In thy most need to go by thy side. 
 
This is No. 298 of Everyman's Library. A 
 list of authors and their works in, this series 
 will be found at the end of this volume. The 
 publishers will be pleased to send freely to all 
 applicants a separate, annotated list of the 
 Library. 
 
 J. M. DENT & SONS LIMITED 
 
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 NEW YORK 
 
EVERYMAN'S LIBRARY 
 EDITED BY ERNEST RHYS 
 
 FICTION 
 
 VANITY FAIR 
 BY WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY 
 INTRODUCTION BY WHITELAW REID 
 
WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY, 
 bom at Calcutta in 1 8 1 1 . Came to England 
 in iSij; educated at Cambridge. Soon 
 abandoned law and entered journalism in 
 1832-3. Died on 24th December 1863, 
 
VANITY FAIR 
 
 
 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY 
 
 LONDON: J. M. DENT & SONS LTD. 
 NEW YORK: E. P. DUTTON & CO. INC. 
 
All rights reserved 
 
 Made in Great Britain 
 
 at the Temple Press Letchworth 
 
 and decorated hj Eric Ravilious 
 
 fir 
 J. M. Bent <Sl Sons Ltd. 
 Aldine House Bedford St. London 
 First Published in this Edition igo8 
 Reprinted l^Op, 1910, 1912, 1913, 1915, 
 1917, 1919, 1920, 1922 
 1923, 1924, 1925, 1927, 1930, 
 1933, 1936 
 
 (^^37/ 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 It was just sixty years ago that the EngUsh-speaking world 
 began to recognise a master of fiction and a man of genius in 
 William Makepeace Thackeray. 
 
 The year before, this young man of letters (then thirty -five 
 years old, known as a contributor to Punch and author of 
 sundry stories and sketches, liked by his confreres but not yet 
 very highty esteemed by the general public), removed from St. 
 James Street to No. i6 (then No. 13) Young Street. Long 
 afterwards, in a rollicking mood, he pointed out this house 
 to his friend James T. Fields, the Boston publisher, saying, 
 "Down on your knees, you rogue, for here Vanity Fair was 
 penned; and I will go down with you, for I have a high opinion 
 of that little production myself." 
 
 At first neither the publishers nor the public agreed with 
 him about his "little production." Colburn, in fact, refused 
 it outright, even for his magazine. Meantime the author was 
 agonising over a title. He told the outcome himself, Uke the 
 overgrown boy he remained on one side of his nature to the 
 end: "I jumped out of bed, in the middle of the night, and 
 ran three times round my room, uttering as I went, Vanity 
 Fair, Vanity Fair, Vanity Fair." 
 
 With this new title and on a cursory examination of the 
 earlier pages, the story was at last accepted by the proprietors 
 of Punch, and it began to appear in monthly parts in January 
 1847. The critics found the opening chapters dull; the public 
 did not seem attracted, and the publishers even hesitated about 
 continuing the serial publication. The fame of Dickens was 
 already estabhshed ; Dombey and Son was then appearing once 
 a month in green paper covers ; and the yellow-covered Vanity 
 Fair did not seem to furnish a counter-attraction. 
 
 At last, after some eight numbers had been issued, Mrs. 
 Carlyle, who had a faculty of seeing things in literature sooner 
 than publishers or the pubHc, read one of the parts "during 
 
 vii 
 
viii Introduction 
 
 the night" and wrote to her husband about it: "Very good 
 indeed; beats Dickens out of the world." By the time ten 
 out of the twenty monthly parts had appeared, Tiie Edin- 
 burgh Review had discovered it to such purpose that the 
 reviewer (Hayward, prompted, they say, by Barry Cornwall's 
 wife, Mrs. Procter) declared that Vanity Fair is as sure of 
 immortality as ninet57-nine hundredths of modern novels are 
 sure of annihilation. And then came the appreciation that 
 might well count most of all, the tribute of Charlotte Bronte 
 in December 1847: 
 
 "There is a man in our own days, whose words are not 
 framed to tickle dehcate ears: who, to my thinking, comes 
 before the great ones of society m.uch as the son of Imlah came 
 before the throned Kings of Judah and Israel; and who 
 speaks truth as deep, with a power as prophet-like and as 
 vital, a mien as dauntless and as daring. . . . Why have I 
 alluded to this man ? . . . Because I think I see in him an 
 intellect pro founder and more unique than his contemporaries 
 have yet recognised; because I regard him as the first social 
 regenerator of the day — as the very master of that working 
 corps who would restore to rectitude the warped system of 
 things; because I think no commentator on his writings has 
 yet found the comparison that suits him, the terms which 
 rightly characterise his talent. They say he is like Fielding; 
 they talk of his wit, humour, comic powers. He resembles 
 Fielding as an eagle does a vulture: Fielding could stoop on 
 carrion, but Thackeray never does. His wit is bright, his 
 humour attractive, but both bear the same relation to his 
 serious genius that the mere lambent sheet-lightning play- 
 ing under the edge of the summer cloud does to the electric 
 death-spark hid in its womb. Finally, I have alluded to Mr. 
 Thackeray because to him — if he will accept the tribute of a 
 total stranger — I have dedicated this second edition of Jane 
 Eyre." 
 
 The recognition was complete; at the end of the year in 
 which the publication was begun, and when httle more than 
 half the work had appeared, the literary world of Britain and 
 America opened to and acclaimed a new master. 
 
 Just about sixty years, to a month, after the time when the 
 author was still hunting pubhshers and springing from his bed 
 in the middle of the night to race about his room in boyish 
 delight over having found a title, a group of British wits and 
 authors, under the name of the Titmarsh Club, were assembled 
 
Introduction ix 
 
 in London, in memory of this great wit and author, their 
 countryman. They chose to put the American Ambassador 
 in the chair, and the pubHshers of "Everyman's Library" 
 are good enough to suggest that the few words then uttered 
 might properly enough be here reproduced. For this distinc- 
 tion, there and here, I must be indebted to the same cause — a 
 kindly recollection of the fact that the great author found his 
 audience in America almost if not quite as soon as at home; 
 that he always held it, and holds it still. And perhaps, too, 
 it may be remembered that Mr. Thackeray seemed to like us 
 nearly as well as we hked him, and was never weary of showing 
 his goodwill — even when he was somewhat more lonely in such 
 manifestations than he would be now. 
 
 I never had the good fortune to meet Mr, Thackeray in 
 America, though I did meet soon afterwards the other great 
 British novelist of that period . But for years I was constantly 
 hearing gossip about Thackeray from those who had met him 
 during his visits to us, like the genial pubhsher who was his 
 guide, philosopher and friend among the Brahmins of Boston, 
 or like the old Centurions of New York. Their accounts ran 
 all one way. They admired his talk, and they loved him. 
 They pictured him as big, hearty, and very human. They 
 didn't find him playing the lion the least little bit, and we 
 may hope he didn't find us playing the spread eagle too 
 much. They pointed out the corner in the Century Club 
 where he used to sit exchanging literary chat, or, in Yankee 
 parlance, "swapping stories," with a group of club men about 
 him. They could tell you years afterwards what had been 
 Thackeray's favourite chair, and some had even been so obser- 
 vant of the least trifles about the great man as to know what 
 particular concoction in a club tumbler had been his favourite 
 "night-cap." 
 
 There was never any lack of admiration for the other great 
 novelist to whom I have referred, even when we were still 
 thin-skinned, and The Avierican Notes and Martin Chuzzlewit 
 were still fresh from the press. But there was no such social 
 and club tradition of Dickens. Perhaps the reason is not 
 obscure. Dickens painted us, for the very eyes in all the world 
 wherein we were then most anxious to look well, in the books I 
 have just named. Thackeray represented America to the 
 Mother Country in the persons of Henry Esmond and George 
 Washington. No doubt we had our Jefferson Bricks and 
 Ehjah Pograms too. I do not deny it, and do not deny that 
 
X Introduction 
 
 they were painted to the Hfe. But we were human enough 
 to like it better when the others were presented as our 
 national types. 
 
 No such consideration, however, affected the publisher's 
 touchstone — and I am afraid the touchstone of most men of 
 letters too — the sales. These went on in America very much as 
 they did in Great Britain — perhaps more so. The great 
 popular circulation came to Dickens ; the audience, fit though 
 fewer, to Thackeray. I have not seen the late figures, but I 
 fancy that the disparity in sales is less nowadays. Few 
 reasonably comprehensive private Ubraries are without the 
 works of one if not both; but I believe that in the severer 
 collections of pure literature the name under which the 
 Titmarsh Club assembles has begun to lead. 
 
 We must not think of anything more nearly approaching 
 comparison between these two men of genius. It would be 
 utterly idle, if not impossible. If there were comparisons 
 once and if a shade of coolness ever crept between them, 
 let us recall at any rate with pleasure the warm public refer- 
 ences Thackeray so frequently volunteered about Dickens. 
 Long after his own fame was firmly established, he could find 
 no better way to point his dislike of a certain coarseness in 
 Sterne and other old humorists than by sa5dng, " I think of 
 these past writers and of one who lives amongst us now, and 
 am grateful for the innocent laughter and the sweet and un- 
 sullied page which the author of David Copperfleld gives to 
 my children." And again, in the course of a more elaborate 
 eulogy, he told how his daughters read Nicholas Nicklehy for 
 amusement when they were wakeful, and for rest when they 
 were tired, and for medicine when they were ill, and how they 
 demanded of him, "Papa, why don't you write novels like 
 Nicholas Nickleby?" He closed the story with the outburst, 
 "Alas! who can?" and with the most generous of tributes. 
 
 Perhaps I may now say, without comparisons and without 
 disparagement or offence, that American men of letters are apt 
 to speak with particularly warm admiration of Thackeray. 
 Simply as a story-teller they may not rate him so high as other 
 British authors — ^not, in fact, so high as some British authors 
 of to-day. They may even hint at prolixity, and at the fre- 
 quency with which the innocent reader is held by the button- 
 hole for over-much moraUsing. But criticism is silenced, all 
 are carried away by his creations of character, by the keen but 
 kindly analysis of human nature, the scorn of meanness, the 
 
Introduction xi 
 
 trenchant satire that still hates to wound, the sentiment at 
 once healthy, manly and tender, the splendid humanity. As 
 for his style, it is thought weU-nigh perfect. Leslie Stephen 
 has somewhere told us that at the beginning, if not to the end, 
 this style was the work of constant revision and interlineation. 
 For myself I do not believe any style of the first order was ever 
 attained in any other way. I have no faith — ^here, perhaps, 
 speaks the old Editor, hardened in his prejudices — but I have 
 no sort of faith in the things that are written at a dash, and 
 handed you without a change of a word. It was no less a 
 genius than Sheridan, was it not, who formulated the im- 
 mutable literary law that "Your easy writing's curst hard 
 reading" ?^ 
 
 ^ I am indebted to Mr. Ernest Rhys for recalling a passage in Mr. W. 
 Holman-Hunt's Pre-Raphaelitism and the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, 
 which admirably illustrates the opposite view. Mr. Wingrove Cook is 
 reported as telling how Thackeray wrote and how Mr. Cook would have 
 written : 
 
 " We talked about the author of Vanity Fair. Cook said, ' Thackeray 
 is no genius! He was my schoolfellow and I've known him all along for a 
 rather able and plodding gentleman of letters, nothing more; amusing 
 enough some of his lucubrations are, but he is overrated, he hammers out 
 all with the greatest toil. Look here! When I came home last year after 
 a long absence abroad, I invited a party of old chums to come and dine 
 with me at Hampton Court. And I went to Thackeray, saying, " Now, my 
 dear fellow, you must come and dine with me and a lot of ancient cronies 
 next Wednesday." ' 
 
 " * Ah me! ' returned WiUiani Makepeace, ' I wish 'twere not so, but the 
 end of the month is coming, and so far I have not written a hue of my new 
 number, and I have put aside next Wednesday evening to go down to 
 some quiet lodgings I have taken at Surbiton to make a big innings, so you 
 see I am obMged to give up your attractive party. I'm truly chagrined.' 
 
 " ' Do you mean to tell me that you consider the writing a few pages of 
 your story a suf&cient reason for breaking through our good fellowship ? ' 
 I argued. ' Why, I could write twice the quantity of your whole number 
 in four hours.' 
 
 " ' Ah!' Thackeray replied, ' I know too well that I could not, and if I 
 gave up Wednesday night, I should find that I was behind, and all my 
 sense of deliberate judgment would go. It would not do indeed.' 
 
 " It was no use arguing with him, and I had to give him up. Well, omr 
 party met. Every one asked why Thackeray was not there, and I told 
 them. Nevertheless we had a jolly evening, and when we were breaking 
 up, in reply to an inquiry where Surbiton was, I decided that we would 
 drive home that way, and knock up W. M. Thackeray. We arrived 
 at the dark village. There was one house with a light on the first floor; it 
 was easy to conclude that we were at the right one, and we aU shouted out 
 * Thackeray.' The window was forthwith opened and our friend appeared; 
 recognising us, he said quietly, ' Oh ! wait a minute and I will come down 
 and let you in.' He descended and opened the door. He was feverish, yet 
 Tery calm, and terribly sober. 
 
 " We flocked in and I preceded the party upstairs. There was the 
 writing-pad with some sheets of notepaper on the table, and the upper 
 sheet had about twelve lines of his neatest small writing, with a blank 
 
xii Introduction 
 
 But ^his rambling talk must not wander on. As I have 
 been thinking of this man, whose place is secure among the 
 immortals, whom every one counts in the first rank of the 
 great Victorians, I could not help recalling that exquisite little 
 essay of his among the Roundabout Papers, "Nil Nisi Bonum," 
 as noble a paper as ever adorned even The Spectator. Readers 
 will remember the warm tribute it pays to two men of letters 
 then lately taken away, one from England, both perhaps I 
 may presume to say from America, Thomas Babington 
 Macaulay and Washington Irving. He called them the 
 Gibbon and Goldsmith of their time, and finally applied to 
 them some words which I venture to think men of letters the 
 world over will now feel that we may apply with equal Justice, 
 and even greater fervour, to William Makepeace Thackeray 
 himself. Let me close by quoting them; 
 
 "It has been his fortunate lot to give incalculable happi- 
 ness and delight to the world, which thanks him in return with 
 an immense kindliness, respect, affection. It may not be our 
 chance, brother scribe, to be endowed with such merit, or 
 rewarded with such fame. But the rewards of these men are 
 rewards paid to our service. We may not win the baton or 
 epaulettes; but Gk)d give us strength to guard the honour of 
 the flag!" 
 
 WHITELAW REID. 
 
 February 1908. 
 
 space at the bottom. I held it up before Thackeray. ' Tell me,' I said, 
 ' Is this all you have written this blessed evening?' 
 
 '*' Alas!' he rephed, quite sadly, 'that is all.' 
 
 " And I rejoined, ' Then that is v/hat you left all of us for? You ought 
 to be ashamed of yourself.' And in return, he admitted that I was quite 
 right. 
 
 " While my mind was still in the lodging at Surbiton, and following the 
 inspired author of Vanity Fair after his boisterous companions had gone 
 and he sat down to gather up the disturbed threads of his wonderful 
 embroidery, Wingrove unsuspectingly said to us, 'Now do you call that 
 a genius?'" 
 
 Here was a man who was quite sure that no pangs of labour need precede 
 a literary birth. But, if the kind reader will pardon my transatlantic 
 ignorance, we know now who the struggUng author was that spent a whole 
 evening in writing a dozen lines in Vanity Fair — ^but exactly who was Mr. 
 Wingrove Cook? 
 
The following is a list of the published writings of W. M. 
 Thackeray: 
 
 The Snob : a Literary and Scientific Journal, not conducted by members 
 of the University, 1829; Elizabeth Brounrigge: a Tale in Two Books 
 (Fraser), 1832; Flore et Zephyr: Ballet Mythologique, 1836; the Paris 
 Sketch-Book (includes contributions to National Standard, New Monthly, 
 Eraser, and Corsair), 1840; Essay on the Genius of George Cruikshank 
 (from Westminster Review), 1840; Sketches by Spec: No. i — Britannia 
 protecting the Drama, 1840; Captain Rook and Mr. Pigeon (Heads of the 
 People), 1840; The Fashionable Authoress; The Artist (ditto), 1841; 
 Comic Tales and Sketches (from Eraser — "Yellowplush Papers" — New 
 Monthly, Bentley's Miscellany, Cruikshank's Comic Almanack), 1841; The 
 History of Samuel Titmarsh and the Great Hoggarty Diamond (Eraser), 
 1841, republished 1849; The Second Funeral of Napoleon (in three letters 
 to Miss Smith of London), and Chronicle of the Drum, 1841; The Irish 
 Sketch-Book, 1843; The Luck of Barry Lyndon: a Romance of the Last 
 Century (Eraser), 1844, republished Miscellanies, 1856; Notes of a Journey 
 from Cornhill to Cairo, etc., 1846; Mrs. Perkins's BaU, 1847; Vanity Fair: 
 a Novel without a Hero (monthly numbers, 1847-8); The Book of Snobs 
 (from Punch), 1848; Our Street, 1848; The History of Pendennis: his 
 Fortunes and Misfortunes, his Friends and his Greatest Enemy (monthly 
 numbers, 1848-50); Dr. Birch and his Young Friends, 1849; Rebecca 
 and Rowena: a Romance upon Romance (with additions, from Eraser), 
 1850; Sketches after English Landscape Painters, by S. Marcy, with 
 Notices by Thackeray, 1850; The Kickleburys on the Rhine, 1850 (2nd 
 edition with essay "On Thunder and Small Beer," 1851); The History of 
 Henry Esmond, Esq., a Colonel in the Service of Her Majesty Queen Anne, 
 written by himself, 1852; Preface to a Collection of Papers from Punch, 
 1852; The English Humourists of the Eighteenth Century, 1853; The 
 Newcomes: Memoirs of a most Respectable Family, edited by Arthur 
 Pendennis, Esq. (monthly numbers, 1853-5); The Rose and the Ring, or 
 the History of Prince Giglio and Prince Bulbo: a Fireside Pantomime, 
 etc., 1855; Miscellanies in Prose and Verse (includes former publications 
 and other items from Comic Almanack, Punch — "Diary of Jeames de la 
 Pluche," " Sketches and Travels in London," etc. — Eraser — " Barry 
 Lyndon," " Going to see a Man Hanged," " Fitzboodle Papers," etc. — 
 Cruikshank's Table-book), 1855; BaUads (collected edition), 1855; The 
 Virginians: a Tale of the Last Century (monthly parts, 1857-9); Lovel 
 the Widower (from Cornhill), 1861; The Four Georges (from Cornhill), 
 1 861; The Adventures of Philip on his way through the World: showing 
 who robbed him, who helped him, and who passed him by (from Cornhill), 
 1862; Roundabout Papers (from Cornhill), 1863. 
 
 Posthumous. — Denis Duval (from Cornhill), 1863; The Orphan of 
 Pimlico, and other Sketches, etc., 1876; A Collection of Letters, "1847-55 
 (from Scribner), 1887; Sultan Stork (from Ainsworth's Magazine) and 
 other Stories, now first collected, 1887; Loose Sketches: an Eastern 
 Adventiure (from The Britannia and Punch's Pocket-book), 1894. 
 
 First Collective Edition (22 vols., 1867-9; Biographical Edition, with 
 Introduction to each volume by Mrs. Richmond Ritchie (13 vols.), 1898-9; 
 The Collective Editions contain f\u:ther contributions to Punch, Eraser, 
 Quarterly Review, and other items. 
 
 XIU 
 
TO 
 
 B. W. PROCTOR 
 
 THIS STORY IS AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED 
 
BEFORE THE CURTAIN 
 
 As the Manager of the Performance sits before the curtain on 
 the boards, and looks into the Fair, a feeUng of profound 
 melancholy comes over him in his survey of the bustling place. 
 There is a great quantity of eating and drinking, making love 
 and jilting, laughing and the contrary, smoking, cheating, fight- 
 ing, dancing, and fiddling: there are bullies pushing about, 
 bucks ogling the women, knaves picking pockets, policemen on 
 the look-out, quacks (other quacks, plague take them !) bawling 
 in front of their booths, and yokels looking up at the tinselled 
 dancers and poor old rouged tumblers, while the light-fingered 
 folk are operating upon their pockets behind. Yes, this is 
 Vanity Fair: not a moral place certainly; nor a merry one^j 
 though very noisy. Look at the faces of the actors and buffoonsi 
 when they come off from their business; and Tom Fool washing' 
 the paint off his cheeks before he sits do^vn to dinner with his 
 wife and the little Jack Puddings behind the canvas. The 
 curtain will be up presently, and he will be turning over head 
 and heels, and crying, " How are you? " 
 
 A man with a reflective turn of mind, walking through an ex- 
 hibition of this sort, will not be oppressed, I take it, by his own 
 or other people's hilarity. An. episode of humour or kindness 
 touches. and amuses.MmherejLnd there; — ^a prett}^ child looking 
 at a gingerbread stall; a pretty girl blushing whilst her lover 
 talks to her and chooses her fairing; poor Tom Fool, yonder 
 behind the waggon, mumbling his bone with the honest family 
 which lives by his tumbling; but the general impression is one 
 more melancholy than mirthful. When you come home you 
 sit down, in a sober, contemplative, not uncharitable frame of 
 mind, and apply yourself to your books or your business. 
 
 I have no other moral than this to tag to the present story of 
 " Vanity Fair." Some people consider fairs immoral altogether, 
 and eschew such, with their servants and families: very likely 
 they are right. But persons who think otherwise, and are of a 
 lazy, or a benevolent, or a sarcastic mood, may perhaps like to 
 step in for half-an-hour, and look at the performances. There 
 are scenes of all sorts: some dreadful combats, some grand and 
 A 298 I 
 
 -Jtsi.^ 
 
2 Before the Curtain 
 
 lofty horse-riding, some scenes of high life, and some of very 
 middling indeed; some love-making for the sentimental, and 
 some light comic business; the whole accompanied by appro- 
 priate scenery and brilliantly illuminated with the Author's 
 own candles. 
 
 What more has the Manager of the Performance to say? — 
 To acknowledge the kindness with which it has been received in 
 all the principal towns of England through which the Show has 
 passed, and where it has been most favourably noticed by the 
 respected conductors of the public Press, and by the Nobility 
 and Gentry. He is proud to think that his Puppets have given 
 satisfaction to the very best company in this empire. The 
 famous little Becky Puppet has been pronounced to be uncom- 
 monly flexible in the joints, and lively on the wire; the Amelia 
 Doll, though it has had a smaller circle of admirers, has yet been 
 carved and dressed with the greatest care by the artist: the 
 Dobbin Figure, though apparently clumsy, yet dances in a very 
 amusing and natural manner: the Little Boys' Dance has been 
 liked by some; and please to remark the richly dressed figure 
 of the Wicked Nobleman, on which no expense has been spared, 
 and which Old Nick will fetch away at the end of this singular 
 performance. 
 
 And with this, and a profound bow to his patrons, the 
 Manager retires, and the curtain rises, 
 
 London, June 28, 1848. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER 
 
 I. Chiswick Mall . , .... 
 
 II. In which Miss Sharp and Miss Sedley prepare to 
 OPEN THE Campaign ..... 
 
 III. Rebecca is in Presence of the Enemy 
 
 IV. The Green Silk Purse ..... 
 V. Dobbin of Ours ...... 
 
 VI. Vauxhall . . 
 
 VII. Crawley of Queen's Crawley . . 
 VIII. Private and Confidential .... 
 
 IX. Family Portraits ...... 
 
 X. Miss Sharp begins to make Friends 
 XI. Arcadian Simplicity . . 
 
 XII. Quite a Sentimental Chapter 
 
 XIII. Sentimental and Otherwise .... 
 
 XIV. Miss Crawley at Home .... 
 
 XV. In which Rebecca's Husb^and appears for a Short 
 
 Time . . . . . ... 
 
 XVI. The Letter on the Pincushion 
 
 XVII. How Captain Dobbin bought a Piano . 
 
 XVIII. Who played on the Piano Captain Dobbin bought 
 
 XIX. Miss Crawley at Nurse 
 
 XX. In which Captain Dobbin acts as the Messenger of 
 Hymen . . . . . . . 
 
 XXL A Quarrel about an Heiress . . 
 
 XXII. A Marriage and Part of a Honeymoon 
 
 XXIII. Captain Dobbin proceeds on his Canvass 
 
 XXIV. In which Mr. Osborne takes down the Family 
 
 Bible ........ 
 
 XXV. In which all the Principal Personages think fit to 
 LEAVE Brighton ..... 
 
 XXVI. Between London and Chatham 
 
 XXVII. In which Amelia joins Her Regiment . 
 
 XXVIII. In which Amelia invades the Low Countries 
 
 XXIX. Brussels . . ..... 
 
 XXX. •' The Girl I left behind Me "... 
 
 XXXI. In which Jos Sedley takes Care of his Sister 
 
 3 
 
 PAGE 
 
 5 
 
Contents 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 XXXII. In which Jos takes Flight, and the War is brought 
 TO A Close ..... 
 
 XXXIII. In which Miss Crawley's Relations ab 
 
 ANXIOUS ABOUT HeR 
 
 XXXIV. James Crawley's Pipe is put out . 
 XXXV. Widow and Mother .... 
 
 XXXVI. How to live well on Nothing a Year 
 
 XXXVII. The Subject continued . . . 
 
 XXXVIII. A Family in a very Small Way . 
 
 XXXIX. A Cynical Chapter .... 
 
 XL. In which Becky is recognised by the Family 
 
 XLI. In which Becky revisits the Halls of Her 
 Ancestors ...... 
 
 XLII. Which treats of the Osborne Family . 
 
 XLIII. In which the Reader has to double the Cape 
 
 XLIV. A Roundabout Chapter between London and 
 Hampshire . . . 
 
 XLV. Between Hampshire and London . 
 
 XLVI. Struggles and Trials .... 
 
 XLVII. Gaunt House 
 
 XLVIII. In which the Reader is introduced to the very best 
 OF Company . . . . . 
 
 XLIX. In which we enjoy three Courses and a Dessert 
 
 L. Contains a Vulgar Incident 
 
 LI. In which a Charade is acted which may or may not 
 Puzzle the Reader 
 
 LII. In which Lord Steyne shows himself in a most 
 amiable Light ..... 
 
 LIII. A Rescue and a Catastrophe 
 
 LIV. Sunday after the Battle . . 4 . 
 
 LV. In which the same Subject is pursued 
 
 LVI. Georgy is made a Gentleman 
 
 LVII. EOTKEN ........ 
 
 LVIII. Our Friend the Major 
 
 LIX. The old Piano ...... 
 
 LX. Returns to the Genteel World . 
 
 LXI. In which two Lights are put out 
 
 LXII. Am Rhein ....... 
 
 LXIII. In which We meet an old Acquaintance 
 
 LXIV. A Vagabond Chapter ..... 
 
 LXV. Full of Business and Pleasure . 
 
 LXVI. Amantium Irm . . ... 
 
 LXVII. Which contains Births, Marriages, and Deaths 
 
VANITY FAIR 
 
 A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 CHISWICK MALL 
 
 While the present century v/as in its teens, and on one sun- 
 shiny morning in June, there drove up to the great iron gate of 
 Miss Pinkerton's academy for young ladies, on Chiswick Mall, a 
 large family coach, with two fat horses in blazing harness, driven 
 by a fat coachman in a three-cornered hat and wig, at the rate 
 of four miles an hour. A black servant, who reposed on the 
 box beside the fat coachman, uncurled his bandy-legs as soon as 
 the equipage drew up opposite Miss Pinkerton's shining brass 
 plate, and as he pulled the bell, at least a score of young heads 
 were seen peering out of the narrow windows of the stately old 
 brick house. Nay, the acute observer might have recognised 
 the little red nose of good-natured Miss Jemima Pinkerton her- 
 self, rising over some geranium-pots in the window of that lady's 
 own drawing-room. 
 
 " It is Mrs. Sedley's coach, sister," said Miss Jemima. " Sambo, 
 the black servant, has just rung the bell: and the coachman 
 has a new red waistcoat." 
 
 " Have you completed all the necessary preparations incident 
 to Miss Sedley's departure. Miss Jemima? " asked Miss Pinker- 
 ton herself, that majestic lady; the Semiramis of Hammer- 
 smith, the friend of Doctor Johnson, the correspondent of Mrs. 
 Chapone herself. 
 
 " The girls were up at four this morning, packing her trunks, 
 sister," replied Miss Jemima; " we have made her a bow-pot." 
 
 " Say a bouquet, sister Jemima, 'tis more genteel." 
 
 " Well, a booky as big almost as a hay-stack; I have put up 
 two bottles of the gillyflower-water for Mrs. Sedley, and the 
 receipt for making it, in Amelia's box." 
 
 5 
 
6 Vanity Fair 
 
 " And I trust, Miss Jemima, you have made a copy of Miss 
 Sedley's account. This is it, is it? Very good — ^ninety- three 
 pounds, four shillings. Be kind enough to address it to John 
 Sedley, Esquire, and to seal this billet which I have written to 
 his lady." 
 
 In Miss Jemima's eyes an autograph letter of her sister, Miss 
 Pinkerton, was an object of as deep veneration as would have 
 been a letter from a sovereign. Only when her pupils quitted 
 the establishment, or when they were about to be married, and 
 once, when poor Miss Birch died of the scarlet fever, was Miss 
 Pinkerton known to write personally to the parents of her 
 pupils; and it was Jemima's opinion that if anything could con- 
 sole Mrs. Birch for her daughter's loss, it would be that pious 
 and eloquent composition in which Miss Pinkerton announced 
 the event. 
 
 In the present instance Miss Pinkerton' s " billet " was to the 
 following effect: — 
 
 *' The Mall, Chiswick, June 15, 18 — . 
 
 " Madam, — After her six years' residence at the Mall, I have the 
 honour and happiness of presenting Miss Amelia Sedley to her 
 parents, as a young lady not unworthy to occupy a fitting position 
 in their polished and refined circle. Those virtues which char- 
 acterise the young English gentlewoman, those accomplishments 
 which become her birth and station, will not be found wanting 
 in the amiable Miss Sedley, whose industry and obedience have 
 endeared her to her instructors, and whose delightful sweetness 
 of temper has charmed her aged and her youthful companions. 
 
 " In music, in dancing, in orthograph57-, in every variety of em- 
 broidery and needlework, she will be found to have realised her 
 friends' fondest wishes. In geography there is still much to be 
 desired; and a careful and undeviating use of the backboard, for 
 four hours daily during the next three years, is recommended as 
 necessary to the acquirement of that dignified deportment and 
 carriage, so requisite for every 5^oung lady of fashion. 
 
 " In the principles of religion and morality, Miss Sedley will be 
 found worthy of an establishment which has been honoured by the 
 presence of The Great Lexicographer, and the patronage of the 
 admirable IMrs. Chapone. In leaving the Mall, Miss Amelia carries 
 \vith her the hearts of her companions, and the affectionate regards 
 of her mistress, who has the honour to subscribe herself, 
 " Madam, your most obliged humble servant, 
 
 " Barbara Pinkerton. 
 
 " P.S. — ^ISIiss Sharp accompanies Miss Sedley. It is particularly 
 requested that Miss Sharp's stay in Russell Square may not exceed 
 ten days. The family of distinction with whom she is engaged, 
 desire to avail themselves of her services as soon as possible." 
 
Chiswick Mall ' 7 
 
 This letter completed, Miss Pinkerton proceeded to write her 
 own name, and Miss Sedley's, in the fly-leaf of a Johnson's Dic- 
 tionary — the interesting work which she invariably presented to 
 her scholars on their departure from the Mall. On the cover 
 was inserted a copy of " Lines addressed to a young lady on 
 quitting Miss Pinkerton' s school, at the Mall; by the late revered 
 Doctor Samuel Johnson." In fact, the Lexicographer's name 
 was always on the lips of this majestic woman, and a visit he 
 had paid to her was the cause of her reputation and her fortune. 
 
 Being commanded by her elder sister to get " the Dictionary " 
 from the cupboardj^ Miss Jemima had extracted two copies of 
 the book from the receptacle in question. When Miss Pinker- 
 ton had finished the inscription in the first, Jemima, with rather 
 a dubious and timid air, handed her the second. 
 
 "For whom is this, Miss Jemima?" said Miss Pinkerton, 
 with awful coldness. 
 
 " For Becky Sharp," answered Jemima, trembling very 
 much, and blushing over her withered face and neck, as she 
 turned her back on her sister. " For Becky Sharp : she's going 
 too." 
 
 " MISS JEMIMA! " exclaimed Miss Pinkerton, in the largest 
 capitals. " Are you in your senses? Replace the Dixonary in 
 the closet, and never venture to take such a liberty in future." 
 
 " Well, sister, it's only two-and-ninepence, and poor Becky 
 will be miserable if she don't get one." 
 
 " Send Miss Sedley instantly to me," said Miss Pinkerton. 
 And 30, venturing not to say another word, poor Jemima trotted 
 off, exceedingly flurried and nervous. 
 
 Miss Sedley's papa was a merchant in London, and a man of 
 some wealth; whereas Miss Sharp was an articled pupil, for 
 whom Miss Pinkerton had done, as she thought, quite enough, 
 without conferring upon her at parting the high honour of the 
 Dixonary. 
 
 Although schoolmistresses' letters are to be trusted no more 
 nor less than churchyard epitaphs ; yet, as it sometimes happens 
 that a person departs this life who is really deserving of all the 
 praises the stonecutter carves over his bones; who is a good 
 Christian, a good parent, child, wife, or husband; who actually 
 does leave a disconsolate family to mourn his loss; so in academies 
 of the male and female sex it occurs every now and then, that 
 the pupil is fully worthy of the praises bestowed by the dis- 
 interested instructor. Now Miss Amelia Sedley was a young 
 lady of this singular species; and deserved not only all that 
 
8* Vanity Fair 
 
 Miss Pinkerton said in her praise, but had many charming 
 qualities which that pompous old Minerva of a woman could not 
 see, from the differences of rank and age between her pupil and 
 herself. 
 
 For she could not only sing like a lark, or a Mrs. Billington, 
 and dance like Hillisberg or Parisot; and embroider beautifully; 
 and spell as well as a Dixonary itself; but she had such a kindly, 
 smiling, tender, gentle, generous heart of her own, as won the 
 love of everybody who came near her, from Minerva herself 
 down to the poor girl in the scullery and the one-eyed tart- 
 woman's daughter, who was permitted to j^end her wares once 
 a week to the young ladies in the Mall. She had twelve intimate 
 and bosom friends out of the tv/enty-four young ladies. Even 
 envious Miss Briggs never spoke ill of her: high and mighty 
 Miss Saltire (Lord Dexter's grand-daughter) allowed that her 
 figure was genteel; and as for Miss Swartz, the rich woolly- 
 haired mulatto from St. Kitt's, on the day Amelia went away, 
 she was in such a passion of tears, that they were obliged to 
 send for Dr. Floss, and half tipsify her with sal volatile. Miss 
 Pinkerton' s attachment was, as may be supposed, from the high 
 position and eminent virtues of that lady, calm and dignified; 
 but Miss Jemima had already whimpered several times at the 
 idea of Amelia's departure; and, but for fear of her sister, would 
 have gone off in downright hysterics like the heiress (who paid 
 double) of St. Kitt's. Such luxury of grief, however, is only 
 allowed to parlour-boarders. Honest Jemima had all the bills, 
 and the washing, and the mending, and the puddings, and the 
 plate and crockery, and the servants to superintend. But why 
 speak about her? It is probable that we shall not hear of her 
 asain from this moment to°the end of time, and that when the 
 great filagree iron gates are once closed on her, she and her awful 
 sister will never issue therefrom into this little world of history. 
 
 But as we are to see a great deal of Amelia, there is no harm 
 in saying, at the outset of our acquaintance, that she was a dear 
 little creature ; and a great mercy it is, both in life and in novels, 
 which (and the latter especially) abound in villains of the most 
 sombre sort, that we are to have for a constant companion so 
 guileless and good-natured a person. As she is not a heroine, 
 there is no need to describe her person; indeed I am afraid that 
 her nose was rather short than otherwise, and her cheeks a great 
 deal too round and red for a heroine; but her face blushed with 
 rosy health, and her lips with the freshest of smiles, and she had 
 a pair of eyes which sparkled with the brightest and honestest 
 
Chiswick Mall 9 
 
 good-humour, except indeed when they filled with tears, and 
 that was a great deal too often; for the silly thing would cry 
 over a dead canary-bird; or over a mouse, that the cat had 
 haply seized upon; or over the end of a novel, were it ever so 
 stupid ; and as for saying an unkind word to her, were any per- 
 sons hard-hearted enough to do so — ^why, so much the worse for 
 them. Even Miss Pinkerton, that austere and godlike woman, 
 ceased scolding her after the first time, and though she no more 
 comprehended sensibility than she did Algebra, gave all masters 
 and teachers particular orders to treat Miss Sedley with the 
 utmost gentleness, as harsh treatment was injurious to her. 
 
 So that when the day of departure came, between her two 
 customs of laughing and crying. Miss Sedley was greatly puzzled 
 how to act. She was glad to go home, and yet most wofuUy sad 
 at leaving school. For three days before, little Laura Martin, 
 the orphan, followed her about, like a little dog. She had to 
 make and receive at least fourteen presents, — to make fourteen 
 solemn promises of writing every week: " Send my letters under 
 cover to my grandpapa, the Earl of Dexter," said Miss Saltire 
 (who, by the way, was rather shabb^J: " Never mind the post- 
 age, but write every day, you dear darling," said the impetuous 
 and woolly -headed, but generous and affectionate. Miss Swartz ; 
 and the orphan little Laura Martin (who was just in round- 
 hand), took her friend's hand and said, looking up in her face 
 wistfully, " Amelia, when I write to you I shall call you Mamma." 
 All which details, I have no doubt, Jones, who reads this book 
 at his Club, will pronounce Ho be excessively foolish, trivial, 
 twaddling, and ultra-sentimental.- Yes ; I can see Jones at this 
 minute (rather flushed with his joint of mutton and half-pint of 
 wine) taking out his pencil and scoring under the words " foolish, 
 twaddling," etc., and adding to them his own remark of " quite 
 true." Well, he is a lofty man of genius, and admires the great 
 and heroic in life and novels ; and so had better take warning 
 and go elsewhere. 
 
 Well, then. The flowers, and the presents, and the trunks, 
 and bonnet-boxes of Miss Sedley having been arranged by Mr. 
 Sambo in the carriage, together with a very small and weather- 
 beaten old cow's-skin trunk with Miss Sharp's card neatly nailed 
 upon it, which was delivered by Sambo with a grin, and packed 
 by the coachman with a corresponding sneer — the hour for 
 parting came; and the grief of that moment was considerably 
 lessened by the admirable discourse which Miss Pinkerton 
 addressed to her pupil. Not that the parting speech caused Amelia 
 
lo Vanity Fair 
 
 to pliilosophise, or that it armed her in any way with a calmness, 
 the result of argument; but it was intolerably dull, pompous, 
 and tedious; and having the fear of her schoolmistress greatly 
 before her eyes. Miss Sedley did not venture, in her presence, to 
 give way to any ebullitions of private grief. A seed-cake and a 
 bottle of wine were produced in the drawing-room, as on the 
 solemn occasions of the visits of parents, and these refreshments 
 being partaken of. Miss Sedley was at liberty to depart. 
 
 " You'll go in and say good-bye to Miss Pinkerton, Becky ! " 
 said Miss Jemima to a young lady of whom nobody took any 
 notice, and who was coming downstairs with her own bandbox. 
 
 " I suppose I must," said Miss Sharp calmly, and much to the 
 wonder of Miss Jemima; and the latter having knocked at the 
 door, and receiving permission to come in. Miss Sharp advanced 
 in' a very unconcerned manner, and said in French, and with a 
 perfect accent, " Mademoiselle, je viens vous faire mes adieux." 
 
 Miss Pinkerton did not understand French; she only directed 
 those who did; but biting her lips and throwing up her venerable 
 and Roman-nosed head (on the top of which figured a large 
 solemn turban), she said,*^ Miss Sharp, I wish you a good-morn- 
 ing." As the Hammersmith Semiramis spoke she wa,ved one 
 hand, both by way of adieu, and to give Miss Sharp an oppor- 
 tunity of shaking one of the fingers of the hand which was left 
 out for that purpose. 
 
 Miss Sharp only folded her own hands with a very frigid smile 
 and bow, and quite declined to accept the proffered honour; on 
 which Semiramis tossed up her turban more indignantly than 
 ever. In fact, it was a little battle between the young lady and 
 the old one, and the latter was worsted. " Heaven bless you, 
 my child," said she, embracing Amelia, and scowling the while 
 over the girl's shoulder at Miss Sharp. " Come away, Becky," 
 said Miss Jemima, pulling the young woman away in great alarm, 
 and the drawing-room door closed upon them for ever. 
 
 Then came the struggle and parting below. Words refuse to 
 tell it. All the servants were there in the hall — all the dear 
 friends — all the young ladies — the dancing-master who had just 
 arrived ; and there was such a scufHing, and hugging, and kissing, 
 and crying, with the hysterical yoops of Miss Swartz, the parlour- 
 boarder, from her room, as no pen can depict, and as the tender 
 heart would fain pass over. The embracing was over; they 
 parted — that is. Miss Sedley parted from her friends. Miss 
 Sharp had demurely entered the carriage some minutes before. 
 Nobody cried for leaving her. 
 
Miss Sharp and Miss Se3Icy 1 1 
 
 Sambo of the bandy-legs slammed the carriage-door on his 
 young weeping mistress. He sprang up behind the carriage. 
 '' Stop ! " cried Miss Jemima^ rushing to the gate with a parcel. 
 
 " It's some sandwiches^ my dear/' said she to Amelia. " You 
 may be hungry^ you know; and Becky, Becky Sharp, here's a 
 book for you that my sister — that is, I — Johnson's Dixonary, 
 3/0U know; you mustn't' leave us without that. Good-bye. 
 Drive on, coachman. God bless you ! " 
 
 And the kind creature retreated into the garden, overcome 
 with emotion. 
 
 But, lo ! and just as the coach drove off. Miss Sharp put her 
 pale face out of the window and actually flung the book back into 
 the garden. . . ^ 
 
 > This almost caused Jemima to faint with terror. " Well, I, 
 never," — said she — "what an audacious" Emotion pre- 
 vented her from completing either sentence. The carriage 
 rolled away; the great gates w^e closed; the bell rang for the 
 dancing lesson. The world is before the two young ladies ; and 
 so, farewell to Chiswick Mall. 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 IN WHICH MISS SHARP AND MISS SEDLEY PREPARE TO 
 OPEN THE CAMPAIGN 
 
 When Miss Sharp had performed the heroical act m.entioned in 
 the last chapter, and had seen the Dixonar}^, flying over the pave- 
 ment of the little garden, fall at length at the feet of the aston- 
 ished Miss Jemima, the young lady's countenance, which had 
 before worn an almost livid look of hatred, assumed a smile that 
 perhaps was scarcely more agreeable, and she sank back in the 
 carriage in an easy frame of mind, saying, " So much for the 
 Dixonary ; and, thank God, I'm out of Chiswick." 
 
 Miss Sedley was almost as flurried at the act of defiance as Miss 
 Jemima had been; for, consider, it was but one minute that she 
 had left school, and the impressions of six years are not got over 
 in that space of time. Nay, with some persons those awes and 
 terrors of youth last for ever and ever. I know, for instance, an 
 old gentleman of sixty-eight, who said to me one morning at 
 breakfast, with a very agitated countenance, " I dreamed last 
 
12 Vanity Fair 
 
 night that I was flogged by Dr. Raine." Fancy had carried him 
 back five-and-fifty years in the course of that evening. Dr. 
 Raine and his rod were just as awful to him in his heart, then, 
 at sixty-eight, as they had been at thirteen. If the Doctor, 
 with a large birch, had appeared bodily to him, even at the age 
 of threescore and eight, and had said in awful voice, " Boy, take 
 down your pant * * *? " Well, well, Miss Sedley was exceed- 
 ingly alarmed at this act of insubordination. 
 
 '* How could you do so, Rebecca? " at last she said, after a 
 pause. 
 
 " Why, do you think Miss Pinkerton will come out and order 
 me back to the black hole? " said Rebecca, laughing. 
 
 "No: but" 
 
 " I hate the whole house," continued Miss Sharp in a fury. " I 
 hope I may never set eyes on it again. I wish it were in the 
 bottom of the Thames, I do ; and if Miss Pinkerton were there, 
 I wouldn't pick her out, that I wouldn't. how I should like 
 to see her floating in the water yonder, turban and all, with her 
 train streaming after her, and her nose like the beak of a wherry ! " 
 
 " Hush! " cried Miss Sedley. 
 
 " Why, will the black footman tell tales ? " cried Miss Rebecca, 
 laughing. " He may go back and tell Miss Pinkerton that I hate 
 her with all my soul , and I wish he would ; and I wish I had a 
 means of proving it, too. For two years I have only had insults 
 and outrage from her. I have been treated worse than any 
 servant in the kitchen. I have never had a friend or a kind word, 
 except from you. I have been made to tend the little girls in the 
 lower schoolroom, and to talk French to the Misses, until I grew 
 sick of my mother- tongue. But that talking French to Miss 
 Pinkerton was capital fun, wasn't it ? She doesn't know a word 
 of French, and was too proud to confess it. I believe it was 
 that which made her part with me; and so thank heaven for 
 French. Vive la France I Vive VEmpereur 1 Vive Bonaparte ! " 
 
 "0 Rebecca, Pvcbecca, for shame!" cried Miss Sedley; for 
 this was the greatest blasphemy Rebecca had as yet uttered ; and 
 in those days, in England, to say, " Long live Bonaparte ! " was 
 as much as to say, " Long live Lucifer ! " " How can you — 
 how dare you have such wicked, revengeful thoughts ? " 
 
 " Revenge may be wicked, but it's natural," answered Miss 
 Rebecca. " I'm no angel." And, to say the truth, she certainly 
 was not. 
 
 For it may be remarked in the course of this little conversa- 
 tion (which took place as the coach rolled along lazily by the 
 
Miss Sharp and Miss Sedley 13 
 
 riverside) that though Miss Rebecca Sharp has twice had occa- 
 sion to thank Heaven, it has been, in the first place, for ridding 
 her of some person whom she hated, and secondly, for enabling 
 her to bring her enemies to some sort of perplexity or confusion, 
 neither of which are very amiable motives for religious gratitude, 
 or such as would be put forward by persons of a kind and plac- 
 able disposition. Miss Rebecca was not, then, in the least kind 
 or placable. \ All the world used her ill, said this young misan- 
 thropist, and we may be pretty certain that persons whom all 
 the world treats ill deserve entirely the treatment they get.j 
 The world is a looking-glass, and gives back to every man the 
 reflection of his own face. Frown at it, and it will in turn look 
 sourly upon you ; laugh at it and with it, and it is a jolly, kind 
 companion ; and so let all young persons take their choice. This 
 is certain, that if the world neglected Miss Sharp, she never was 
 known to have done a good action in behalf of anybody; nor 
 can it be expected that twenty-four young ladies should all be 
 as amiable as the heroine of this work. Miss Sedley (whom we 
 have selected for the very reason that she was the best-natur:d 
 of all; otherwise what on earth was to have prevented us from 
 putting up Miss Sv/artz, or Miss Crump, or Miss Hopkins, as 
 heroine in her place ?) — it could not be expected that every one 
 should be of the humble and gentle temper of Miss Amelia Sed- 
 ley; should take every opportunity to vanquish Rebecca's hard- 
 heartedness and ill-humour; and, by a thousand kind words and 
 offices, overcome, for once at least, her hostility to her kind. 
 
 Miss Sharp's father was an artist, and in that quality had given ' 
 lessons of drawing at Miss Pinkerton's school. He was a clever;; 
 man; a pleasant companion; a careless student; with a great 
 propensity for running into debt, and a partiality for the tavern. 
 V/hen he was drunk, he used to beat his wife and daughter ; and 
 the next morning, with a headache, he would rail at the world 
 for its neglect of his genius, and abuse, with a good deal of clever- 
 ness, and sometimes with perfect reason, the fools, his brother 
 painters. As it was with the utmost difficulty that he could keep 
 himself, and as he owed money for a mile round Soho, where he 
 lived, he thought to better his circumstances by marrying a young 
 woman of the French nation, who was by profession an opera- 
 girl. The humble calling of her female parent Miss Sharp never 
 alluded to, but used to state subsequently that the Entrechats 
 were a noble family of Gascony, and took great pride in her 
 descent from them. And curious, it is, that as she advanced in 
 
14 Vanity Fair 
 
 life, this young lady's ancestors increased in rank and splendour. 
 
 Rebecca's mother had had some education somewhere, and her 
 daughter spoke French with purity and a Parisian accent. It 
 was in those days rather a rare accompHshment, and led to her 
 engagement with the orthodox Miss Pinkerton. For her mother 
 being dead, her father, finding himself not likely to recover, after 
 his third attack of delirium tremens, wrote a manly and pathetic 
 letter to Miss Pinkerton, recommending the orphan child to her 
 protection, and so descended to the grave, after two bailiffs had 
 quarrelled over his corpse. Rebecca was seventeen when she 
 came to Chiswick, and was bound over as an articled pupil; her 
 duties being to talk French, as we have seen; and her privileges 
 to live cost free, and, with a few guineas a year, to gather scraps 
 of knowledge from the professors who attended the school. 
 
 She was small and slight in person; pale, sandy-haired, and 
 with eyes habitually cast down : when they looked up they were 
 very large, odd, and attractive ; so attractive that the Reverend 
 Mr. Crisp, fresh from Oxford, and curate to the Vicar of Chis- 
 wick, the Reverend Mr. Flowerdew, fell in love with Miss Sharp ; 
 being shot dead by a glance of her eyes which was fired all the 
 way across Chiswick Church from the school-pew to the reading- 
 desk. This infatuated young man used sometimes to take tea 
 with Miss Pinkerton, to whom he had been presented by his 
 mamma, and actually proposed something like marriage in an 
 intercepted note, which the one-eyed apple-woman was charged 
 to deliver. Mrs. Crisp was summoned from Buxton, and 
 abruptly carried off her darling boy; but the idea, even, of such 
 an eagle in the Chiswick dovecot caused a great flutter in the 
 breast of Miss Pinkerton, who w5uld have sent away Miss Sharp, 
 but that she was bound to her under a forfeit, and who never 
 could thoroughly believe the young lady's protestations that she 
 had never exchanged a single word with Mr. Crisp, except under 
 her own eyes on the two occasions when she had met him 
 at tea. 
 
 By the side of many tall and bouncing young ladies in the 
 establishment, Rebecca Sharp looked like a child. But she had 
 the dismal precocity of poverty. Many a dun had she talked to, 
 and turned away from her father's door; many a tradesman had 
 she coaxed and wheedled into good-humour, and into the grant- 
 ing of one meal more. She sate commonly with her father, who 
 was very proud of her wit, and heard the talk of many of his wild 
 companions — often but ill-suited for a girl to hear. But she 
 never had been a girl, she said; she had been a wo^ian since 
 
Miss Sharp and Miss Sedley 15 
 
 she was eight years old. why did Miss Pinkerton let such a 
 dangerous bird into her cage? 
 
 The fact is, the old lady believed Rebecca to be the meekest 
 creature in the world, so admirably, on the occasions when her 
 father brought her to Chiswick, used Rebecca to perform the part 
 of the ingenue ; and only a year before the arrangement by which 
 Rebecca had been admitted into her house, and when Rebecca 
 was sixteen years old, Miss Pinkerton majestically, and with a 
 little speech, made her a present of a doll — ^which was, by the 
 way, the confiscated property of Miss Swindle, discovered sur- 
 reptitiously nursing it in school hours. How the father and 
 daughter laughed as they trudged home together after the even- 
 ing party (it was on the occasion of the speeches, when all the 
 professors were invited), and how Miss Pinkerton would have 
 raged had she seen the caricature of herself which the little mimic, 
 Rebecca, managed to make out of her doll. Becky used to go 
 through dialogues with it; it formed the delight of Newman 
 Street, Gerrard Street, and the artists' quarter: and the young 
 painters, when they came to take their gin-and-water with their 
 lazy, dissolute, clever, jovial senior, used regularly to ask 
 Rebecca if Miss Pinkerton was at home : she was as well known 
 to them, poor soul 1 as Mr. Lawrence or President West. Once 
 Rebecca had the honour to pass a few days at Chiswick; after 
 which she brought back Jemima, and erected another doll as 
 Miss Jemmy; for though that honest creature had made and 
 given her jelly and cake enough for three children, and a seven- 
 shilling piece at parting, the girl's sense of ridicule was far stronger 
 than her gratitude, and she sacrificed Miss Jemmy quite as piti- 
 lessly as her sister. 
 
 The catastrophe came, and she was brought to the Mall as to 
 her home. The rigid formality of the place suffocated her: the 
 prayers and the meals, the lessons and the walks, which were 
 arranged with a conventual regularity, oppreS^sed her almost 
 beyond endurance; and she looked back to the freedom and the 
 beggary of the old studio in Soho with so much regret, that every- 
 body, herself included, fancied she was consumed with grief for 
 her father. She had a Httle room in the garret, where the maids 
 heard her walking and sobbing at night; but it was with rage, 
 and not with grief. She had not been much of a dissembler, 
 until now her loneliness taught her to feign. She had never 
 mingled in the society of women : her father, reprobate as he was, 
 was a man of talent; his conversation was a thousand times 
 more agreeable to her than the talk of such of her own sex as she 
 
1 6 Vanity Fair 
 
 now encountered. The pompous vanity of the old school- 
 mistress, the foolish good-hamour of her sister, the silly chat and 
 scandal of the elder girls, and the frigid correctness of the gover- 
 nesses equally annoyed her; and she had no soft maternal heart, 
 this unlucky girl, otherwise the prattle and talk of the younger 
 children, with whose care she Was chiefly intrusted, might have 
 soothed and interested her; but she lived among them two years, 
 and not one was sorry that she went away. The gentle, tender- 
 hearted Amelia Sedley was the only person to whom she could 
 attach herself in the least; and who could help attaching herself 
 to Amelia? 
 
 The happiness — the superior advantages of the young women 
 round about her, gave Rebecca inexpressible pangs of envy. 
 " What airs that girl gives herself, because she is an Earl's grand- 
 daughter ! " she said of one. " How they cringe and bow to that 
 Creole, because of her hundred thousand pounds ! I am a thou- 
 sand times cleverer and more charming than that creature, for 
 all her wealth. I am as well-bred as the Earl's grand-daughter, 
 for all her fine pedigree; and yet every one passes me by here. 
 And yet, when I was at my father's, did not the men give up their 
 gayest balls and parties in order to pass the evening with me ? " 
 She determined at any rate to get free from the prison in which 
 she found herself, and now began to act for herself, and for the 
 first time to make connected plans for the future. 
 
 She took advantage, therefore, of the means of study the place 
 offered her; and as she was already a musician and a good lin- 
 guist, she speedily went through the little course of study which 
 was considered necessary for ladies in those days. Her music 
 she practised incessantly, and one day, when the girls were out, 
 and she had remained at home, she was overheard to play a piece 
 so well, that Minerva thought wisely she could spare herself the 
 expense of a master for the juniors, and intimated to Miss Sharp 
 that she was to instruct them in music for the future. 
 
 The girl refused; and for the first time, and to the astonish- 
 ment of the majestic mistress of the school. " I am here to speak 
 French with the children," Rebecca said abruptly, " not to teach 
 them music, and save money for you. Give me money, and I 
 will teach them." 
 
 Minerva was obliged to yield, and, of course, disliked her from 
 that day. " For five-and-thirty years," she said, and with great 
 justice, " I have never seen the individual who has dared in my 
 own house to question my authority. I have nourished a viper 
 in my bosom," 
 
Miss Sharp and Miss Sedley 17 
 
 " A viper — a fiddlestick/' said Miss Sharp to the old lady, 
 almost fainting with astonishment. " You took me because I 
 was useful. There is no question of gratitude between us. I 
 hate this place, and want to leave it. I will do nothing here but 
 what I am obliged to do." 
 
 It was in vain that the old lady asked her if she was aware she 
 was speaking to Miss Pinkerton. Rebecca laughed in her face, 
 with a horrid sarcastic demoniacal laughter, that almost sent the 
 schoolmistress into fits. " Give me a sum of money/' said the 
 girl, " and get rid of me — or, if you like better, get me a good 
 place as governess in a nobleman's family — you can do so if you 
 please." And in their further disputes she always returned to this 
 point, " Get me a situation — ^we hate each other, and I am ready 
 to go." 
 
 Worthy Miss Pinkerton, although she had a Roman nose and 
 a turban, and was as tall as a grenadier, and had been up to this 
 time an irresistible princess, had no will or strength like that of 
 her little apprentice, and in vain did battle against her, and tried 
 to overawe her. Attempting once to scold her in public, 
 Rebecca hit upon the before-mentioned plan of answering her in 
 French, which quite routed the old woman. In order to main- 
 tain authority in her school, it became necessary to remove this 
 rebel, this monster, this serpent, this firebrand; and hearing 
 about this time that Sir Pitt Crawley's family was in want of a 
 governess, she actually recommended Miss Sharp for the situa- 
 tion, firebrand and serpent as she was. " I cannot, certainly," 
 she said, " find fault with Miss Sharp's conduct, except to my- 
 self; and must allow that her talents and accomplishments are 
 of a high order. As far as the head goes, at least, she does credit 
 to the educational system pursued at my establishment." 
 
 And so the schoolmistress reconciled the recommendation to 
 her conscience, and the indentures were cancelled, and the appren- 
 tice was free. The battle here described in a few fines, of course, 
 lasted for some months. And as Miss Sedley, being now in her 
 seventeenth year, was about to leave school, and had a friend- 
 ship for Miss Sharp (" 'Tis the only point in Amelia's behaviour," 
 said Minerva, " which has not been satisfactory to her mistress "), 
 Miss Sharp was invited by her friend to pass a week with her at 
 home, before she entered upon her duties as governess in a private 
 family. 
 
 Thus the world began for these two young ladies. For 
 Amelia it was quite a new, fresh, brilliant world, with all the 
 bloom upon it. It was not quite a new one for Rebecca — (indeed, 
 
1 8 Vanity Fair 
 
 if the truth must be told with respect to the Crisp affair, the 
 tart-woman hinted to somebody, who took an affidavit of the 
 fact to somebody else, that there was a great deal more than was 
 made public regarding Mr. Crisp and Miss Sharp, and that his 
 letter was in answer to another letter). But who can tell you 
 the real truth of the matter ? At all events, if Rebecca was not 
 beginning the world, she was beginning it over again. 
 
 By the time the young ladies reached Kensington turnpike, 
 Amelia had not forgotten her companions, but had dried her 
 tears, and had blushed very much and been delighted at a young 
 officer of the Life Guards, who spied her as he was riding by, and 
 said, " A dem fine gal, egad 1 " and before the carriage arrived 
 in Russell Square a great deal of conversation had taken place 
 about the drawing-room, and whether or not young ladies wore 
 powder as well as hoops when presented, and whether she was to 
 have that honour: to the Lord Mayor's ball she knew she was 
 to go. And when at length home was reached, Miss Amelia 
 Sedley skipped out of Sambo's arm, as happy and as handsome 
 a girl as any in fhe whole big city of London. Both he and 
 coachman agreed on this point, and so did her father and mother, 
 and so did every one of the servants in the house, as they stood 
 bobbing, and curtseying, and smiling, in the hall to welcome their 
 young mistress. 
 
 You may be sure that she showed Rebecca over every room of 
 the house, and everything in every one of her drawers; and her 
 books, and her piano, and her dresses, and all her necklaces, 
 brooches, laces, and gimcracks. She insisted upon Rebecca 
 accepting the white cornelian and the turquoise rings, and a 
 sweet sprigged muslin, which was too small for her now, though 
 it would fit her friend to a nicety; and she determined in her 
 heart to ask her mother's permission to present her white Cash- 
 mere shawl to her friend. Could she not spare it? — and had not 
 her brother Joseph just brought her two from India? 
 
 When Rebecca saw the two magnificent Cashmere shawls 
 which Joseph Sedley had brought home to his sister, she said, 
 with perfect truth, " that it must be delightful to have a brother," 
 and easily got the pity of the tender-hearted Amelia, for being 
 alone in the world, an orphan without friends or kindred. 
 
 " Not alone," said Amelia; " you know, Rebecca, I shall 
 always be your friend, and love you as a sister — indeed I will." 
 
 " Ah, but to have parents, as you have — ^kind, J^, affec- 
 tionate parents, who give you everything you ask for; and their 
 love, which is more precious than all! My poor papa could 
 
Miss Sharp and Miss Sedley 19 
 
 give me nothing, and I had but two frocks in all the world ! And 
 then to have a brother, a dear brother ! Oh, how you must love 
 himl" 
 
 Amelia laughed. 
 
 " What! don't you love him? you, who say you love every- 
 body? " 
 
 " Yes, of course, I do — only " 
 
 " Only what? " 
 
 " Only Joseph doesn't seem to care much whether I love him 
 or not. He gave me two fingers to shake when he arrived after 
 ten years' absence ! He is very kind and good, but he scarcely 
 ever speaks to me ; I think he loves his pipe a great deal better 
 than his " * * * but here Amelia checked herself, for why 
 should she speak ill of her brother? " He was very kind to me 
 as a child," she added; " I was but five years old when he went 
 away." 
 
 " Isn't he very rich? " said Rebecca. " They say all Indian 
 nabobs are enormously richi" 
 
 " I believe he has a very large income." 
 
 " And is your sister-in-law a nice pretty woman? " 
 
 " Lai Joseph is not married," said Amelia, laughing again. 
 
 Perhaps she had mentioned the fact already to Rebecca, but 
 that young lady did not appear to have remembered it; indeed, 
 vowed and protested that she expected to see a number of 
 Amelia's nephews and nieces. She was quite disappointed that 
 Mr. Sedley was not married; she was sure Amelia had said he 
 was, and she doted so on little children. 
 
 " I think you must have had enough of them at Chiswick," 
 said Amelia, rather wondering at the sudden tenderness on her 
 friend's part; and indeed in later days Miss Sharp v/ould never 
 have committed herself so far as to advance opinions the untruth 
 of which would have been so easily detected. But we must- 
 remember that she is but nineteen as yet, unused to the art of 
 deceiving, poor innocent creature ! and making her own experience 
 in her own person. The meaning of the above series of queries, 
 as translated in the heart of this ingenious young woman, was 
 simply this: — " If Mr. Joseph Sedley is rich and unmarried, why 
 should I not marry him ? I have only a fortnight, to be sure, but 
 there is no harm in trying." And she detei^mined within herself 
 to make this laudable attempt. She redoubled her caresses to 
 Amelia ; she kissed the white cornelian necklace as She put it on, 
 and vowed she would never, never part with it. When the 
 dinner-bell rang she went downstairs with her aria round her 
 
20 Vanity Fair 
 
 friend's waist, as is the habit of young ladies. She was so 
 agitated at the drawing-room door, that she could hardly find 
 courage to enter. " Feel my heart, how it beats, dear ! " said 
 she to her friend. 
 
 " No, it doesn't," said Amelia. " Come in, don't be 
 frightened. Papa won't do you any harm." 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 REBECCA IS IN PRESENCE OF THE ENEMY 
 
 A VERY stout, puffy man, in buckskins and Hessian boots, with 
 several immense neckcloths, that rose almost to his nose, with a 
 red-striped waistcoat and an apple-green coat with steel buttons 
 almost as large as crown pieces (it was the morning costume of a 
 dandy or blood of those days), was reading the paper by the fire 
 when the two girls entered, and bounced off his arm-chair, and 
 blushed excessively, and hid his entire face almost in his neck- 
 cloths at this apparition. 
 
 " It's only your sister, Joseph," said Amelia, laughing and 
 shaking the two fingers which he held out. " I've come home 
 jor good, you know; and this is my friend, Miss Sharp, whom 
 you have heard me mention." 
 
 " No, never, upon my word," said the head under the neck- 
 cloth, shaking very much, — " that is, yes, — what abominably 
 cold weather. Miss; " — and herewith he fell to poking the fire 
 with all his might, although it was in the middle of June. 
 
 " He's very handsome," whispered Rebecca to Amefia, rather 
 loud. 
 
 " Do you think so.^ " said the latter. " I'll tell him." 
 
 " Darling ! not for worlds," said Miss Sharp, starting back as 
 timid as a fawn. She had previously made a respectful virgin- 
 like curtsey to the gentleman, and her modest eyes gazed so 
 perseveringly on the carpet that it was a wonder how she should 
 have found an opportunity to see him. 
 
 " Thank you for the beautiful shawls, brother," said Amelia 
 to the fire-poker. " Are they not beautiful, Rebecca.? " 
 
 " Oh, heavenly! " said Miss Sharp, and her eyes went from 
 the carpet straight to the chandelier. 
 
 Joseph still continued a huge clattering at the poker and tongs, 
 
Rebecca is in Presence of the Enemy 2 1 
 
 puffing and blowing the while, and turning as red as his yellow 
 face would allow him. " I can't make you such handsome 
 presents, Joseph/' continued his sister, " but while I was at 
 school, I have embroidered for you a very beautiful pair of 
 braces." 
 
 "Good Gad! Amelia," cried the brother, in serious alarm, 
 " what do you mean.? " and plunging with all his might at the 
 bell-rope, that article of furniture came away in his hand, and 
 increased the honest fellow's confusion. " For Heaven's sake 
 
 see if my buggy's at the door ! I can't wait. I must go. D 
 
 that groom of mine! I must go." 
 
 At this minute the father of the family walked in, rattling 
 his seals like a true British merchant. " What's the matter, 
 Emmy? " says he. 
 
 " Joseph wants me to see if his — ^his buggy is at the door. 
 What is a buggy, papa? " 
 
 "It is a one-horse palanquin," said the old gentleman, who 
 was a wag in his way. 
 
 Joseph at this burst out into a wild fit of laughter; in which, 
 encountering the eye of Miss Sharp, he stopped all of a sudden, 
 as if he had been shot. 
 
 "This young lady is your friend? Miss Sharp, I am very 
 happy to see you. Have you and Emmy been quarrelling 
 already with Joseph, that he wants to be off ? " 
 
 " I promised Bonamy, of our service, sir," said Joseph, " to 
 dine with him." 
 
 "0 fie! didn't you tell your mother you would dine 
 here?" 
 
 " But in this dress it's impossible." 
 
 " Look at him, isn't he handsome enough to dine anywhere. 
 Miss Sharp? " 
 
 On which, of course. Miss Sharp looked at her friend, and they 
 both set off in a fit of laughter, highly agreeable to the old 
 gentleman. 
 
 " Did you ever see a pair of buckskins like those at Miss 
 Pinkerton's? " continued he, following up his advantage. 
 
 " Gracious heavens! father," cried Joseph. 
 
 " There now, I have hurt his feelings. Mrs. Sedley, my dear, 
 I have hurt your son's feelings. I have alluded to his buckskins. 
 Ask Miss Sharp if I haven't. Come, come, Joseph, be friends 
 with Miss Sharp, and let us all go to dinner." 
 
 " There's a pillau, Joseph, just as you like it, and Papa has 
 brought home the best turbot in Billingsgate." 
 
2 2 Vanity Fair 
 
 " Come, come, sir, walk downstairs with Miss Sharp, and I 
 will follow with these two young women," said the father, 
 and he took an arm of wife and daughter and walked 
 merrily off. 
 
 If Miss Rebecca Sharp had determined m her heart upon 
 making the conquest of this big beau, I don't think, ladies, we 
 have any right to blame her; for though the task of husband- 
 hunting is generally, and with becoming modesty, intrusted by 
 young persons to their mammas, recollect that Miss Sharp had 
 no kind parent to arrange these delicate matters for her, and 
 that if she did not get a husband for herself, there was no one 
 else in the wide world who would take the trouble off her hands. 
 What causes young people to " come out," but the noble ambi- 
 tion of matrimony? What sends them trooping to watering- 
 places ? What keeps them dancing till five o'clock in the morn- 
 ing through a whole mortal season ? What causes them to 
 labour at pianoforte sonatas, and to learn four songs from a 
 fashionable master at a guinea a lesson, and to play the harp if 
 they have handsome arms and neat elbows, and to wear Lincoln 
 Green toxophilite hats and feathers, but that they may bring 
 down some " desirable " young man with those killing bows and 
 arrows of theirs? What (pauses respectable parents to take up 
 their carpets, set their houses topsy-turvy, and spend a fifth of 
 their year's income in ball suppers and iced champagne ? Is it 
 sheer love of their species, and an unadulterated wish to see 
 young people happy and dancing ? Psha ! they want to marry 
 their daughters; and, as honest Mrs. Sedley has, in the depths 
 of her kind heart, already arranged a score of little schemes for 
 the settlement of her Amelia, so also had our beloved but unpro- 
 tected Rebecca determined to do her very best to secure the 
 husband, who was even more necessary for her than for her 
 friend. She had a vivid imagination; she had, besides, read 
 the Arabian Nights and Guthrie's Geography ; and it is a fact, that 
 while she was dressing for dinner, and after she had asked 
 Amelia whether her brother was very rich, she had built for 
 herself a most magnificent castle in the air, of which she was 
 mistress, with a husband somewhere in the background (she had 
 not seen him as yet, and his figure would not therefore be very 
 distinct) ; she had arrayed herself in an infinity of shawls, turbans, 
 and diamond necklaces, and had mounted upon an elephant 
 to the sound of the march in " Bluebeard," in order to pay a 
 visit of ceremony to the Grand Mogul. Charming Alnaschar 
 
Rebecca is in Presence of the Enemy 23 
 
 visions ! it is the happy privilege of youth to construct you, and 
 many a fanciful young creature besides Rebecca Sharp has 
 indulged in these delightful day-dreams ere now ! 
 
 Joseph Sedley was twelve years older than his sister Amelia. 
 He was in the East India Company's Civil Service, and his 
 name appeared, at the period of which we write, in the Bengal 
 division of the East India Register, as collector of Boggley 
 Wollah, an honourable and lucrative post, as everybody knows : 
 in order to know to what higher post Joseph rose in the service, 
 the reader is referred to the same periodical. 
 
 Boggley Wollah is situated in a fine, lonely, marshy, jungly 
 district, famous for snipe-shooting, and where not unfrequently 
 you may flush a tiger. Ramgunge, where there is a magistrate, 
 is only forty miles off, and there is a cavalry station about 
 thirty miles farther; so Joseph wrote home to his parents, when 
 he took possession of his coUectorship. He had Uved for about 
 eight years of his life, quite alone, at this charming place, scarcely 
 seeing a Christian face except twice a year, when the detach- 
 ment arrived to carry off the revenues which he had collected, 
 to Calcutta. 
 
 Luckily, at this time he caught a liver complaint, for the cure 
 of which he returned to Europe, and which was the source of 
 great comfort and amusement to him in his native country. 
 He did not live with his family while in London, but had lodg- 
 ings of his own, like a gay young bachelor. Before he went to 
 India he was too young to partake of the delightful pleasures 
 of a man about town, and plunged into them on his return with 
 considerable assiduity. He drove his horses in the park; he 
 dined at the fashionable taverns (for the Oriental Club was not 
 as yet invented); he frequented the theatres, as the mode was 
 in those days, or made his appearance at the opera, laboriously 
 attired in tights and a cocked hat. 
 
 On returning to India, and ever after, he used to talk of the 
 pleasure of this period of his existence with great enthusiasm, 
 and give you to understand that he and Brummell were the 
 leading bucks of the day. But he was as lonely here as in his 
 jungle at Boggley Wollah. He scarcely knew a single soul in 
 the metropolis; and were it not for his doctor, and the society 
 of his^ blue-pill, and his liver complaint, he must have died 
 of loneliness. He was lazy, peevish, and a bon-vivant ; the 
 appearance of a lady frightened him beyond measure; hence it 
 was but seldom that he joined the paternal circle in Russell 
 Square, where there was plenty of gaiety, and where the jokes 
 
24 Vanity Fair 
 
 of his good-natured old father frightened his amour-propre. 
 His bulk caused Joseph much anxious thought and alarm; now 
 and then he would make a desperate attempt to get rid of his 
 superabundant fat; but his indolence and love of good living- 
 speedily got the better of these endeavours at reform^ and he 
 found himself again at his three meals a day. He never was 
 well dressed; but he took the hugest pains to adorn his big 
 person^ and passed many hours daily in that occupation. His 
 valet made a fortune out of his wardrobe; his toilet-table was 
 covered with as many pomatums and essences as ever were 
 employed by an old beauty; he had tried, in order to give him- 
 self a waist, every girth, stay, and waistband then invented. 
 Like most fat men, he would have his clothes made too tight, 
 and took care they should be of the most brilliant colours and 
 youthful cut. When dressed at length, in the afternoon, he 
 would issue forth to take a drive with nobody in the Park; and 
 then would come back in order to dress again and go and dine 
 with nobody at the Piazza Coffee-House. He was as vain as a 
 girl; and perhaps his extreme shyness was one of the results of 
 his extreme vanity. If Miss Rebecca can get the better of him, 
 and at her first entrance into life, she is a young person of no 
 ordinary cleverness. 
 
 The first move showed considerable skill. When she called 
 Sedley a very handsome man, she knew that Amelia would tell 
 her mother, who would probably tell Joseph, or who, at any 
 rate, would be pleased by the compliment paid to her son. All 
 mothers are. If you had told Sycorax that her son Caliban 
 was as handsome as Apollo, she would have been pleased, witch 
 as she was. Perhaps, too, Joseph Sedley would overhear the 
 compliment — Rebecca spoke loud enough — and he did hear, 
 and (thinking in his heart that he was a very fine man), the 
 praise thrilled through every fibre of his big body, and made it 
 tingle with pleasure. Then, however, came a recoil. " Is the 
 girl making fun of me? " he thought, and straightway he 
 bounced towards the bell, and was for retreating, as we have 
 seen, when his father's jokes and his mother's entreaties caused 
 him to pause and stay where he was. He conducted the young 
 lady down to dinner in a dubious and agitated frame of mind. 
 " Does she really think I am handsome? " thought he, " or is 
 she only making game of me? " We have talked of Joseph 
 Sedley being as vain as a girl. Heaven help us ! the girls have 
 only to turn the tables, and say of one of their own sex, " She 
 is as vain as a man," and they will have perfect reason. The 
 
Rebecca is in Presence of the Enemy 25 
 
 bearded creatures are quite as eager for praise, quite as finikin 
 over their toilettes, quite as proud of their personal advantages, 
 quite as conscious of their powers of fascination, as any coquette 
 in the world. 
 
 Downstairs, then, they went, Joseph very red and blushing, 
 Rebecca very modest, and holding her green eyes downwards. 
 She was dressed in white, with bare shoulders as white as snow 
 — the picture of youth, unprotected innocence, and humble 
 virgin simplicity. " I must be very quiet," thought Rebecca, 
 " and very much interested about India." 
 
 Now we have heard how Mrs. Sediey had prepared a fine 
 curry for her son, just as he liked it, and in the course of dinner 
 a portion of this dish was offered to Rebecca. *' What is it? " 
 said she, turning an appealing look to Mr. Joseph. 
 
 " Capital," said he. His mouth was full of it; his face quite 
 red with the delightful exercise of gobbling. " Mother, it's as 
 good as my own curries in India." 
 
 " Oh, I must try some, if it is an Indian dish," said Miss 
 Rebecca. " I am sure everything must be good that comes 
 from there." 
 
 " Give Miss Sharp some curry, my dear," said Mr. Sediey, 
 laughing. 
 
 Rebecca had never tasted the dish before. 
 
 " Do you find it as good as everything else from India ? " 
 said Mr. Sediey. 
 
 " Oh, excellent! " said Rebecca, who was suffering tortures 
 with the cayenne pepper. 
 
 " Try a chili with it. Miss Sharp," said Joseph, really 
 interested. 
 
 " A chili," said Rebecca, gasping. " yes ! " She thought 
 a chili was something cool, as its name imported, and was served 
 with some. " How fresh and green they look! " she said, and 
 put one into her mouth. It was hotter than the curry; flesh 
 and blood could bear it no longer. She laid down her fork. 
 ''Water, for Heaven's sake, water!" she cried. Mr. Sediey 
 burst out laughing (he was a coarse man, from the Stock Ex- 
 change, where they love all sorts of practical jokes). " They 
 are real Indian, I assure you," said he. " Sambo, give Miss 
 Sharp some water." 
 
 The paternal laugh was echoed by Joseph, who thought the 
 joke capital. The ladies only smiled a little. They thought 
 poor Rebecca suffered too much. She would have liked to 
 choke old Sediey, but she swallowed her mortification as well as 
 
2 6 Vanity Fair 
 
 she had the abominable curry before it, and as soon as she could 
 speak, said, with a comical, good-humoured air — 
 
 " I ought to have remembered the pepper which the Princess 
 of Persia puts in the cream-tarts in the Arabian Nights. Do 
 you put cayenne into your cream-tarts in India, sir? " 
 
 Old Sedley began to laugh, and thought Rebecca was a good- 
 humoured girl. Joseph simply said — *' Cream- tarts, Miss? Our 
 cream is very bad in Bengal. Wegenerally use goats' milk; and, 
 'gad, do you know, I've got to prefer it ! " 
 
 " You won't like everything from India now, Miss Sharp," 
 said the old gentleman; but when the ladies had retired after 
 dinner, the wily old fellow said to his son, " Have a care, Joe; 
 that girl is setting her cap at you." 
 
 " Pooh ! nonsense ! " said Joe, highly flattered. " I recollect, 
 sir, there was a girl at Dumdum, a daughter of Cutler of the 
 Artillery, and afterwards married to Lance, the surgeon, who 
 made a dead set at me in the year '4 — at me and Mulligatawney, 
 whom I mentioned to you before dinner — a devilish good fellow 
 Mulligatawney — he's a magistrate at Budgebudge, and sure to 
 be in council in five years. Well, sir, the Artillery gave a ball, 
 and Quintin, of the King's 14th, said to me, * Sedley,' said he, 
 ' I bet you thirteen to ten that Sophy Cutler hooks either you 
 or Mulligatawney before the rains.' * Done,' says I; and egad, 
 sir — this claret's very good. Adamson's or Carbonell's ? " * * * 
 
 A slight snore was the only reply: the honest stockbroker 
 was asleep, and so the rest of Joseph's story was lost for that 
 day. But he was always exceedingly communicative in a man's 
 party, and has told this delightful tale many scores of times to 
 his apothecary. Dr. Gollop, when he came to inquire about the 
 liver and the blue-pill. 
 
 Being an invalid, Joseph Sedley contented himself with a 
 bottle of claret besides his Madeira at dinner, and he managed 
 a couple of plates full of strawberries and cream, and twenty- 
 four little rout cakes, that were lying neglected in a plate near 
 him, and certainly (for novelists have the privilege of knowing 
 everything), he thought a great deal about the girl upstairs. 
 " A nice, gay, merry young creature," thought he to himself. 
 " How she looked at me when I picked up her handkerchief at 
 dinner! She dropped it twice. Who's that singing in the 
 drawing-room ? 'Gad 1 shall I go up and see ? " 
 
 But his modesty came rushing upon him with uncontrollable 
 force. His father was asleep : his hat was in the hall : there was 
 a hackney-coach stand hard by in Southampton Row. " I'll go 
 
The Green Silk Purse 27 
 
 and see the Forty Thieves, ^^ said he, " and Miss Decamp's dance ; " 
 and he slipped away gently on the pointed toes of his boots, and 
 disappeared, without waking his worthy parent. 
 
 " There goes Joseph," said Amelia, who was looking from the 
 open windows of the drawing-room, while Rebecca was singing 
 at the piano. 
 
 " Miss Sharp has frightened him away," said Mrs. Sedley. 
 " Poor Joe, why will he be so shy ? " 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 THE GREEN SILK PURSE 
 
 Poor Joe's panic lasted for two or three days ; during which he 
 did not visit the house, nor during that period did Miss Rebecca 
 ever mention his name. She was all respectful gratitude to Mrs. 
 Sedley: delighted beyond measure at the Bazaars; and in a 
 whirl of wonder at the theatre, whither the good-natured lady 
 took her. One day, Amelia had a headache, and could not go 
 upon some party of pleasure to which the two young people were 
 invited: nothing could induce her friend to go without her. 
 " What! you who have shown the poor orphan wh.at happiness 
 and love are for the first time in her life — quit you ? never ! " and 
 the green eyes looked up to Heaven and filled with tears ; and 
 Mrs. Sedley could not but own that her daughter's friend had a 
 charming kind heart of her own. 
 
 As for Mr. Sedley 's jokes, Rebecca laughed at them with a 
 cordiality and perseverance which not a little pleased and 
 softened that good-natured gentleman. Nor was it with the 
 chiefs of the family alone that Miss Sharp found favour. She 
 interested Mrs. Blenkinsop by eV^incing the deepest sympathy in 
 the raspberry -jam preserving, which operation was then going on 
 in the Housekeeper's room; she persisted in calling Sambo " Sir," 
 and " Mr. Sambo," to the delight of that attendant; and she 
 apologised to the lady's-maid for giving her trouble in venturing 
 to ring the bell, with such sweetness and humility, that the Ser- 
 vants' Hall was almost as charmed with her as the Drawing- 
 Room. 
 
 Once, in looking over some drawings which Amelia had sent 
 from school, Rebecca suddenly came upon one which caused her 
 
28 Vanity Fair 
 
 to burst into tears and leave the room. It was on the day when 
 Joe Sedley made his second appearance. 
 
 Ameha hastened after her friend to know the cause of this dis- 
 play of feelings and the good-natured girl came back without her 
 companion, rather affected too. " You know, her father was 
 our drawing-master, Mamma, at Chiswick, and used to do all the 
 best parts of our drawings." 
 
 " My love ! I'm sure I always heard Miss Pinkerton say that 
 he did not touch them — ^he only mounted them." 
 
 " It was called mounting, Mamma. Rebecca remembers the 
 drawing, and her father working at it, and the thought of it came 
 upon her rather suddenly — and so, you know, she " 
 
 " The poor child is all heart," said Mrs. Sedley. 
 
 " I wish she could stay with us another week," said Amelia. 
 
 " She's devilish like Miss Cutler that I used to meet at Dum- 
 dum, only fairer. She's married now to Lance, the Artillery 
 Surgeon. Do you know, Ma'a'^ , that once Quintin, of the 14th, 
 bet me " 
 
 " Joseph, we know that story," said Amelia, laughing. 
 " Never mind about telling that; but persuade Mamma to write 
 to Sir Something Crawley for leave of absence for poor dear 
 Rebecca: — ^here she comes, her eyes red with weeping." 
 
 " I'm better, now," said the girl, with the sweetest smile pos- 
 sible, taking good-natured Mrs. Sedley's extended hand and 
 kissing it r^^ >ectfully. " How kind you all are to me! All," 
 she added, with a laugh, " except you, Mr. Joseph." 
 
 "Me!" said Joseph, meditating an instant departure. 
 *' Gracious Heavens! Good Gad! Miss Sharp! "^ 
 
 " Yes; how could you be so cruel as to make me eat that 
 horrid pepper-dish at dinner, the first day I ever saw you ? You 
 are not so good to me as dear Amelia." 
 
 " He doesn't know you so well," cried Amelia. 
 
 " I defy anybody not to be good to you, my dear," said her 
 mother. 
 
 "The curry was capital; indeed it was," said Joe, quite 
 gravely. " Perhaps there was not enough citron juice in it; — 
 no, there was not^ 
 
 "And the chilis?" 
 
 " By Jove, how they made you cry out! " said Joe, caught by 
 the ridicule of the circumstance, and exploding in a fit of laughter 
 which ended quite suddenly, as usual. 
 
 " I shall take care how I let you choose for me another 
 time," said Rebecca, as they went down again to dinner. " I 
 
 I >-\ 
 
The Green Silk Purse 29 
 
 didn't think men were fond of putting poor harmless girls to 
 pain." 
 
 " By Gad, Miss Rebecca, I wouldn't hurt you for the world." 
 
 '' No/' said she, " I know you wouldn't; " and then she gave 
 him ever so gentle a pressure with her littld hand, and drew it 
 back quite frightened, and looking first for one instant in his face, 
 and then down at the carpet-rods ; and I am not prepared to say 
 that Joe's heart did not thump at this little involuntary, timid, 
 gentle motion of regard on the part of the simple girl. 
 
 It was an advance, and as such, perhaps, some ladies of 
 indisputable correctness and gentility will condemn the action as 
 immodest ; but, you see, poor dear Rebecca had all this work to 
 do for herself. If a person is too p6or to keep a servant, though 
 ever so elegant, he must sweep his own rooms ; if a dear girl has 
 no dear Mamma to settle matters with the young man, she must 
 do it for herself. And oh, what a mercy it is that these women 
 do not exercise their powers oftener! We can't resist them, if 
 they do. Let them show ever so little inclination, and men ga 
 down on their knees at once ; old or ugly, it is all the same. And 
 this I set down as a positive truth. A woman with fair oppor- 
 tunities, and without an absolute hump, may marry whom she 
 LIKES. Only let us be thankful that the darlings are like the 
 beasts of the field, and don't know their own power. They 
 would overcome us entirely if they did. 
 
 "Egad!" thought Joseph, entering the dining-room, "I 
 exactly begin to feel as I did at Dumdum with Miss Cutler." 
 Many sweet little appeais, half tender, half jocular, did Miss 
 Sharp make to him about the dishes at dinner ; for by this time 
 she was on a footing of considerable familiarity with the family, 
 and as for the girls, they loved each other like sisters. Young 
 unmarried girls always do, if they are in a house together for ten 
 days. 
 
 As if bent upon advancing Rebecca's plans in every way — 
 what must Amelia do, but remind her brother of a promise made 
 last Easter holidays — " When I was a girl at school," said she, 
 laughing^a promise that he, Joseph, would take her to Vaux- 
 hall. " Now," she said, " that Rebecca is with us, will be the 
 very time." 
 
 " Oh, delightful! " said Rebecca, going to clap her hands; but 
 she recollected herself, and paused, like a modest creature, as she 
 was. 
 
 " To-night is not the night," said Joe. 
 
 " Well, to-morrow." 
 
30 Vanity Fair 
 
 " To-morrow your Papa and I dine out/' said Mrs. Sedley. 
 
 " You don't suppose that /'m goings Mrs. Sed. ? " said her 
 husband, " and that a woman of your years and size is to catch 
 cold, in such an abominable damp place ? " 
 
 " The children must have some one with them/' cried Mrs. 
 Sedley. 
 
 " Let Joe go/' said the father, laughing. " He's big enough." 
 At which speech even Mr. Sambo at the sideboard burst out 
 laughing, and poor fat Joe felt inclined to become a parricide 
 almost. 
 
 "Undo his stays!" continued the pitiless old gentleman. 
 " Fling some water in his face. Miss Sharp, or carry him upstairs : 
 the dear creature's fainting. Poor victim! carry him up; he's 
 as light as a feather ! " 
 
 " If I stand this, sir, I'm d 1 " roared Joseph. 
 
 " Order Mr. Jos's elephant. Sambo ! " cried the father. " Send 
 to Exeter 'Change, Sambo; " but seeing Jos ready almost to cry 
 with vexation, the old joker stopped his laughter, and said, hold- 
 ing out his hand to his son, "It's all fair on the Stock Exchange, 
 Jos, — and. Sambo, never mind the elephant, but give me and Mr. 
 Jos a glass of Champagne. Boney himself hasn't got such in 
 his cellar, my boy ! " 
 
 A goblet of Champagne restored Joseph's equanimity, and 
 before the bottle was emptied, of which as an invalid he took 
 two-thirds, he had agreed to take the young ladies to Vauxhall. 
 
 " The girls must have a gentleman apiece," said the old gentle- 
 man. " Jos will be sure to leave Emmy in the crowd, he will 
 be so taken up with Miss Sharp here. Send to 96, and ask 
 George Osborne if he'll come." 
 
 At this, I don't know in the least for what reason, Mrs. Sedley 
 looked at her husband and laughed. Mr. Sedley's eyes twinkled 
 in a manner indescribably roguish, and he looked at Amelia; 
 and Amelia, hanging down her head, blushed as only young ladies 
 of seventeen know how to blush, and as Miss Rebecca Sharp 
 never blushed in her life — at least not since she was eight years 
 old, and when she was caught stealing jam out of a cupboard by 
 her godmother, " Amelia had better write a note," said her 
 father; " and let George Osborne see what a beautiful ha,nd- 
 writing we have brought back from Miss Pinkerton's. Do you 
 remember when you wrote to him to come on Twelfth-night, 
 Emmy, and spelt twelfth without the f ? " 
 
 " That was years ago," said Amelia. 
 
 " It seems like yesterday, don't it, John? " said Mrs. Sedley 
 
The Green Silk Purse 3 i 
 
 to her husband; and that night in a conversation which took 
 place in a front room in the second-floor, in a sort of tent, hung 
 round with chintz of a rich and fantastic India pattern, and 
 double with caHco of a tender rose-colour; in the interior of 
 which species of marquee was a feather-bed, on which were two 
 pillows, on which were two round red faces, one in a laced night- 
 cap, and one in a simple cotton one, ending in a tassel: — in a 
 curtain lecture, I say, Mrs. Sedley took her husband to task for 
 his cruel conduct to poor Joe. 
 
 " It was quite wicked of you, Mr. Sedley," said she, " to tor- 
 ment 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-Joseph- 
 ing Joseph, my dear, and ail the while the boy is only thinking 
 of himself, and what a fine fellow he is. I doubt. Ma'am, w^e 
 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. / 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 watch- 
 man 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 justi- 
 fiable, 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 WoUah. The petition, too, for an exten- 
 
32 Vanity Fair 
 
 sion of the young lady's leave of absence had already been des- 
 patched, 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 Bam, there came on such a thunderstorm 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 thunderstorm 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 per- 
 fectly well being thrashed by Joseph Sedley, when the latter was 
 a big, swaggering hobbadyhoy, and George an impudent urchin 
 of ten years. 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 comftig down in a gig to Dr. Swish- 
 tail'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." 
 
The Green Silk Purse 33 
 
 " 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 off his boots too. Boys 
 never forget those tips at school, nor the givers." 
 
 " I delight in Hessian boots," said Rebecca. Joe Sedley, who 
 admired his own legs prodigiously, and always wore this orna- 
 mental 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. 
 
 " 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 feeorge, 
 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 ofMo 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 
 
34 Vanity Fair 
 
 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 j 
 Rebecca. " Happy the man who wins her I " 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 con- 
 versation, 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 dis- 
 turbed, 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 ques- 
 tions 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 expedi- 
 tions." 
 
 " Pooh, pooh. Miss Sharp," said he, pulling up his shirt-collars; 
 
The Green Silk Purse 35 
 
 " the dangers make the sport only the pleasanter»" He had 
 never been but once at a tiger-hunt, when the accident in ques- 
 tion occurred, and when he was haK killed — ^not by the tiger, 
 but by the fight. 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 — " 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 quali- 
 ties in her which she had not perceived when they were at Chis- 
 wick together. For the affection of young ladies is of as rapid 
 growth as Jack's beanstalk, 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 actu- 
 ally polite enough to carry the candles to the piano. Osborne 
 hinted that he should like quite as well to sit in the dark; but 
 
36 Vanity Fair 
 
 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 per- 
 form 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 lagrtme, 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 aU poor wanderers lone \ ^. . j /i 
 
 Hark to the wind upon the hill! '^St/j&K.u^^.^Sv^ 
 
 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 allu- 
 sion 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 pro- 
 foundly touched at its conclusion. If he had had the courage ; 
 
The Green Silk Purse 37 
 
 if George and Miss Sedley had remained^ according to the 
 former's proposal, in the farther room, Joseph Sedley's bachelor- 
 hood 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 saymg, " My dear Miss Sharp, one little teaspoonful of jelly 
 to recruit you after your immense — your — ^your delightful 
 exertions." 
 
 "Bravo, Jos!" said Mr. Sedley; on hearing the bantering 
 of which well-known voice, Jos instantly relapsed into an 
 alarmed silence, and quickly took his departure. He did not 
 lie awake all night thinking whether or not he was in love with 
 Miss Sharp ; the passion of love never interfered with the appe- 
 tite or the slumber of Mr. Joseph Sedley; but he thought to him- 
 self how delightful it would be to hear such songs as those after 
 Cutcherry — ^what a distinguee girl she was — how she could speak 
 French better than the Governor-General's lady herself — and 
 what a sensation she would make at the Calcutta balls. " It's 
 evident the poor devil's in love with me," thought he. " She 
 is just as rich as most of the girls who come out to India. I 
 might go farther, and fare worse, egad ! " And in these medita- 
 tions he fell asleep. 
 
 How Miss Sharp lay awake, thinking. Will he come or not to- 
 morrow? need not be told here. To-morrow came, and, as sure 
 as fate, Mr. Joseph Sedley made his appearance before luncheon. 
 He had never been known before to confer such an honour on 
 Russell Square. George Osborne was somehow there already 
 (sadly " putting out " Amelia, who was writing to her twelve 
 dearest friends at Chiswick Mall), and Rebecca was employed 
 upon her yesterday's work. As Joe's buggy drove up, and 
 while, after his usual thundering knock and pompous bustle at 
 the door, the ex-Collector of Boggley Wollah laboured upstairs 
 to the drawing-room, knowing glances were telegraphed between 
 Osborne and Miss Sedley, and the pair, smiling archly, looked 
 at Rebecca, who actually blushed as she bent her fair ringlets 
 over her knitting. How her heart beat as Joseph appeared — 
 
38 Vanity Fair 
 
 Joseph, puffing from the staircase in shining creaking boots, — 
 Joseph, in a new waistcoat, red with heat and nervousness, 
 and blushing behind his wadded neckcloth. It was a nervous 
 moment for all; and as for Amelia, I think she was more 
 frightened than even the people most concerned. 
 
 Sambo, who flung open the door and announced Mr. Joseph, 
 followed grinning, in the Collector's rear, and bearing two hand- 
 some nosegays of flowers, which the monster had actually had 
 the gallantry to purchase in Covent Garden Market that morning, 
 — they were not as big as the haystacks which ladies carry about 
 with them now-a-days, in cones of filagree paper; but the young 
 women were delighted with the gift, as Joseph presented one to 
 each, with an exceedingly solemn bow,: 
 
 " Bravo, Jos ! " cried Osborne. 
 
 " Thank you, dear Joseph," said Amelia, quite ready to kiss 
 her brother, if he were so minded. (And I think for a kiss from 
 such a dear creature as Amelia, I would purchase all Mr. Lee's 
 conservatories out of hand.) 
 
 " Oh heavenly, heavenly flowers ! " exclaimed Miss Sharp, and 
 smelt them delicately, and held them to her bosom, and cast up 
 her eyes to the ceiling, in an ecstasy of admiration. Perhaps 
 she just looked first into the bouquet, to see whether there was 
 a billet-doux hidden among the flowers ; but there was no letter. 
 
 " Do they talk the language of flowers at Boggley Wollah, 
 Sedley? " asked Osborne, laughing. 
 
 " Pooh, nonsense ! " replied the sentimental youth. " Bought 
 'em at Nathan's; very glad you like 'em; and eh, Amelia, my 
 dear, I bought a pine-apple at the same time, which I gave to 
 Sambo. Let's have it for tiffin; very cool and nice this hot 
 weather." Rebecca said she had never tasted a pine, and 
 longed beyond everything to taste one. 
 
 So the conversation went on. I don't know on what pretext 
 Osborne left the room, or why, presently, Amelia went away, 
 perhaps to superintend the slicing of the pine-apple; but Jos 
 was left alone with Rebecca, who had resumed her work, and 
 the green silk and the shining needles were quivering rapidly 
 under her white slender fingers. 
 
 " What a beautiful, hyoo-ootiful song that was you sang last 
 night, dear Miss Sharp," said the Collector. " It made me cry 
 almost; 'pon my honour it did." 
 
 *' Because you have a kind heart, Mr. Joseph; all the Sedley s 
 have, I think." 
 
 "It kept me awake last night, and I was trying to hum it this 
 
Dobbin of Ours 39 
 
 morning, in bed; I was, upon my honour. Gallop, my doctor, 
 came in at eleven (for I'm a sad invalid, you know, and see 
 GoUop every day), and, 'gad I there I was singing away like — 
 a robin." 
 
 " you droll creature! Do let me hear you sing it." 
 "Me.? No, you. Miss Sharp; my dear Miss Sharp, do sing 
 it." 
 
 " Not now, Mr. Sedley," said Rebecca, with a sigh^ " My 
 spirits are not equal to it; besides, I must finish the purse. 
 Will you help me, Mr. Sedley? " And before he had time to 
 ask how, Mr. Joseph Sedley, of the East India Company's ser- 
 vice, was actually seated tete-a-tete with a young lady, looking 
 at her with a most killing expression; his arms stretched out 
 before her in an imploring attitude, and his hands bound in a 
 web of green sillc, which she was unwinding. 
 
 In this romantic position Osborne and Amelia found the in- 
 teresting pair, when they entered to announce that tiffin was 
 ready. The skein of silk was just wound round the card; but 
 Mr. Jos had never spoken. 
 
 " I am sure he will to-night, dear," Amelia said, as she pressed 
 Rebecca's hand ; and Sedley, too, had communed with his soul, 
 and said to hirnseK, " 'Gad, I'll pop the question at Vauxhall." 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 DOBBIN OF OURS 
 
 Cuff's fight with Dobbin, and the unexpected issue of that con- 
 test, will long be remembered by every man who was educated 
 at Dr. Swishtail's famous school. The latter youth (who used 
 to be called Heigh-ho Dobbin, Gee-ho Dobbin, and by many 
 other names indicative of puerile contempt) was the quietest, 
 the clumsiest, and, as it seemed, the dullest of all Dr. Swishtail's 
 young gentlemen. His parent was a grocer in the City : and it 
 was bruited abroad that he was admitted into Dr. Swishtail's 
 academy upon what are called " mutual principles " — that is 
 to say, the expenses of his board and schooling were defrayed 
 by his father in goods, not money; and he stood there — almost 
 at the bottom of the school — in his scraggy corduroys and 
 
40 Vanity Fair 
 
 jacket J through the seams of which his great big bones were 
 bursting — as the representative of so many pounds of tea^ 
 candles^ sugar, mottled-soap, plums (of which a very mild pro- 
 portion was supplied for the puddings of the establishment), 
 and other commodities. A dreadful day it was for young 
 Dobbin when one of the youngsters of the school, having run 
 into the town upon a poaching excursion for hardbake and 
 polonies, espied the cart of Dobbin and Rudge, Grocers and 
 Oilmen, Thames Street, London, at the Doctor's door, dis- 
 charging a cargo of the wares in which the firm dealt. 
 
 " Young Dobbin had no peace after that. The jokes were 
 frightful, and merciless against him. " Hullo, Dobbin," one 
 wag would say, " here's good news in the paper. Sugar is ris', 
 my boy." Another would set a sum — " If a pound of mutton- 
 candles cost sevenpence-halfpenny, how much must Dobbin 
 cost.^ " and a roar would follow from all the circle of young 
 knaves, usher and all, who rightly considered that the sellmg 
 of goods by retail is a shameful and infamous practice, meriting 
 the contempt and scorn of all real gentlemen. 
 
 " Your father's only a merchant, Osborne,'* Dobbin said in 
 private to the little boy who had brought down the storm upon 
 him. At which the latter replied haughtily, " My father's a 
 gentleman, and keeps his carriage; " and Mr. William Dobbin 
 retreated to a remote outhouse in the playground, where he 
 passed a half-holiday in the bitterest sadness and woe. Who 
 amongst us is there that does not recollect similar hours of 
 bitter, bitter childish grief? Who feels injustice; who shrinks 
 before a slight; who has a sense of wrong so acute, and so glow- 
 ing a gratitude of kindness, as a generous boy ? and how many 
 of those gentle souls do you degrade, estrange, torture, for the 
 sake of a little loose arithmetic, and miserable dog-Latin. 
 
 Now, William Dobbin, from an incapacity to acquire the 
 rudiments of the above language, as they are propounded in 
 that wonderful book the Eton Latin Grammar, was compelled 
 to remain among the very last of Dr. Swishtail's scholars, and 
 was " taken down " continually by little fellows with pink faces 
 and pinafores when he marched up with the lower form, a giant 
 amongst them, with downcast stupefied look, his dog's-eared 
 primer, and his tight corduroys. High and low, all made fun 
 of him. They sewed up those corduroys, tight as they were. 
 They cut his bed-strings. They upset buckets and benches, so 
 that he might break his shins over them, which he never failed 
 to do. They sent him parcels, which, when opened, were found 
 
 \ 
 
Dobbin of Ours 41 
 
 to contain the paternal soap and candles. There was no little 
 fellow but had his jeer and joke at Dobbin; and he bore every- 
 thing quite patiently^ and was entirely dumb and miserable. 
 
 Cuff^ on the contrary^ was the great chief and dandy of the 
 Swishtail Seminary. He smuggled wine in. He fought the 
 town-boys. Ponies used to come for him to ride home on 
 Saturdays. He had his top-boots in his room, in which he used 
 to hunt in the holidays. He had a gold repeater: and took 
 snuff like the Doctor. He had been to the Opera, and knew 
 the merits of the principal actors, preferring Mr. Kean to Mr. 
 Kemble. He could knock you off forty Latin verses in an hour. 
 He could make French poetry. What else didn't he know, or 
 couldn't he do ? They said even the Doctor himself was afraid 
 of him. 
 
 Cuff, the unquestioned king of the school, ruled over his sub- 
 jects, and bullied them, with splendid superiority. This one 
 blacked his shoes : that toasted his bread, others would fag out, 
 and give him balls at cricket during whole summer afternoons. 
 " Figs " was the fellow whom he despised most, and with whom, 
 though always abusing him, and sneering at him, he scarcely 
 ever condescended to hold personal communication. 
 
 One day in private, the two young gentlemen had had a 
 difference. Figs, alone in the school-room, was blundering over 
 a home letter; when Cuff, entering, bade him go upon some 
 message, of which tarts were probably the subject. 
 
 " I can't," says Dobbin; " I want to finish my letter." 
 
 " You canH ! " says Mr. Cuff, laying hold of that document 
 (in which many words were scratched out, many were misspelt, 
 on which had been spent I don't know how much thought, and 
 labour, and tears ; for the poor fellow was writing to his mother, 
 who was fond of him, although she was a grocer's wife, and lived 
 in a back parlour in Thames Street). " You can't ? " says Mr. 
 Cuff: " I should like to know why, pray? Can't you write to 
 old Mother Figs to-morrow? " 
 
 " Don't call names," Dobbin said, getting off the bench very 
 nervous. 
 
 " Well, sir, will you go? " crowed the cock of the school. 
 
 "Put down the letter," Dobbin replied; "no gentleman 
 readth letterth." 
 
 " Well, now will you go? " says the other. 
 
 " No, I won't. Don't strike, or I'll ihmash you," roars out 
 Dobbin, springing to a leaden inkstand, and looking so wicked, 
 
42 Vanity Fair 
 
 that Mr. Cuff paused^ turned down his coat sleeves again, put 
 his hands into his pockets, and walked away with a sneer. 
 But he never meddled personally with the grocer's boy after 
 that; though we must do him the justice to say he always 
 spoke of Mr. Dobbin with contempt behind his back. 
 
 Some time after this interview, it happened that Mr. Cuff, on 
 a sunshiny afternoon, was in the neighbourhood of poor William 
 Dobbin, who was lying under a tree in the playground, spelling 
 over a favourite copy of the Arabian Nights which he had — 
 apart from the rest of the school, who were pursuing their various 
 sports — quite lonely, and almost happy. /If people would but 
 leave children to themselves; if teachers would cease to bully 
 them ; if parents would not insist upon directing their thoughts, 
 and dominating their feelings— those feelings and thoughts 
 which are a mystery to ail (for how much do you and I know of 
 each other, of our children, of our fathers, of our neighbour, and 
 how far more beautiful and sacred are the thoughts of the poor 
 lad or girl whom you govern likely to be, than those of the dull 
 and world-corrupted person who rules him?) — if, I say, parents 
 and masters would leave their children alone a little more, — 
 small harm would accrue, although a less quantity of as in 
 prcBsenti might be acquired. 
 
 Well, William Dobbin had for once forgotten the world, and 
 was away with Sindbad the Sailor in the Valley of Diamonds, or 
 with Prince Ahmed and the Fairy Peribanou in that delightful 
 cavern where the Prince found her, and whither we should all 
 like to make a tour; when shrill cries, as of a little fellow weep- 
 ing, woke up his pleasant reverie ; and looking up, he saw Cuff 
 before him, belabouring a little boy. 
 
 It was the lad who had peached upon him about the grocer's 
 cart; but he bore little malice, not at least towards the young- 
 and small. " Hov/ dare you, sir, break the bottle? " says Cuff 
 to the little urchin, swinging a yellow cricket-stump over him. 
 
 The boy had been instructed to get over the playground wall 
 (at a selected spot where the broken glass had been removed 
 from the top, and niches made convenient in the brick); to run 
 a quarter of a mile; to purchase a pint of rumshrub on credit; 
 to brave all the Doctor's outlying spies, and to clamber back 
 into the playground again; during the performance of which 
 feat, his foot had slipt, and the bottle was broken, and the shrub 
 had been spilt, and his pantaloons had been damaged, and he 
 appeared before his employer a perfectly guilty and trembling, 
 though harmless, wretch. 
 
Dobbin of Ours 43 
 
 " How dare you, sir, break it? " says Cuff; " you blundering 
 little thief. You drank the shrub, and now you pretend to have 
 broken the bottle. Plold out your hand, sir." 
 
 Down came the stump with a great heavy thump on the child's 
 hand. A moan followed. Dobbin looked up. The Fairy 
 Peribanou had fled into the inmost cavern with Prince Ahmed : 
 the Roc had whisked away Sindbad the Sailor out of the Valley 
 of Diamonds out of sight, far into the clouds: and there was 
 everyday life before honest William; and a big boy beating a 
 little one without cause. 
 
 " Hold out your other hand, sir," roars Cuff to his little school- 
 fellow, whose face was distorted with pain. Dobbin quivered, 
 and gathered himseK up in his narrow old clothes. 
 
 " Take that, you little devil! " cried Mr. Cuff, and down came 
 the wicket again on the child's hand. — Don't be horrified, ladies, 
 every boy at a public school has done it. Your children will so 
 do and be done by, in all probability. — Do^ti came the wicket 
 again; and Dobbin started up. 
 
 I can't tell what his motive was. Torture in a public school 
 is as" much licensed as the knout in Russia. It vv^ould be ungen- 
 tlemanlike (in a manner) to resist it. Perhaps Dobbin's foolish 
 soul revolted against that exercise of tyranny; or perhaps he 
 had a hankering feeling of revenge in his mind, and longed to 
 measure himself against that splendid bully and tyrant, who had 
 all the glory, pride, pomp, circumstance, banners flying, drums 
 beating, guards saluting, in the place. Whatever may have 
 been his incentive, however, up he sprang, and screamed 
 out, " Hold off, Cuff; don't bully that child any more; or 
 
 rii"— 
 
 " Or you'll what? " Cui? asked in amazement at this interrup- 
 tion. " Hold out your hand, you little beast." 
 
 "I'll give you the worst thrashing you ever had in your life," 
 Dobbin said, in reply to the first part of Cuff's sentence; and 
 little Osborne, gasping and in tears, looked up with wonder and 
 incredulity at seeing this amazing champion put up suddenly to 
 defend him : while Cuff's astonishment was scarcely less. Fancy 
 our late monarch George III. when he heard of the revolt of the 
 North American colonies: fancy brazen Goliath when little 
 David stepped forward and claimed a meeting; and you have 
 the feelings of Mr. Reginald Cuff when this rencontre was pro- 
 posed to him. 
 
 " After school," says he, of course; after a pause and. a look. 
 
44 Vanity Fair 
 
 as much as to say^ " Make your will, and communicate your last 
 wishes to your friends between this time and that." 
 
 " As you please/' Dobbin said. " You must be my bottle- 
 holder, Osborne." 
 
 "Well, if you like," little Osborne replied; for you see his 
 papa kept a carriage, and he was rather ashamed of his cham- 
 pion. 
 
 Yes, when the hour of battle came, he was almost ashamed 
 to say, " Go it, Figs; " and not a single other boy in the place 
 uttered that cry for the first two or three rounds of this famous 
 combat, at the commencement of which the scientific Cuff, 
 with a contemptuous smile on his face, and as light and as gay 
 as if he was at a ball, planted his blows upon his adversary, and 
 floored that unlucky champion three times running. At each 
 fall there was a cheer; and everybody was anxious to have 
 the honour of offering the conqueror a knee. 
 
 " What a licking I shall get when it's over," young Osborne 
 thought, picking up his man. " You'd best give in," he said to 
 Dobbin; " it's only a thrashing, Figs, and you know I'm used 
 to it." But Figs, all whose limbs -were in a quiver, and whose 
 nostrils were breathing rage, put his little bottle-holder aside, 
 and v/ent in for a fourth time. 
 
 As he did not in the least know how to parry the blows that 
 w^ere aimed at himself, and Cuff had begun the attack on the 
 three preceding occasions, without ever allowing his enemy to 
 strike. Figs nov/ determined that he would commence the 
 engagement by a charge on his own part ; and accordingly, being 
 a left-handed man, brought that arm into action, and hit out a 
 couple of times with all his might — once at Mr. Cuff's left eye, 
 and once on his beautiful Roman nose. 
 
 Cuff went down this time, to the astonishment of the assembly. 
 " Well hit, by Jove," says little Osborne, with the air of a con- 
 noisseur, clapping his man on the back. " Give it him with the 
 left, Figs my boy." 
 
 Figs' left made terrific play during all the rest of the combat. 
 Cuff went down every time. At the sixth round, there were 
 almost as many fellows shouting out, " Go it. Figs," as there were 
 youths exclaiming, " Go it. Cuff." At the twelfth round the 
 latter champion was all abroad, as the saying is, and had lost all 
 presence of mind and power of attack or defence. Figs, on the 
 contrary, was as calm as a Quaker. His face being quite pale, 
 his eyes shining open, and a great cut on his under lip bleeding 
 
Dobbin of Ours 45 
 
 profusely, gave this young fellow a fierce and ghastly air, which 
 perhaps struck terror into many spectators. Nevertheless, 
 his intrepid adversary prepared to close for the thirteenth 
 time. 
 
 If I had the pen of a Napier, or a Bell's Life, I should like to 
 describe this combat properly. It was the last charge of the 
 Guard — (that is, it would have been, only Waterloo had not yet 
 taken place) — it was Ney's column breasting the hill of La Uaye 
 Sainte, bristling with ten thousand bayonets, and cro'Amed with 
 twenty eagles — it was the shout of the beef-eating British, as 
 leapmg down the hill they rushed to hug the enemy in the savage 
 arms of battle — in other words. Cuff coming up full of pluck, but 
 quite reeling and groggy, the Fig-merchant put in his left as 
 usual on his adversary's nose, and sent him down for the last 
 time. 
 
 " I think that will do for him," Figs said, as his opponent 
 dropped as neatly on the green as I have seen Jack Spot's ball 
 plump into the pocket at billiards; and the fact is, when time 
 was called, Mr. Reginald Cuff was not able, or did not choose, 
 to stand up again. 
 
 And now all the boys set up such a shout for Figs as would ^ 
 have made you think he had been their darling champion 
 through the whole battle ; and as absolutely brought Dr. Swish- 
 tail out of his study, curious to know the cause of the uproar. 
 He threatened to flog Figs violently, of course; but Cufif, who 
 had come to himself by this time, and was washing his wounds, 
 stood up and said, " It's my fault, sir — ^not Figs' — ^not Dobbin's. 
 I was bullying a little boy ; and he served me right." By which 
 magnanimous speech he not only saved his conqueror a whipping, 
 but got back all his ascendency over the boys which his defeat 
 had nearly cost him. 
 
 Young Osborne wrote home to his parents an account of the 
 transaction^ 
 
 " Sugarcane House, Richmond, March i8 — . 
 " Dear Mama, — I hope you are quite well. I should be much 
 obliged to you to send me a cake and five shillings. There has 
 been a fight here between CufE & Dobt)in. Cuff, you know, was the 
 Cock of the School. They fought thirteen rounds, and Dobbin 
 Licked. So Cuff is now Only Second Cock. The fight was about 
 me. Cuff was licking me for breakmg a bottle of milk, and Figs 
 wouldn't stand it. We call him Figs because his father is a Grocer 
 — Figs & Rudge, Thames St., City — I think as he fought for me you 
 ought to buy your Tea & Sugar at his father's. Cuff goes home 
 every Saturday, but can't this, because he has 2 Black Eyes. He 
 
46 Vanity Fair 
 
 has a white Pony to come and fetch him, and a groom in livery on 
 a bay mare. I wish my Papa would let me have a Pony, and I am 
 
 " Your dutiful Son, 
 
 " George Sedley Osborne. 
 
 " P.S. — Give my love to little Emmy. I am cutting her out a 
 Coach in cardboard. Please not a seed-cake, but a plum-cake." 
 
 In consequence of Dobbin's victory, his character rose pro- 
 digiously in the estimation of all his schoolfellows, and the name 
 of Figs, which had been a byword of reproach, became as 
 respectable and popular a nickname as any other in use in the 
 school. " After all, it's not his fault that his father's a grocer," 
 George Osborne said, who, though a little chap, had a very high 
 popularity among the Swishtaii youth; and his opinion was 
 received with great applause. It was voted low to sneer at 
 Dobbin about tiiis accident of birth. " Old Figs " grew to be a 
 name of kindness and endearment; and the sneak of an usher 
 jeered at him no longer. 
 
 And Dobbin's spirit rose with his altered circumstances. He 
 made wonderful advances in scholastic learning. The superb 
 Cuff himself, at whose condescension Dobbin could only blush 
 and wonder, helped him on with his Latin verses; " coached " 
 him in play-hours : carried him triumphantly out of the little- 
 boy class into the middle-sized form; and even there got a fair 
 place for him. It was discovered, that although duU at classical 
 learning, at mathematics he was uncommonly quick. To the 
 contentment of aU he passed third in algebra, and got a Frendi 
 prize-book at the public Midsummer examination. You should 
 have seen his mother's face when Telemaque (that delicious 
 romance) was presented to him by the Doctor in the face of the 
 whole school and the parents and company., with an inscription 
 to Gulielmo Dobbin. All the boys clapped hands in token of 
 applause and sympathy. His blushes, his stumbles, his awk- 
 wardness, and the number of feet which he crushed as he went 
 back to his place, who shall describe or calculate ? Old Dobbin, 
 his father, who now respected him for the first time, gave him 
 two guineas publicly ; most of which he spent in a general tuck- 
 out for the school: and he came back in a tail-coat after the 
 holidays,! 
 
 Dobbin was much too modest a young fellow to suppose that 
 ( this happy change in all his circumstances arose from his own 
 igenerous and manly disposition : he chose, from some perverse- 
 pess, to attribute his good fortune to the sole .agency and bene- 
 
Dobbin of Ours 47 
 
 volejice-of-little George Osborne, to whom henceforth he vowed 
 such a love and affection as is only felt by children — such an 
 affection, as we read in the charming fairy-book, uncouth Orson 
 had for splendid young Valentine his conqueror. He flung him- 
 self down at little Osborne's feet and loved him. Even before 
 they were acquainted, he had admired Osborne in secret. Now 
 he was his valet, his dog, his man Friday. He believed Osborne 
 to be the possessor of every perfection, to be the handsomest, 
 the bravest, the most active, the cleverest, the most generous of 
 created boys. He shared his money with him: bought himj 
 uncountable presents of knives, pencil-cases, gold seals, toffee. 
 Little Warblers, and romantic books, with large coloured pictures 
 of knights and robbers, in many of which latter you might read 
 inscriptions to George Sedley Osborne, Esquire, from his at^ 
 tached friend William Dobbin — the which tokens of homage 
 George received very graciously, as became his superior merit. 
 
 So that Lieutenant Osborne, when coming to Russell Square 
 on the day of the Vauxhall party, said to the ladies, " Mrs. 
 Sedley, Ma'am, I hope you have room; I've asked Dobbin of 
 ours to come and dine here, and go with us to Vauxhall. He's 
 almost as modest as Jos.'* 
 
 " Modesty! pooh," said the stout gentleman, casting a vain- 
 queur look at Miss Sharp. 
 
 " He is — ^but you are incomparably more graceful, Sedley," 
 Osborne added, laughing. " I met him at the Bedford, when 
 I went to look for you; and I told him that Miss Amelia 
 was come home, and that we were all bent on going out for a 
 night's pleasuring; and that Mrs. Sedley had forgiven his break- 
 ing the punch-bowl at the child's party. Don't you remember 
 the catastrophe. Ma'am, seven years ago } " 
 
 " Over Mrs. Flamingo's crimson silk gown," said good-natured 
 Mrs. Sedley. " What a gawky it was ! And his sisters are not 
 much more graceful. Lady Dobbin was at Highbury last night 
 with three of them. Such figures ! my dears." 
 
 " The Alderman's very rich, isn't he ? " Osborne said archly. 
 " Don't you think one of the daughters would be a good spec 
 for me. Ma'am ? " 
 
 " You foolish creature! Who would take you, I should like 
 to know, with your yellow face ? " 
 
 " Mine a yellow face } Stop till you see Dobbin. Why, he 
 had the yellow fever three times; twice at Nassau and once at 
 St, Kitts." 
 
48 Vanity Fair 
 
 " Well^ well; yours is quite yellow enough for us. Isn't it, 
 Emmy? " Mrs. Sedley said: at which speech Miss Amelia only 
 made a smile and a blush; and looking at Mr. George Osborne's 
 pale interesting countenance, and those beautiful black, curling, 
 shining whiskers, which the young gentleman himself regarded 
 with no ordinary complacency, she thought in her little heart, 
 that in His Majesty's army, or in the wide world, there never 
 was such a face or such a hero. " I don't care about Captain 
 Dobbin's complexion," she said, " or about his awkwardness. 
 I shall always like him, I know; " her little reason being, that he 
 was the friend and champion of George. 
 
 " There's not a finer fellow in the service," Osborne said, " nor 
 a better officer, though he is not an Adonis, certainly." And 
 he looked towards the glass himself with much naivete ; and in 
 so doing, caught Miss Sharp's eye fixed keenly upon him, at 
 which he blushed a little, and Rebecca thought in her heart, 
 " Ah, mon heaii Monsieur 1 I think I have your gauge," — the 
 little artful minx ! 
 
 That evening when Amelia came tripping into the drawing- 
 room in a white muslin frock, prepared for conquest at Vauxhall, 
 singing like a lark, and as fresh as a rose — a very tall ungainly 
 gentleman, with large hands and feet, and large ears, set off by 
 a closely cropped head of black hair, and in the hideous miHtary 
 frogged coat and cocked-hat of those times, advanced to meet 
 her, and made her one of the clumsiest bows that was ever per- 
 formed by a mortal. 
 
 This was no other than Captain William Dobbin, of His 
 
 Majesty's Regiment of Foot, returned from yellow fever, in 
 
 the West Indies, to which the fortune of the service had ordered 
 his regiment, whilst so many of his gallant comrades were reaping 
 glory in the Peninsula. 
 
 He had arrived with a knock so very timid and quiet, that it 
 was inaudible to the ladies upstairs : otherwise, you may be sure 
 Miss Amelia would never have been so bold as to come singing 
 into the room. As it was, the sweet fresh little voice went right 
 into the Captain's heart, and nestled there. When she held out 
 her hand for him to shake, before he enveloped it in his own, he 
 paused, and thought — " Well, is it possible — are you the little 
 maid I remember in the pink frock, such a short time ago — the 
 night I upset the punch-bowl, just after I was gazetted.'' Are 
 you the little girl that George Osborne said should marry him ? 
 What a blooming young creature you seem, and what a 
 prize the rogue has got ! " All this he thought, before he 
 
Dobbin of Ours 49 
 
 took Amelia's hand into his own, and as he let his cocked-hat 
 fall. 
 
 His history since he left school^ until the very moment when 
 we have the pleasure of meeting him again^ although not fully 
 narrated, has yet, I think, been indicated sufficiently for an in- 
 genious reader by the conversation in the last page. Dobbin, 
 the despised grocer, was Alderman Dobbin — Alderman Dobbin 
 was Colonel of the City Light Horse, then burning with military 
 ardour to resist the French Invasion. Colonel Dobbin's coros, 
 in which old Mr. Osborne himself was but an indifferent corporal, 
 had been reviewed by the Sovereign and the Duke of York; and 
 the colonel and alderman had been knighted. His son had 
 entered the army: and young Osborne followed presently in 
 the same regiment. They had served in the West Indies and in 
 Canada. Their regiment had just come home, and the attach- 
 ment of Dobbin to George Osborne was as warm and generous 
 now as it had been when the two were schoolboys. 
 
 So these worthy people sat down to dinner presently. They 
 talked about war and glory, and Boney and Lord Wellington, 
 and thp- last Gazette. In those famous days every Gazette had 
 a victory in it, and the two gallant young men longed to see their 
 own names in the glorious list, and cursed their unlucky fate to 
 belong to a regiment which had been away from the chances of 
 honour. Miss Sharp kindled with this exciting talk, but Miss 
 Sedley trembled and grew quite faint as she heard it. Mr. Jos 
 told several of his tiger-hunting stories, finished the one about 
 Miss Cutler and Lance the surgeon; helped Rebecca to every- 
 thing on the table, and himself gobbled and drank a great deal. 
 
 He sprang to open the door for the ladies, when they retired, 
 with the most killing grace — and coming back to the table, 
 filled himself bumper after bumper of claret, which he swallowed 
 with nervous rapidity. 
 
 " He's priming himself," Osborne whispered to Dobbin, and 
 at length the hour and the carriage arrived for Vauxhall. 
 
50 Vanity Fair 
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 VAUXHALL 
 
 I KNOW that the tune I am piping is a very mild one (although 
 there are some terrific chapters coming presently), and must beg 
 the good-natured reader to remember, that we are only discours- 
 ing at present about a stockbroker's family in Russell Square, 
 who are taking walks, or luncheon, or dinner, or talking and 
 making love as people do in common life, and without a single 
 passionate and wonderful incident to mark the progress of their 
 loves. The argument stands thus — Osborne, in love with 
 Amelia, has asked an old friend to dinner and to Vauxhall — Jos 
 Sedley is in love with Rebecca. Will he marry her? That is 
 the great subject now in hand. 
 
 We' might have treated this subject in the genteel, or in the 
 romantic, or in the facetious manner. Suppose we had laid the 
 scene in Grosvenor Square, with the very same adventures — 
 would not some people have listened? Suppose we had shown 
 how Lord Joseph Sedley fell in love, and the Marquis of Osborne 
 became attached to Lady Amelia, with the full consent of the 
 Duke, her noble father : or instead of the supremely genteel, 
 suppose we had resorted to the entirely low, and described what 
 was going on in Mr. Sedley 's kitchen; — ^how black Sambo was in 
 love with the cook (as indeed he was), and how he fought a battle 
 with the coachman in her behalf; how the knife-boy was caught 
 stealing a cold shoulder of mutton, and Miss Sedley's new femme 
 de chamhre refused to go to bed without a wax candle; such 
 incidents might be made to provoke much delightful laughter, 
 and be supposed to represent scenes of " life." Or if, on the 
 contrary, we had taken a fancy for the terrible, and made the 
 lover of the new femme de chamhre a professional burglar, who 
 bursts into the house with his band, slaughters black Sambo at 
 the feet of his master, and carries off Amelia in her night-dress, 
 not to be let loose again till the third volume, we should easily 
 have constructed a tale of thrilling interest, through the fiery 
 chapters of which the reader should hurry, panting. But my 
 readers must hope for no such romance, only a homely story, 
 and must be content with a chapter about Vauxhall, which is 
 so short that it scarce deserves to be called a chapter at all. And 
 yet it is a chapter, and a very important one too. Are not there 
 
Vauxhall 5 1 
 
 little chapters in everybody's life, that seem to be nothing, and 
 yet aSect all the rest of the history ? 
 
 Let us then step into the coach with the Russell Square party, 
 and be ofi to the gardens. There is barely room between Jos 
 and Miss Sharp, who are on the front seat; Mr. Osborne sitting 
 bodldn opposite, between Captain Dobbin and Amelia. 
 
 Every soul in the coach agreed, that on that night, Jos would 
 propose to make Rebecca Sharp Mrs. Sedley. The parents at 
 home had acquiesced in the arrangement, though, between our—, 
 selves, old Mr. Sedley had a feeling very much akin to contempt 1 
 for his son. He said he was vain, selfish, lazy, and effeminate. ^ 
 He could not endure his airs as a man of fashion, and laughed ' 
 heartily at his pompous braggadocio stories. " I shall leave 
 the fellow half my property," he said; "and he will have, 
 besides, plenty of his own; but as I am perfectly sure that if 
 you, and X, and his sister were to die to-morrow, he would say 
 * Good Gad ! ' and eat his dinner just as well as usual, I am not 
 going to make myself anxious about him. Let him marry 
 whom he likes. It's no affair of mine." 
 
 Amelia, on the other hand, as became a young woman of her / 
 prudence and temperament, was quite enthusiastic for the ] 
 match. Once or twice Jos had been on the point of saying I 
 something very important to her, to which she was most willing | 
 to lend an ear, but the fat fellow could not be brought to un- f 
 bosom himseK of his great secret, and very rmich to his sister's ; 
 disappointment he only rid himself of a large sigh and turned i 
 away. * 
 
 This mystery served to keep Amelia's gentle bosom in a per- 
 petual flutter of excitement. If she did not speak with Rebecca 
 on the tender subject, she compensated herself with long and 
 intimate conversations with Mrs. Blenkinsop, the housekeeper, 
 who dropped some hints to the lady's-maid, who may have 
 cursorily mentioned the matter to the cook, who carried the 
 news, I have no doubt, to all the tradesmen, so that Mr. Jos's 
 marriage was now talked of by a very considerable number of ■ 
 persons in the Russell Square world. 
 
 It was, of course, Mrs. Sedie}^'s opinion that her son would 
 demean himself by a marriage with an artist's daughter. " But, 
 lor', Ma'am," ejaculated Mrs. Blenkinsop, " we was only grocers 
 when we married Mr. S., who was a stockbroker's clerk, and we 
 hadn't five hundred pounds among us, and we're rich enough 
 now." And Amelia was entirely of this opinion, to which, 
 gradually, the good-natured Mrs. Sedley was brought. 
 
5 2 Vanity Fair 
 
 Mr. Sedley was neutral. " Let Jos marry whom he likes/' 
 he said; " it's no affair of mine. This girl has no fortune; no 
 more had Mrs. Sedley. She seems good-humoured and clever, 
 and will keep him in order, perhaps. Better she, my dear, than 
 a black Mrs. Sedley, and a dozen of mahogany grandchildren." 
 So that everything seemed to smile upon Rebecca's fortunes. 
 She took Jos's arm, as a matter of course, on going to dinner: 
 she had sate by him on the box of his open carriage (a most 
 . tremendous " buck " he was, as he sat there, serene, in state, 
 driving his greys), and though nobody said a word on the sub- 
 ject of the marriage, everybody seemed to understand it. All 
 she wanted was the proposal, and ah! how Rebecca now felt 
 the want of a mother ! — a dear, tender mother, who would have 
 managed the business in ten minutes, and, in the course of a 
 little delicate confidential conversation, would have extracted 
 the interesting avowal from the bashful lips of the young man ! 
 Such was the state of affairs as the carriage crossed West- 
 minster Bridge. 
 
 The party was landed at the Royal Gardens in due time. As 
 the majestic Jos stepped out of the creaking vehicle the crowd 
 gave a cheer for the fat gentleman, who blushed and looked 
 very big and mighty, as he walked away with Rebecca under 
 his arm. George, of course, took charge of Amelia. She 
 looked as happy as a rose-tree in sunshine. 
 
 " I say, Dobbin," says George, " just look to the shawls and 
 things, there's a good fellow." And so while he paired off with 
 Miss Sedley, and Jos squeezed through the gate into the gardens 
 with Rebecca at his side, honest Dobbin contented himself by 
 giving an arm to the shawls, and by paying at the door for the 
 whole party. 
 
 He walked very modestly behind them. He was not willing 
 to spoil sport. About Rebecca and Jos he did not care a fig. 
 But he thought Amelia worthy even of the brilliant George 
 Osborne, and as he saw that good-looking couple threading the 
 walks to the girl's delight and wonder, he watched her artless 
 happiness with a sort of fatherly pleasure. Perhaps he felt 
 that he would have liked to have something on his own arm 
 besides a shawl (the people laughed at seeing the gawky young 
 I officer carrying this female burthen); but William Dobbin was 
 j very little addicted to selfish calculation at all; and so long as 
 his friend was enjoying himself, how should he be discontented? 
 And the truth is, that of all the delights of the Gardens ; of the 
 hundred thousand extra lamps, which were always lighted; the 
 
Vauxhall 53 
 
 fiddlers in cocked hats, who played ravishing melodies under 
 the gilded cockle-shell in the midst of the Gardens ; the singers, 
 both of comic and sentimental ballads, who charmed the ears 
 there; the country dances, formed by bouncing cockneys and 
 cockneyesses, and executed amidst jumping, thumping, and 
 laughter; the signal which announced that Madame Saqui was 
 about to mount skyward on a slack-rope ascending to the stars ; 
 the hermit that always sat in the illuminated hermitage; the 
 dark walks, so favourable to the interviews of young lovers; 
 the pots of stout handed about by the people in the shabby old 
 liveries; and the twinkling boxes, in which the happy f casters 
 made-believe to eat slices of almost invisible ham ; — of all these 
 things, and of the gentle Simpson, that kind smiling idiot, who, 
 I daresay, presided even then over the place- — Captain William 
 Dobbin did not take the slightest notice. 
 
 He carried about Amelia's white cashmere shawl, and having 
 attended under the gilt cockle-shell. Mobile Mrs. Salmon per- 
 formed the Battle of Borodino (a savage cantata against the 
 Corsican upstart, who had lately met with his Russian reverses) 
 — Mr. Dobbin tried to hum it as he walked away, and found he 
 was humming — the tune which Amelia Sedley sang on the 
 stairs, as she came down to dinner. 
 
 He burst out laughing at himself; for the truth is, he could 
 sing no better than an owl. 
 
 It is to be understood, as a matter of course, that our young 
 people, being in parties of two and two, made the most solemn 
 promises to keep together during the evening, and separated in 
 ten minutes afterwards. Parties at Vauxhall always did 
 separate, but 'twas only to meet again at supper-time, when 
 they could talk of their mutual adventures in the interval. 
 
 What were the adventures of Mr. Osborne and Miss Amelia ? 
 That is a secret. But be sure of this — they were perfectly 
 happy, and correct in their behaviour; and as they had been 
 in the habit of being together any time these fifteen years, their 
 tete-a-tete offered no particular novelty. 
 
 But when Miss Rebecca Sharp and her stout companion lost^ 
 themselves in a solitary walk, in which there were not above '; 
 five score more of couples similarly straying, they both felt that ; 
 the situation was -extremely. te:nder and Gritical, and now or I 
 never was the moment. Miss Sharp thought, to provoke that \ 
 declaration which was trembling on the timid lips of Mr. Sedley. \ 
 They had previously been to the panorama of Moscow, where a S 
 rude fellow, treading on Miss Sharp's foot, caused her to fall 
 
5^4 Vanity Fair 
 
 back with a little shriek into the arms of Mr. Sedley, and this 
 little incident increased the tenderness and confidence of that 
 gentleman to such a degree, that he told her several of his 
 favourite Indian stories over again for, at least, the sixth time. 
 
 " How I should like to see India! " said Rebecca. 
 
 " Should you.^* " said Joseph, with a most killing tenderness; 
 and was no doubt about to follow up this artful interrogatory 
 by a question still more tender (for he puffed and panted a 
 great deal, and Rebecca's hand, which was placed near his 
 heart, could count the feverish pulsations of that organ), when, 
 oh, provoking! the beU rang for the fireworks, and, a great 
 scufSing and running taking place, these interesting lovers were 
 obliged to follow in ^e stream of people. 
 
 Captain Dobbin had some thoughts of joining the party at 
 supper: as, in truth, he found the -Vauxhall amusements not 
 particularly lively — ^but he paraded twice before the box where 
 liie now united couples were met, and nobody took any notice 
 of him. Covers were laid for four. The mated pairs were 
 prattling away quite happily, and Dobbin knew he was as clean 
 forgotten as if he had never existed in this world. 
 
 " I should only be de trop,^\ said the Captain, looking at them 
 rather wistfully. " I'd best go and talk to the hermit," — ^and 
 so he strolled off out of the hum of men, and noise, and clatter 
 of the banquet, into the dark walk, at the end of which lived 
 that well-known pasteboard Solitary, It wasn't very good fun 
 for Dobbin — and, indeed, to be alone at Vauxhall, I have found, 
 from my own experience, to be one of the most dismal sports 
 ever entered into by a bachelor. 
 
 The two couples were perfectly happy then in liieir box: 
 where the most delightful and intimate conversation took 
 place. Jos was in his glory, ordering about the waiters with 
 great majesty. He made the salad ; and uncorked the Cham- 
 pagne; and carved the chicken; and ate and drank the greater 
 part of the refreshments on the tables. Finally, he insisted 
 upon having a bowl of rack punch ; everybody had rack punch 
 at Vauxhall. " Waiter, rack punch." 
 
 That bowl of rack punch was the cause of all this history. 
 And why not a bov/1 of rack punch as well, as any other cause? 
 Was not a bowl of prussic acid the cause of Fair Rosamond's 
 retiring from the world? Was not a bowl of wine the cause of 
 the demise of Alexander the Great, or, at least, does not Dr. 
 i Lempriere say so? — ^so did this bowl of rack punch influence the 
 Ijfates of all the principal characters in this "Novel without a 
 
VauxhalF 55 
 
 Hero," which we are now relating. It influenced their life! 
 although most of them did not taste a drop of it. < 
 
 The young ladies did not drink it; Osborne did not like it; 
 and the consequence was that Jos, that fat gourmand, drank up 
 the whole contents of the bowl; and the consequence of his 
 drinking up the whole contents of the bowl was, a liveliness 
 which at first was astonishing, and then became almost painful; 
 for he talked and laughed so loud as to bring scores of listeners 
 round the box, much to the confusion of the innocent party 
 within it; and, volunteering to sing a song (which he did in that 
 maudlin high key peculiar to gentlemen in an inebriated state), 
 he almost drew away the audience who were gathered round the 
 musicians in the gilt scollop-shell, and received from his hearers 
 a great deal of applause. 
 
 " Brayvo, Fat un ! " said one; " Angcore, Daniel Lambert! " 
 said another; " What a figure for the tight-rope! " exclaimed 
 another wag, to the inexpressible alarm of the ladies, and the 
 great anger of Mr. Osborne. 
 
 " For Heaven's sake, Jos, let us get up and go," cried that 
 gentleman, and the young women rose. 
 
 " Stop, my dearest, diddle-diddle-darling," shouted Jos, now 
 as bold as a lion, and clasping Miss Rebecca round the waist. 
 Rebecca started, but she could not get away her hand. The 
 laughter outside redoubled. Jos continued to drink, to make 
 love, and to sing; and, winking and waving his glass gracefully 
 to his audience, challenged all or any to come in and take a share 
 of his punch. 
 
 Mr. Osborne was just on the point of knocking down a gentle- 
 man in top-boots, who proposed to take advantage of this 
 invitation, and a commotion seemed to be inevitable, when by the 
 greatest good luck a gentleman of the name of Dobbin, who had 
 been walking about the gardens, stepped up to the box. " Be 
 off, you fools ! " said this gentleman — shouldering off a great 
 number of the crowd, who vanished presently before his cocked 
 hat and fierce appearance- -and he entered the box in a most 
 agitated state. 
 
 " Good Heavens! Dobbin, where have you been? " Osborne 
 said, seizing the white cashmere shawl from his friend's arm, and 
 huddling up Amelia in it. " Make yourself useful, and take 
 charge of Jos here, whilst I take the ladies to the carriage." 
 
 Jos was for rising to interfere — but a single push from Osborne's 
 finger sent him puffing back into his seat again, and the lieu- 
 tenant was enabled to remove the ladies in safety. Jos kissed 
 
56 Vanity Fair 
 
 his hand to them as they retreated, and hiccupped out " Bless 
 you! Bless you! " Then, seizing Captain Dobbin's hand, and 
 weeping in the most pitiful way, he confided to tha^ gentleman 
 the secret of his loves. He adored that girl who had just gone 
 out; he had broken her heart, he knew he had, by his conduct; 
 he would marry her next morning at St. George's, Hanover 
 Square; he'd knock up the Archbishop of Canterbury at Lam- 
 beth: he would, by Jove ! and have him in readiness; and, acting 
 on this hint. Captain Dobbin shrewdly induced him to leave the 
 gardens and hasten to Lambeth Palace, and, when once out of 
 the gates, easily conveyed Mr. Jos Sedley into a hackney-coach, 
 which deposited him safely at his lodgings. 
 
 George Osborne conducted the girls home in safety: and 
 when the door was closed upon them, and as he walked across 
 Russell Square, laughed so as to astonish the watchman. Amelia 
 looked very ruefully at her friend, as they went upstairs, and 
 kissed her, and went to bed without any more talking. 
 
 " He must propose to-morrow," thought Rebecca. " He 
 called me his soul's darling, four times; he squeezed my hand 
 in Amelia's presence. He must propose to-morrow." And so 
 thought Amelia, too. And I daresay she thought of the dress 
 she was to wear as bridesmaid, and of the presents which she 
 should make to her nice little sister-in-law, and of a subsequent 
 ceremony in which she herself might play a principal part, etc., 
 and etc., and etc., and etc. 
 
 Oh, ignorant young creatures! How little do you know the 
 effect of rack punch ! What is the rack in the punch, at night, 
 to the rack in the head of a morning ? To this truth I can vouch 
 as a man ; there is no headache in the world like that caused by 
 Vauxhall punch. Through the lapse of twenty years, I can 
 remember the consequence of two glasses ! — two wine glasses ! — 
 but two, upon the honour of a gentleman; and Joseph Sedley, 
 who had a liver complaint, had swallowed at least a quart of the 
 abominable mixture. 
 
 That next morning, v/hich Rebecca thought was to dawn upon 
 her fortune, found Sedley groaning in agonies which the pen 
 refuses to describe. Soda-water was not invented yet. Small 
 beer — will it be believed? — ^was the only drink with which un- 
 happy gentlemen soothed the fever of their previous night's 
 potation. With this mild beverage before him, George Osborne 
 found the ex-Collector of Boggley Wollah groaning on the sofa 
 
Vauxhall 57 
 
 at his lodgings. Dobbin v/as already in the room^ good-naturedly 
 tending his patient of the night before. The two officers, look- 
 ing at the prostrate Bacchanalian, and askance at each other, 
 exchanged the most frightful sympathetic grins. Even Sedley's 
 valet, the most solemn and correct of gentlemen, with the 
 muteness and gravity of an undertaker, could hardly keep his 
 countenance in order, as he looked at his unfortunate master. 
 
 " Mr. Sedley was uncommon wild last night, sir," he whispered 
 in confidence to Osborne, as the latter mounted the stair. " He 
 wanted to fight the 'ackney-coachman, sir. The Capting was 
 obliged to bring him upstairs in his harms like a babby." A 
 momentary smile flickered over Mr. Brush's features as he spoke ; 
 instantly, however, they rela,psed into their usual unfathomable 
 calm, as he flung open the drawing-room door, and announced 
 " Mr. Hosbm." 
 
 "How are you, Sedley?" that young wag began, after 
 surveying his victim. " No bones broke? There's a hackney- 
 coachman downstairs with a black eye, and a tied-up head, 
 vowing he'll have the law of you." 
 
 " What do you mean, — law? " Sedley faintly asked. 
 
 " For thrashing him last night — didn't he, Dobbin? You hit 
 out, sir, like Molyneux. The watchman says he never saw a 
 fellow go down so straight. Ask Dobbin." 
 
 " You did have a round with the coachman," Captain Dobbin 
 said, " and showed plenty of fight too." 
 
 " And that fellow with the white coat at Vauxhall ! How Jos 
 drove at him ! How the women screamed ! By Jove, sir, it did 
 my heart good to see you. I thought you civilians had no pluck ; 
 but ril never get in your way when you are in your cups, Jos." 
 
 " I believe I'm very terrible, when I'm roused," ejaculated 
 Jos from the sofa, and made a grimace so dreary and ludicrous, 
 that the Captain's politeness could restrain him no longer^ and 
 he and Osborne fired off a ringing volley of laughter. 
 
 Osborne pursued his advantage pitilessly. He thought Jos 
 a milksop. He had been revolving in his mind the marriage- 
 question pending between Jos and Rebecca, and was not over 
 well pleased that a member of a family into which he, George 
 Osborne, of the — th, was going to marry, should make a mesalli- 
 ance with a little nobody — a little upstart governess. " You hit, 
 you poor old fellow!" said Osborne. "You terrible! Why, 
 man, you couldn't stand — ^}^ou made everybody laugh in the 
 Gardens, though you were crying yourself. You were maudlin, 
 Jos. Don't you remember singing a song? " 
 
58 Vanity Fair 
 
 "Av/hat?" Josasked. 
 
 " A sentimental song, and calling Rosa, Rebecca, what's her 
 name, Amelia's little friend — ^your dearest diddle-diddle-darling ? 
 And this ruthless young fellow, seizing hold of Dobbin's hand, 
 acted over the scene, to the horror of the original performer, and 
 in spite of Dobbin's good-natured entreaties to him to have 
 mercy. 
 
 " Why should I spare him ? " Osborne said to his friend's 
 remonstrances, when they quitted the invalid, leaving him under 
 the hands of Doctor Gollop. " What the detice right has he to 
 give himself his patronising airs, and make fools of us at Vaux- 
 hall? Who's this little schoolgirl that is ogling and making love 
 to him? Hang it, the family's low enough already, without her. 
 A governess is all very well, but I'd rather have a lady for my 
 sister-in-law. I'm a liberal man; but I've proper pride, and 
 know my own station: let her know hers. And I'll take down 
 that great hectoring Nabob, and prevent him from being made 
 a greater fool than he is. That's why I told him to look out, lest 
 she brought an action against him." 
 
 " I suppose you know best," Dobbin said, though rather 
 dubiously. " You always were a Tory, and your family's one of 
 the oldest in England. But " 
 
 " Come and see the girls, and make love to Miss Sharp your- 
 self," the lieutenant here interrupted his friend; but Captain 
 Dobbin declined to join Osborne in his daily visit to the young 
 ladies in Russell Square. 
 
 As George walked down Southampton Row, from Holbom, 
 he laughed as he saw, at the Sedley mansion, in two different 
 storeys, two heads on the look-out. 
 
 The fact is, Miss Amelia, in the drawing-room balcony, was 
 looking very eagerly towards the opposite side of the Square, 
 where Mr. Osborne dwelt, on the watch for the lieutenant himself ; 
 and Miss Sharp, from her little bedroom on the second floor, 
 was in observation until Mr. Joseph's great form should heave 
 in sight. 
 
 " Sister Anne is on the watch-tower," said he to Amelia, " but 
 there's nobody coming; " and laughing and enjoying the joke 
 hugely, he described in the most ludicrous terms to Miss Sedley, 
 the dismal condition of her brother. 
 
 " I think it's very cruel of you to laugh, George," she said, 
 looking particularly unhappy; but George only laughed the 
 more at her piteous and discomfited mien, persisted in thinking 
 the joke a most diverting one, and when Miss Sharp came down- 
 
Vauxhall 59 
 
 stairs, bantered her with a great deal of liveliness upon the effect 
 of her charms on the fat civilian. 
 
 " O Miss Sharp ! if you could but see him this morning/' he 
 said — " moaning in his flowered dressing-gown — writhing on his 
 sofa; if you could but have seen him lolling out his tongue to 
 Gollop the apothecary." 
 
 " See whom? " said Miss Sharp. 
 
 " Whom ? whom ? Captain Dobbin, of course, to whom 
 we were all so attentive, by the way, last night." 
 
 " We were very unkind to him," Emmy said, blushing very 
 much. " I — I quite forgot him." 
 
 " Of course you did," cried Osborne, still on the laugh. " One 
 can't be always thinking about Dobbin, you know, Amelia. 
 Can one, Miss Sharp ? " ; 
 
 " Except when he overset the glass of wine at dinner," Miss 
 Sharp said, with a haughty air and a toss of the head, " I never 
 gave the existence of Captain Dobbin one single moment's con- 
 sideration." 
 
 " Very good, Miss Sharp, I'll tell him," Osborne said; and as 
 he spoke Miss Sharp began to have a feeling of distrust and 
 hatred towards this young officer, which he was quite uncon- 
 scious of having inspired. " He is to make fun of me, is he? " 
 thought Rebecca. " Has he been laughing about me to Joseph ? 
 Has he frightened him? Perhaps he won't come." A film 
 passed over her eyes, and her heart beat quite quick. 
 
 " You're always joking," said she, smiling as innocently as 
 she could. " Joke away, Mr. George; there's nobody to defend 
 me." And George Osborne, as she walked away — ^and Amelia 
 looked reprovingly at him — felt some little manly compunction 
 for having inflicted any unnecessary unkindness upon this help- 
 less creature. "My dearest Amelia," said he, "you are too 
 good — too kind. You don't know the world. I do. And your 
 little friend Miss Sharp must learn her station." 
 
 " Don't you think Jos will " 
 
 " Upon my word, my dear, I don't know. He may, or may 
 not. I'm not his master. I only know he is a very foolish vain 
 fellow, and put my dear little girl into a very painful and awk- 
 ward position last night. My dearest diddle-diddle-darling ! " 
 He was off laughing again; and he did it so droUy that Emmy 
 laughed too. 
 
 All that day Jos never came. But Amelia had no fear about 
 this; for the little schemer had actually sent away the page, 
 Mr. Sambo's aide-de-camp, to Mr. Joseph's lodgings, to ask for 
 
6o Vanity Fair 
 
 some book he had promised, and how he was; and the reply 
 through Jos's man, Mr. Brush, was, that his master was ill in bed, 
 and had just had the doctor with him. He must come to- 
 morrow, she thought, but she never had the courage to speak 
 a word on the subject to Rebecca; nor did that young woman 
 herself allude to it in any way during the whole evening after 
 the night at Vauxhall. 
 
 The next day, however, as the two young ladies sate on the 
 sofa, pretending to work, or to write letters, or to read novels. 
 Sambo came into the room with his usual engaging grin, with a 
 packet under his arm, and a note on a tray. " Note from Mr. 
 Jos, Miss," says Sambo. 
 
 How Amelia trembled as she opened it ! 
 
 So it ran — 
 
 " Dear Amelia, — I send 5?-ou the Orphan of the Forest. I was 
 too ill to come yesterday. I leave town to-day for Cheltenham. 
 Pray excuse me, if you can, to the amiable Miss Sharp, for my con- 
 duct at Vauxhall, and entreat her to pardon and forget every word 
 I may have uttered when excited by that fatal supper. As soon as 
 I have recovered, for my health is very much shaken, I shall go to 
 Scotland for some months, and am 
 
 " Truly yours, 
 
 " Jos. Sedley." 
 
 It was the death-warrant. All was over. Amelia did not 
 \ dare to look at Rebecca's pale face and burning eyes, but she 
 I dropt the letter into her friend's lap; and got up, and went up- 
 \ stairs to her room, and cried her little heart out. 
 
 Blenkinsop, the housekeeper, there sought her presently with 
 consolation, on whose shoulder Amelia wept confidentially, and 
 relieved herself a good deal. " Don't take on. Miss. I didn't 
 like to tell you. But none of us in the house have liked her 
 except at fust. I sor her with my own eyes reading your Ma's 
 letters. Pinner says she's always about your trinket-box and 
 drawers, ?ond everybody's drawers, and she's sure she's pui^our 
 white ribbing into her box." 
 
 " I gave it her, I gave it her," Amelia said. 
 
 But this did not alter Mrs. Blenkinsop's opinion of Miss Sharp. 
 " I don't trust them governesses. Pinner," she remarked to the 
 maid. " They give themselves the hairs and hupstarts of ladies, 
 and their wages is no better than you nor me." 
 
 It now became clear to every soul in the house, except poor 
 Amelia, that Rebecca should take her departure, and high and 
 low (always with the one exception) agreed that that event 
 
Vauxhall 6 1 
 
 should take place as speedily as possible. Our good child 
 ransacked all her drawers, cupboards, reticules, and gimcrack 
 boxes — passed in review all her gowns, fichus, tags, bobbins, 
 laces, silk stockings, and fallals, — selecting this thing and that 
 and the other, to make a little heap for Rebecca. And going to 
 her Papa, that generous British merchant, who had promised 
 to give her as many guineas as she was years old — she begged 
 the old gentleman to give the money to dear Rebecca, who must 
 want it, while she lacked for nothing. 
 
 She even made George Osborne contribute, and nothing loth 
 (for he was as free-handed a young fellow as any in the army), 
 he went to Bond Street, and bought the best hat and spenser 
 that money could buy. 
 
 " That's George's present to you, Rebecca, dear," said Amelia, 
 quite proud of the bandbox conveying these gifts. " What a 
 taste he has ! There's nobody like him." 
 
 "Nobody," Rebecca answered. "How thankful I am tof 
 him ! " She was thinking in her heart, " It was George Osborne 1 
 who prevented my marriage." — ^And she loved George Osborne \ 
 accordingly. \ 
 
 She made her preparations for departure with great equa- 
 nimity; and accepted all the kind little Amelia's presents, after 
 just the proper degree of hesitation and reluctance. She 
 vowed eternal gratitude to Mrs. Sedley, of course; but did not 
 intrude herself upon that good lady too much, who was em- 
 barrassed, and evidently wishing to avoid her. She kissed Mr. 
 Sedley's hand, when he presented her with the purse ; and asked 
 permission to consider him for the future as her kind, kind friend 
 and protector. Her behaviour was so affecting that he was 
 going to write her a cheque for twenty pounds more; but he 
 restrained his feelings : the carriage was in waiting to take him to 
 dinner, so he tripped away with a " God bless you, my dear; 
 always come here when you come to town, you know. — Drive 
 to the Mansion House, James." 
 
 Finally came the parting with Miss Amelia, over which picture 
 I intend to throw a veil. But after a scene in which one person 
 was in earnest and the other a perfect performer — after the 
 tenderest caresses, the most pathetic tears, the smelling-bottle, 
 and some of the very best feelings of the heart, had been called 
 into requisition — ^Rebecca and Amelia parted, the former vowing 
 to love her friend for ever and ever and ever. 
 
62 Vanity Fair 
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 CRAWLEY OF QUEEN's CRAWLEY 
 
 Among the most respected of the names beginning in C, which 
 the Court Guide contained in the year i8 — , was that of Crawley, 
 Sir Pitt, Baronet, Great Gaunt Street, and Queen's Crawley, 
 Hants. This honourable name had figured constantly also in 
 the Parliamentary list for many years, in conjunction with that 
 of a number of other worthy gentlemen who sat in turns for the 
 borough. 
 
 It is related, with regard to the borough of Queen's Crawley, 
 that Queen Elizabeth in one of her progresses, stopping at 
 Crawley to breakfast, was so delighted with some remarkably 
 fine Hampshire beer which was then presented to her by the 
 Crawley of the day (a handsome gentleman with a trim beard 
 and a good leg), that she forthwith erected Crawley into a 
 borough to send two members to Parliament; and the place, 
 from the day of that illustrious visit, took the name of Queen's 
 Crawley, which it holds up to the present moment. And though, 
 by the lapse of time, and those mutations which age produces in 
 empires, cities, and boroughs, Queen's Crawley was no longer so 
 populous a place as it had been in Queen Bess's time — nay, was 
 come down to that condition of borough which used to be 
 denominated rotten — yet, as Sir Pitt Crawley would say with 
 perfect justice in his elegant way, " Rotten I be hanged — it pro- 
 duces me a good fifteen hundred a year." 
 
 Sir Pitt Crawley (named after the great Commoner) was the 
 son of Walpole Crawley, first Baronet, of the Tape and Sealing- 
 Wax Office in the reign of George II.., when he was impeached 
 for peculation, as were a great number of other honest gentle- 
 men of those days; and Walpole Crawley was, as need scarcely 
 be said, son of John Churchill Crawley, named after the cele- 
 brated military commander of the reign of Queen Anne. The 
 family tree (which hangs up at Queen's Crawley) furthermore 
 mentions Charles Stuart, afterwards called Barebones Crawley, 
 son of the Crawley of James the First's time; and finally. 
 Queen Elizabeth's Crawley, who is represented as tlie foreground 
 of the picture in his forked beard and armour. Out of his 
 waistcoat, as usual, grows a tree, on the main branches of which 
 the above illustrious names are inscribed,: Close by the name 
 
Crawley of Queen's Crawley 63 
 
 of Sir Pitt Crawley, Baronet (the subject of the present memoir), 
 are written that of his brother, the Reverend Bute Crawley (the 
 great Commoner was in disgrace when the reverend gentleman 
 was bom), rector of Crawley-cum-Snailby, and of various other 
 male and female members of the Crawley family. 
 
 Sir Pitt was first married to Grizzel, sixth daughter of Mungo 
 Binkie, Lord Binkie, and cousin, in consequence, of Mr. Dundas. 
 She brought him two sons: Pitt, named not so much after his 
 father as after the heaven-bom minister ; and Rawdon Crawley, 
 from the Prince of Wales's friend, whom His Majesty George 
 IV. forgot so completely. Many years after her ladyship's 
 demise. Sir Pitt led to the altar Rosa, daughter of Mr. G. Daw- 
 son, of Mudbury, by whom he had two daughters, for whose 
 benefit Miss Rebecca Sharp wa^ now engaged as governess. It i 
 will be seen that the young lady was come into a family of very 
 genteel connections, and was about to move in a much more 
 distinguished circle than that humble one which she had just 
 quitted in Russell Square. 
 
 She had received her orders to join her pupils, in a note which 
 was written upon an old envelope, and which contained the 
 following words: — 
 
 " Sir Pitt Crawley begs Miss Sharp and baggidge may be here 
 on Tuesday, as I leaf for Queen's Crawley to-morrow morning erly. 
 " Great Gaunt Street" 
 
 Rebecca had never seen a Baronet, as far as she knew, andi 
 as soon as she had taken leave of Amelia, and counted thej 
 guineas which good-natured Mr. Sedley had put into a purse 1 
 for her, and as soon as she had done wiping her eyes with her \ 
 handkerchief (which operation she concluded the very moment ; 
 the carriage had turned the comer of the street), she began to '. 
 depict in her own mind what a baronet must be. " I wonder ; 
 does he wear a star? " thought she, "or is it only lords that / 
 wear stars ? But he will be very handsomely dressed in a court 
 suit, with ruffles, and his hair a little powdered, like Mr. Wrough- 
 ton at Co vent Garden. I suppose he will be awfully proud, and 
 that I shall be treated most contemptuously. Still I must bear 
 my hard lot as well as I can — at least, I shall be amongst gentle- 
 folks y and not with vulgar city people: " and she fell to thinking | 
 of her Russell Square friends with that very same philosophical) 
 bitterness with which, in a certain apologue, the fox is repre-j 
 sented as speaking of the grapes. \ 
 
 Having passed through Gaunt Square into Great Gaunt 
 
64 Vanity Fair 
 
 Street, the carriage at length stopped at a tall gloomy house 
 between two other tall gloomy houses, each with a hatchment 
 over the middle drawing-room window; as is the custom of 
 houses in Great Gaunt Street, in which gloomy locality death 
 seems to reign perpetual. The shutters of the first-floor 
 (vindows of Sir Pitt's mansion were closed — those of the dining- 
 room were partially open, and the blinds neatly covered up in 
 old newspapers. 
 
 John, the groom, who had driven the carriage alone, did not 
 care to descend to ring the bell; and so prayed a passing milk 
 boy to perform that office for him. When the bell was rung, 
 a head appeared between the interstices of the dining-room 
 shutters, and the door was opened by a man in drab breeches 
 and gaiters, with a dirty old coat, a foul old neckcloth lashed 
 round his bristly neck, a shining bald head, a leering red face, 
 a pair of twinkling grey eyes, and a mouth perpetually on the 
 grin. 
 
 " This Sir Pitt Crawley's? " says John, from the box. 
 
 " Ees," says the man at the door, with a nod. 
 
 " Hand down these 'ere trunks then," said John. 
 
 " Hand 'n down yourself," said the porter. 
 
 " Don't you see I can't leave my bosses ? Come, bear a hand, 
 my fine feller, and Miss will give you some beer," said John, 
 with a horse-laugh, for he was no longer respectful to Miss 
 Sharp, as her connection with the family was broken off, and 
 as she had given nothing to the servants on coming away. 
 
 The bald-headed man, taking his hands out of his breeches 
 pockets, advanced on this summons, and throwing Miss Sharp's 
 trunk over his shoulder, carried it into the house. 
 
 " Take this basket and shawl, if you please, and open the 
 door," said Miss Sharp, and descended from the carriage in 
 much indignation. " I shall \M*ite to Mr. Sedley and inform him 
 of your conduct," said she to the groom. 
 
 " Don't," replied that functionary. " I hope youVe forgot 
 nothink? Miss 'Melia's gownds — ^have you got them — as the 
 lady's-maid was to have 'ad.^* I hope they'll fit you. Shut 
 the door, Jim, you'll get no good out of '^r," continued John, 
 pointing with his thumb towards Miss Sharp; "a bad lot, I 
 tell you, a bad lot," and so saying, Mr. Sedley 's groom drove 
 away. The truth is, he was attached to the lady's-maid in 
 question, and indignant that she should have been robbed of 
 her perquisites. 
 
 On entering the dining-room, by the orders of the individual 
 
Crawley of Queen*s Crawley 65 
 
 in gaiters, Rebecca found that apartment not more cheerful 
 than such rooms usually are, when genteel families are out of 
 town. The faithful chambers seem, as it were, to mourn the 
 absence of their masters. The turkey carpet has rolled itself 
 up, and retired sulkily under the sideboard: the pictures have 
 hidden their faces behind old sheets of brown paper: the ceil- 
 ing lamp is muffled up in a dismal sack of brown holland : the 
 window-curtains have disappeared under all sorts of shabby 
 envelopes: the marble bust of Sir Walpole Crawley is looking 
 from its black comer at the bare boards and the oiled fire-irons, 
 and the empty card-racks over the mantelpiece: the cellaret 
 has lurked away behind the carpet: the chairs are turned up 
 heads and tails along the walls : and in the dark corner opposite 
 the statue, is an old-fashioned crabbed knife-box, locked and 
 sitting on a dumb waiter. 
 
 Two kitchen chairs, and a round table, and an attenuated 
 old poker and tongs were, however, gathered round the fire- 
 place, as was a saucepan over a feeble sputtering fire. There 
 was a bit of cheese and bread, and a tin candlestick on the table, 
 and a little black porter in a pint-pot. 
 
 " Had your dinner, I suppose ? It is not too warm for you ? 
 Like a drop of beer? " 
 
 " Where is Sir Pitt Crawley? " said Miss Sharp majestically. 
 
 " He, he ! /'m Sir Pitt Crawley. Reklect you owe me a 
 pint for bringing down your luggage. He, he! Ask Tinker if 
 I aynt. Mrs. Tinker, Miss Sharp; Miss Governess, Mrs. Char- 
 woman. Ho, ho ! " 
 
 The lady addressed as Mrs. Tinker, at this moment made her 
 appearance with a pipe and a paper of tobacco, for which she 
 had been despatched a minute before Miss Sharp's arrival; and 
 she handed the articles over to Sir Pitt, who had taken his seat 
 by the fire. 
 
 "Where's the farden? " said he. "I gave you three-half- 
 pence. Where's the change, old Tinker? " 
 
 " There I " replied Mrs. Tinker, flinging down the coin ; " it's 
 only baronets as cares about farthings." 
 
 " A farthing a day is seven shillings a year," answered the 
 M.P. ; " seven shillings a year is the interest of seven guineas. 
 Take care of your farthings. Old Tinker, and your guineas will 
 come quite nat'ral." 
 
 " You may be sure it's Sir Pitt Crawley, young woman," said 
 Mrs. Tinker surlily ; " because he looks to his farthings. You'll 
 know him better afore long." 
 
 c 
 
66 Vanity Fair 
 
 " And like me none the worse, Miss Sharp/' said the old 
 gentleman, with an air almost of politeness. " I must be just 
 before I'm generous." 
 
 " He never gave away a farthing in his life," growled Tinker. 
 
 " Never, and never will: it's against my principle. Go ajid 
 gei another chair from the kitchen. Tinker, if you want to sit 
 down; and then we'll have a bit of supper." 
 
 Presently the baronet plunged a fork into the saucepan on 
 the fire, and withdrew from the pot a piece of tripe and an 
 onion, which he divided into pretty equal portions, and of 
 which he partook with Mrs. Tinker. " You see. Miss Sharp, 
 when I'm not here Tinker's on board wages: when I'm in town 
 she dines with the family. Haw ! haw ! I'm glad Miss Sharp's 
 not hungry, ain't you, Tink? " And they feU to upon their 
 frugal supper. 
 
 After supper Sir Pitt Crawley began to smoke his pipe; and 
 wh^n it became quite dark, he lighted the rushlight in the tin 
 candlestick, and producing from an interminable pocket a huge 
 mass of papers, began reading them, and putting them in order. 
 
 "I'm here on law business, my dear, and that's how it happens 
 that I shall have the pleasure of such a pretty travelling com- 
 panion to-morrow." 
 
 " He's always at law business," said Mrs. Tinker, taking up 
 the pot of porter. 
 
 " Drink and drink about/' said the Baronet. " Yes, my 
 dear. Tinker is quite right: I've lost and won more lawsuits 
 than airy man in England. Look here at Crawley, Bart., v, 
 SnafHe. I'll throw him over, or my name's not Pitt Crawley. 
 Podder and Another versus Crawley, Bart. Overseers of Snaily 
 parish against Crawley, Bart. They can't prove it's common: 
 I'll defy 'em; the land's mine. It no more belongs to the 
 parish than it does to you or Tinker here. I'll beat 'em, if it 
 cost me a thousand guineas. Look over the papers; you may 
 if you like, my dear. Do you write a good hand? I'll make 
 you useful when we're at Queen's Crawley, depend on it, Miss 
 Sharp. Now the dowager's dead I want some one." 
 
 " She was as bad as he," said Tinker. " She took the law of 
 every one of her tradesmen; and turned away forty-eight foot- 
 men in four year." 
 
 " She was close — ^very close," said the Baronet simply; " but 
 she was a valyble woman to me, and saved me a steward." — 
 And in this confidential strain, and much to the amusement of 
 the new-comer, the conversation continued for a considerable 
 
Crawley of Queen's Crawley 67 , 
 
 time. Whatever Sir Pitt Crawley's qualities might be, good or . 
 bad, he did not make the least disguise of them. He talked of • 
 himself incessantly, sometimes in the coarsest and vulgarest 
 Hampshire accent; sometimes adopting the tone of a man of the | 
 world. And so, with injunctions to Miss Sharp to be ready at 
 five in the morning, he bade her good night. " You'll sleep with 
 Tinker to-night," he said; " it's a big bed, and there's room for 
 two. Lady Crawley died in it. Good night." 
 
 Sir Pitt went off after this benediction, and the solemn Tinker, 
 rushlight in hand, led the way up the great bleak stone stairs, 
 past the great dreary drawing-room doors, with the handles 
 muffled up in paper, into the great front bedroom, where Lady 
 Crawley had slept her last. The bed and chamber were so 
 funereal and gloomy, you might have fancied, not only that Lady 
 Crawley died in the room, but that her ghost inhabited it. 
 Rebecca sprang a,bout the apartment, however, with the greatest 
 liveliness, and had peeped into the huge wardrobes, and the 
 closets, and the cupboards, and tried the drawers which were 
 locked, and examined the dreary pictures and toilette appoint- 
 ments, while the old charwoman was saying her prayers. " I 
 shouldn't like to sleep in this yeer bed without a good conscience, 
 Miss," said the old woman. " There's room for us and a half- 
 dozen of ghosts in it," says Rebecca. " Tell me all about Lady 
 Crawley and Sir Pitt Crawley, and everybody, my dear Mrs. 
 Tinker." 
 
 But old Tinker was not to be pumped by this little cross- 
 questioner; and signifying to her that bed was a place for sleep- 
 ing, not conversation, set up in her corner of the bed such a snore 
 as only the nose of innocence can produce. Rebecca lay awake 
 for a long, long time, thinking of the morrow, and of the new 
 world into which she was going, and of her chances of success 
 there. The rushlight flickered in the basin. The mantelpiece 
 cast up a great black shadow, over half of a mouldy old sampler, 
 which her defunct ladyship had worked, no doubt, and over two 
 little family pictures of young lads, one in a college gown, and 
 the other in a red jacket like a soldier. When she went to 
 sleep, Rebecca chose that one to dream about. 
 
 At four o'clock on such a roseate summer's morning as even 
 made Great Gaunt Street look cheerful, the faithful Tinker, 
 having wakened her bedfellow, and bid her prepare for departure, 
 unbarred and unbolted the great hall door (the clanging and 
 clapping whereof startled the sleeping echoes in the street), and 
 , taking her way into Oxford Street, summoned a coach from a 
 
68 Vanity Fair 
 
 stand there. It is needless to particularise the number of the 
 vehicle, or to state that the driver was stationed thus early in 
 the neighbourhood of Swallow Street, in hopes that some young 
 buck, reeling homeward from the tavern, might need the aid of 
 his vehicle, and pay him with the generosity of intoxication. 
 
 It is likewise needless to say, that the driver, if he had any 
 such hopes as those above stated, was grossly disappointed ; and 
 that the worthy Baronet whom he drove to the City did not give 
 him one single penny more than his fare. It v/as in vain that 
 Jehu appealed and stormed; that he flung down Miss Sharp's 
 bandboxes in the gutter at the 'Necks, and swore he would take 
 the law of his fare. 
 
 " You'd better not," said one of the ostlers; " it's Sir Pitt 
 Crawley." 
 
 " So it is, Joe," cried the Baronet approvingly; " and I'd like 
 to see the man can do me." 
 
 " So should oi," said Joe, grinning sulkily, and mounting the 
 Baronet's baggage on the roof of the coach. 
 
 " Keep the box for me. Leader," exclaims the Member of 
 Parliament to the coachman; who replied, "Yes, Sir Pitt," 
 with a touch of his hat, and rage in his soul (for he had promised 
 the box to a young gentleman from Cambridge, who would have 
 given a crown to a certainty), and Miss Sharp was accom- 
 modated with a back seat inside the carriage, which might be 
 said to be carrying her into the wide world. 
 
 How the young man from Cambridge sulkily put his five 
 greatcoats in front; but was reconciled when little Miss Sharp 
 was made to quit the carriage, and mount up beside him — ^when 
 he covered her up in one of his Benjamins, and became perfectly 
 good-humoured — ^how the asthmatic gentleman, the prim lady, 
 who declared upon her sacred honour she had never travelled 
 in a public carriage before (there is always such a lady in a 
 coach, — Alas ! was ; for the coaches, where are they ?), and the 
 fat widow with the brandy-bottle, took their places inside — how 
 the porter asked them all for money, and got sixpence from the 
 gentleman and five greasy halfpence from the fat widow — ^and 
 how the carriage at length drove away— now, threading the dark 
 lanes of Aldersgate, anon clattering by the Blue Cupola of St. 
 Paul's, jingling rapidly by the strangers' entry of Fleet-Market, 
 which, with Exeter 'Change, has now departed to the world of 
 shadows — how they passed the White Bea,r in Piccadilly, and 
 saw the dew rising up from the market-gardens of Klnightsbridge 
 — how Turnham Green, Brentford, Bagshot, were passed — need 
 
Private and Confidential 69 
 
 not to be told here. But the writer of these pages, who has pur- 
 sued in former days, and in the same bright weather, the same 
 remarkable journey, cannot but think of it with a sweet and 
 tender regret. Where is the road now, and its merry incidents 
 of life? Is there no Chelsea or Greenwich for the old honest 
 pimple-nosed coachmen ? I wonder where are they, those good 
 fellows ? Is old Weller alive or dead ? and the waiters, yea, and 
 the inns at which they waited, and the cold rounds of beef 
 inside, and the stunted ostler, with his blue nose and clinking pail, 
 v/here is he, and where is his generation? To those great 
 geniuses now in petticoats, who shall write novels for the beloved 
 reader's children, these men and things will be as much legend 
 and history as Nineveh, or Coeur de Lion, or Jack Sheppard. 
 For them stage-coaches will have become romances — a team of 
 four bays as fabulous as Bucephalus or Black Bess. All, how 
 their coats shone, as the stablemen pulled their clothes off, and 
 away they went — ah, how their tails shook, as with smoking 
 sides at the stage's end they demurely walked away into the inn- 
 yard. Alas! we shall never hear the horn sing at midnight, or 
 see the pike-gates fly open any more. Whither, however, is the 
 light four-inside Trafalgar coach carrying us? Let us be set 
 down at Queen's Crawley without further divagation, and see 
 how Miss Rebecca Sharp speeds there. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 PRIVATE AND CONFIDENTIAL 
 
 Miss Rebecca Sharp to Miss Amelia Sedley, Russell Square, 
 
 London. 
 
 (Free. — Pitt Crawley.) 
 
 " My dearest, sweetest Amelia, — 
 
 " With what mingled joy and sorrow do I take up the pen to 
 write to my dearest friend! Oh, what a change between to-day 
 and yesterday! Now I am friendless and alone; yesterday I was 
 at home, in the sweet company of a sister, whom I shall ever, ever . 
 cherish I | 
 
 " I will not tell you in what tears and sadness I passed the fatal 
 night in which I separated from you. You went on Tuesday to joy 
 and happiness, with your mother and your devoted young soldier by 
 your side; and I thought of you all night, dancing at the Perkins's, 
 
70 Vanity Fair 
 
 the prettiest, I am sure, of all the young ladies at the Ball. I was 
 brought by the groom in the old carriage to Sir Pitt Crawley's town 
 house, where, after John the groom had behaved most rudely and 
 insolently to me (alcis ! 'twas safe to insult poverty and misfortune !), 
 I was given over to Sir P.'s care and made to pass the night in an 
 old gloomy bed, and by the side of a horrid gloomy old charwoman, 
 who keeps the house. I did not sleep one single wink the whole 
 night. 
 
 " Sir Pitt is not what we silly girls, when we used to read Cecilia 
 at Chiswick, imagined a baronet must have been. Anything, in- 
 deed, less like Lord Orville cannot be imagined. Fancy an old, 
 stumpy, short, vulgar, and very dirty man, in old clothes and shabby 
 old gaiters, who smokes a horrid pipe, and cooks his own horrid 
 supper in a saucepan. He speaks with a country accent, and swore 
 a great deal at the old charwoman, at the hackney -coachman who 
 drove us to the inn where the coach went from, and on which I 
 made the journey outside for the greater part of the way, 
 
 " I was awakened at da3'"break by the charwoman, and having 
 arrived at the inn, was at first placed inside the coach. But, when 
 we got to a place called Leakington, where the rain began to fall 
 very heavily — will you believe it? — I was forced to come outside; 
 for Sir Pitt is a proprietor of the coach, and as a passenger came at 
 Mudbury, who wanted an inside place, I was obliged to go outside 
 in the rain, where, however, a young gentleman from Cambridge 
 College sheltered me very kindly in one of his several greatcoats. 
 
 " This gentleman and the guard seemed to know Sir Pitt very 
 well, and laughed at him a great deal. They both agreed in calling 
 him an old screw ; which means a very stingy, avaricious person. 
 He never gives any money to anybody, they said (and this meanness 
 I hate) ; and the young gentleman made me remark that we drove 
 very slow for the last two stages on the road, because Sir Pitt was 
 on the box, and because he is proprietor of the horses for this part 
 of the journey. ' But won't I flog 'em on to Squashmore, when I 
 take the ribbons? ' said the young Cantab. ' And sarve 'em right, 
 Master Jack,' said the guard. When I comprehended the meaning 
 of this phrase, and that Master Jack intended to drive the rest of 
 the way, and revenge himself on Sir Pitt's horses, of course I laughed 
 too. 
 
 " A carriage and four splendid horses, covered with armorial bear- 
 ings, however, awaited us at Mudbury, four miles from Queen's 
 Crawley, and we made our entrance to the baronet's park in state. 
 There is a fine avenue of a mile long leading to the house, and the 
 woman at the lodge gate (over the pillars of which are a serpent and 
 a dove, the supporters of the Crawley arms), made us a number of 
 curtsies as she flung open the old iron carved doors, which are some- 
 thing like those at odious Chiswick. 
 
 " ' There's an avenue,' said Sir Pitt, ' a mile long. There's six 
 thousand pound of timber in them there trees. Do you call that 
 nothing? ' He pronounced avenue — avenue, and nothing — nothink, 
 so droll; and he had a Mr. Hodson, his hind from Mudbury, into 
 the carriage with him, and they talked about distraining, and selling 
 up, and draining and subsoiling, and a great deal about tenants and 
 
Private and Confidential 
 
 farming — much more than I could understand. Sam Miles had 
 been caught poaching, and Peter Bailey had gone to the workhouse 
 at last. ' Serve him right,' said Sir Pitt; ' him and his family has 
 been cheating me on that farm these hundred and fifty years.' 
 Some old tenant, I suppose, who could not pay his rent. Sir Pitt 
 might have said ' he and his family,' to be sure; but rich baronets 
 do not need to be careful about grammar, as poor governesses 
 must be. 
 
 " As we passed, I remarked a beautiful church spire rising above 
 some old elms in the park; and before them, in the midst of a lawn, 
 and some outhouses, an old red house with tall chimneys covered 
 with ivy, and the windows shining in the sun. ' Is that your 
 church, sir? ' I said. 
 
 " ' Yes, hang it ' (said Sir Pitt, only he used, dear, a much wickeder 
 word); ' how's Buty, Hodson? Buty's my brother Bute, my dear 
 — my brother the parson. Buty and the Beast, I call him, ha, ha ! ' 
 
 " Hodson laughed too, and then looking more grave and nodding 
 his head, said, * I'm afraid he's better, Sir Pitt. He was out on his 
 pony yesterday, looking at our corn.' 
 
 " ' Looking after his tithes, hang 'un ' (only he used the same 
 wicked word). ' Will brandy and water never kill him? He's as 
 tough as old whatdyecallum — old Methusalem.' 
 
 " Mr. Hodson laughed again. ' The young men is home from 
 college. They've whopped John Scroggins till he's well nigh dead.' 
 
 " ' Whopp my second keeper ! ' roared out Sir Pitt. 
 
 " ' He was on the parson's ground, sir,' replied Mr. Hodson; and 
 Sir Pitt in a fury swore that if ever he caught 'em poaching on his 
 ground, he'd transport 'em, by the lord he would. However, he 
 said, ' I've sold the presentation of the living, Hodson : none of that 
 breed shall get it, I warn't; ' and Mr. Hodson said he was quite 
 right: and I have no doubt from this that the two brothers are 
 at variance — as brothers often are, and sisters too. Don't you 
 remember the two Miss Scratchleys at Chiswick, how they used 
 always to fight and quarrel — and Mary Box, how she was always 
 thumping Louisa ? 
 
 " Presently, seeing two little boys gathering sticks in the wood, 
 Mr. Hodson jumped out of the carriage at Sir Pitt's order, and 
 rushed "upon them with his whip. 'Pitch into 'em, Hodson,' 
 roared the Baronet; ' flog their little souls out, and bring 'em up to 
 the house, the vagabonds; I'll commit 'em as sure as my name's 
 Pitt.' And presently we heard Mr. Hodson's whip cracking on the 
 shoulders of the poor little blubbering wretches, and Sir Pitt, seeing 
 that the malefactors were in custody, drove on to the hall. 
 
 " All the servants were ready to meet us, and 
 
 " Here, my dear, I was interrupted last night by a dreadful 
 thumping at my door: and who do you think it was? Sir Pitt 
 Crawley in his night-cap and dressing-gown, such a figure I As I 
 shrank away from such a visitor, he came forward and seized my 
 candle. ' No candles after eleven o'clock, Miss Becky,' said he. 
 ' Go to bed in the dark, you pretty little hussey ' (that is what he 
 called me), * and unless you wish me to come for the candle every 
 
72 Vanity Fair 
 
 night, mind and be in bed at eleven.' And with this, he and Mr. 
 Horrocks the butler went off laughing. You may be sure I shall 
 not encourage any more of their visits. They let loose two immense 
 bloodhounds at night, which all last night were yelling and howling 
 at the moon, ' I call the dog Gorer,' said Sir Pitt; ' he's killed a 
 man that dog has, and is master of a bull, and the mother I used to 
 call Flora; but now I calls her Aroarer, for she's too old to bite. 
 Haw, hawl ' 
 
 " Before the house of Queen's Crawley, which is an odious old- 
 fashioned red-brick mansion, with tall chimneys and gables of the 
 style of Queen Bess, there is a terrace flanked by the family dove 
 and serpent, and on which the great hall-door opens. And oh, my 
 dear, the great hall I am sure is as big and as glum as the great hall 
 in the dear castle of Udolpho. It has a large fireplace, in which we 
 might put half Miss Pinkerton's school, and the grate is big enough 
 to roast an ox at the very least. Round the room hang I don't 
 know how many generations of Crawleys, some with beards and 
 ruffs, some w:ith huge wigs and toes turned out, some dressed in 
 long straight stays and gowns that look as stiff as towers, and some 
 with long ringlets, and oh, my dear 1 scarcely any stays at all. At 
 one end of the hall is the great staircase all in black oak, as dismal 
 as may be, and on either side are tall doors with stags' heads over 
 them, leading to the billiard-room and the library, and the great 
 yellow saloon and the morning rooms. I think there are at least 
 twenty bedrooms on the first floor ; and one of them has the bed in 
 which Queen Elizabeth slept; and I have been taken by my new 
 pupUs through all these fine apartments, this morning. They are 
 not rendered less gloomy, I promise you, by having the shutters 
 always shut; and there is scarce one of the apartments, but when 
 the light was let into it, I expected to see a ghost in the room. We 
 have a schoolroom on the second floor, with my bedroom leading 
 into it on one side, and that of the young ladies on the other. Then 
 there are Mr. Pitt's apartments — Mr. Crawley, he is called — the 
 eldest son, and Mr. Rawdon Crawley's rooms — he is an officer like 
 somebody, and away with his regiment. There is no want of room 
 I assure you. You might lodge all the people in Russell Square in 
 the house, I think, and have space to spare. 
 
 " Half an hour after our arrival, the great dinner-bell was rung, 
 and I came dovm with my two pupils (they are very thin insignifi- 
 cant little chits of ten and eight years old). I came down in your 
 deaf muslin gown (about which that odious ]\irs. Pinner was so rude, 
 because you gave it me) ; for I am to be treated as one of the family, 
 except on company days, when the young ladies and I are to dine 
 upstairs. 
 
 " Well, the great dinner-bell rang, and we all assembled in the 
 little drawing-room where my Lady Crawley sits. She is the second 
 Lady Crawley, and mother of the young ladies. She was an iron- 
 monger's daughter, and her marriage was thought a great match. 
 She looks as if she had been handsome once, and her eyes are always 
 weeping for the loss of her beauty. She is pale and meagre and 
 high -shouldered; and has not a word to say for herself, evidently. 
 Her step-son, Mr. Crawley, was Hkewise in the room. He was in 
 
Private and Confidential 73 
 
 full dress, as pompous as an undertaker. He is pale, thin, ugly, 
 silent; he has thin legs, no chest, hay-coloured whiskers, and straw- 
 coloured hair. He is the very picture of his sainted mother over 
 the mantelpiece — Griselda of the noble house of Binkie. 
 
 " ' This is the new governess, Mr, Crawley,' said Lady Crawley, 
 coming forv/ard and taking my hand. ' Miss Sharp.' 
 
 " ' Oh! ' said Mr. Crawley, and pushed his head once forward and 
 began again to read a great pamphlet with which he was busy, 
 
 " ' I hope you will be kind to my girls,' said Lady Crawley, with 
 her pink eyes always full of tears, 
 
 " * Law, Ma, of course she v/ill,' said the eldest; and I saw at a 
 glance that I need not be afraid of that woman, 
 
 " ' My lady is served,' says the Butler in black, in an immense 
 white shirt-frill, that looked as if it had been one of the Queen Eliza- 
 beth's ruffs depicted in the liall ; and so, taking Mr. Crawley's arm, 
 she led the way to the dining-room, whither I followed with my little 
 pupils in each hand. 
 
 " Sir Pitt was already in the room with a silver jug. He had 
 just been to the cellar, and was in full dress too; that is, he had 
 taken his gaiters off, and showed his little dumpy legs in black 
 worsted stockings. The sideboard was covered with glistening old 
 plate — old cups, both gold and silver; old salvers and cruet-stands, 
 like Rundell and Bridge's shop. Everything on the table was in 
 silver too, and two footmen, with red hair and canary-coloured 
 liveries, stood on either side of the sideboard. 
 
 " Mr. Crawley said a long grace, and Sir Pitt said Amen, and the 
 great silver dish-covers were removed, 
 
 " ' What have we for dinner, Betsy? ' said the Baronet, 
 
 " ' Mutton broth, I believe. Sir Pitt,' answered Lady Crawley. 
 
 " ' Mouton aux navets,' added the Butler gravely (pronounce, if 
 you please, moutongonavvy) ; ' and the soup is potfige de mouton a 
 r Ecossaise. The side-dishes contain pommes de terra au naturel, 
 and choufleur a I'eau.' 
 
 " ' Mutton's mutton,' said the Baronet, ' and a devilish good 
 thing. What ship was it, Horrocks, and when did you kill ? ' 
 
 " ' One of the black-faced Scotch, Sir Pitt: we killed on Thursday.' 
 
 "' Who took any? ' 
 
 " * Steel, of Mudbury, took the saddle and two legs, Sir Pitt; but 
 he says the last was too young and confounded woolly. Sir 
 Pitt.' 
 
 " ' Will you take some potage. Miss ah— INIiss Blunt? ' said Mr. 
 Crawley. 
 
 " ' Capital Scotch broth, my dear,' said Sir Pitt, ' though they 
 call it by a French name,' 
 
 " ' I believe it is the custom, sir, in decent society,' said Mr. 
 Crawley, haughtily, ' to call the dish as I have called it; ' and it was 
 served to us on silver soup-plates by the footmen in the canary 
 coats, with the jnouton aux navets. Then ' ale and water ' were 
 brought, and served to us young ladies in wine-glasses. I am not a 
 judge of ale, but I can say with a clear conscience I prefer water. 
 
 " While we were enjoying our repast, Sir Pitt took occasion to 
 ask what had become of the shoulders of the mutton. 
 *C298 
 
74 Vanity Fair 
 
 " ' I believe they were eaten in the servants' hall,' said my lady 
 humbly. 
 
 " ' They was, my lady,' said Horrocks, ' and precious little else 
 we get there neither.' 
 
 " Sir Pitt burst into a horse-laugh, and continued his conversation 
 with Mr. Horrocks. ' That there little black pig of the Kent sow's 
 breed must be uncommon fat now.' 
 
 " ' It's not quite busting. Sir Pitt," said the Butler with the 
 gravest air, at which Sir Pitt, and with him the young ladies this 
 time, began to laugh violently. 
 
 " ' Miss Crawley, Miss Rose Crawley,' said Mr. Crawley, ' your 
 laughter strikes me as being exceedingly out of place.' 
 
 " ' Never mind, my lord,' said the Baronet, ' we'll try the porker 
 on Saturday. Kill un on Saturday morning, John Horrocks. Miss 
 Sharp adores pork, don't you. Miss Sharp? ' 
 
 " And I think that is all the conversation that I remember at 
 dinner. When the repast was concluded a jug of hot water was 
 placed before Sir Pitt, with a case-bottle containing, I believe, rum. 
 Air. Horrocks served myself and my pupils with three little glasses 
 of wine, and a bumper was poured out for my lady. When we 
 retired, she took from her work-drawer an enormous interminable 
 piece of knitting ; the young ladies began to play at cribbage with 9. 
 dirty pack of cards. We had but one candle lighted, but it was in a 
 magnificent old silver candlestick, and after a very few questions 
 from my lady, I had my choice of amusement between a volume of 
 sermons, and a pamphlet on the corn-laws, which Mr. Crawley had 
 been reading before dinner. 
 
 " So we sat for an hour until steps were heard. 
 
 " ' Put away the cards, girls,' cried my lady, in a great tremor; 
 ' put down Mr. Crawley's books. Miss Sharp: ' and these orders had 
 been scarcely obeyed, when Mr. Crawley entered the room. 
 
 " ' We will resume yesterday's discourse, young ladies,' said he, 
 ' and you shall each read a page by turns; so that Miss a — Miss 
 Short may have an opportunity of hearing you ; ' and the poor girls 
 began to spell a long dismal sermon delivered at Bethesda Chapel, 
 Liverpool, on behalf of the mission for the Chickasaw Indians. 
 Was it not a charming evening? 
 
 " At ten the servants were told to call Sir Pitt and the household 
 to prayers. Sir Pitt came in first, very much flushed, and rather 
 unsteady in his gait; and after him the butler, the canaries, Mr. 
 Crawley's man, three other men, smelling very much of the stable, 
 and four women, one of v/hom, I remarked, was very much over- 
 dressed, and who flung me a look of great scorn as she plumped 
 down on her knees. 
 
 " After Mr. Crawley had done haranguing and expounding, we 
 received our candles, and then we went to bed; and then I was 
 disturbed in my writing, as I have described to my dearest sweetest 
 Amelia. 
 
 " Good night. A thousand, thousand, thousand kisses! 
 
 " Saturday. — This morning, at five, I heard the shrieking of the 
 little black pig. Rose and Violet introduced me to it yesterday; 
 and to the stables, and to the kennel, and to the gardener, who was 
 
Private and Confidential 75 
 
 picking fruit to send to market, and from Vv^hom they begged hard 
 a bunch of hot-house grapes; but he said that Sir Pitt had numbered 
 every ' Man Jack ' of them, and it would be as much as his place 
 was worth to give any away. The darling girls caught a colt in a 
 paddock, and asked me if I would ride, and began to ride them- 
 selves, when the groom, coming with horrid oaths, drove them 
 away. 
 
 " Lady Crawley is always knitting the worsted. Sir Pitt is— i 
 always tipsy, every night; and, I believe, sits with Horrocks, the i 
 butler. Mr. Crawley always reads sermons in the evening, and in 
 the morning is locked up in his study, or else rides to Mudbury, on 
 county business, or to Squashmore, where he preaches, on Wednes- | 
 days and Fridays, to the tenants there. - 
 
 " A hundred thousand grateful loves to your dear papa and 
 mamma. Is your poor brother recovered of his rack-punch? O 
 dear! O dear! How men should beware of wicked punch! 
 
 " Ever and ever thine own 
 
 " Rebecca." 
 
 Everything considered, I think it is quite as well for our dear 
 Amelia Sedley, in Russell Square, that Miss Sharp and she are 
 parted. Rebecca is a droll funny creature, to be sure; and 
 those descriptions of the poor lady weeping for the loss of her 
 beauty, and the gentleman " with hay-coloured whiskers and 
 straw-coloured* hair," are very smart, doubtless, and show a 
 great knowledge of the world. That she might, when on her 
 knees, have been thinking of something better than Miss Hor- 
 rock's ribbons, has possibly struck both of us. But my kind 
 reacier will please to remember that this history has " Vanity 
 Fair " for a title, and that Vanity Fair is a very vain, wicked, 
 foolish place, full of all sorts of humbugs and falsenesses and 
 pretensions. And while the moralist, who is holding forth on 
 the cover (an accurate portrait of your humble servant), pro- 
 fesses to wear neither gown nor bands, but only the very same 
 long-eared livery in which his congregation is arrayed: yet, 
 look you, one is bound to speak the truth as far as one knows it, 
 whether one mounts a cap and bells or a shovel-hat; and a deal 
 of disagreeable matter must come out in the course of such an 
 undertaking. ^^ 
 
 I have heard a brother of the story-telling trade, at Naples, 
 preaching to a pack of good-for-nothing honest lazy fellows by 
 the sea-shore, work himself up into such a rage and passion with 
 some of the villains whose wicked deeds he was describing and 
 inventing, that the audience could not resist it; and they and 
 the poet together would burst out into a roar of oaths and exe- 
 crations against the fictitious monster of the tale, so that the hat 
 
76 Vanity Fair 
 
 went round, and the bajocchi tumbled into it, in the midst of a 
 perfect storm of sympathy. 
 
 At the Httle Paris theatres, on the other hand, you will not 
 only hear the people yelling out " Ah gredin I Ah monstre I " and 
 cursing the tyrant of the play from the boxes; but the actors 
 themselves positively refuse to play the wicked parts, such as 
 those of inf antes AnglaiSy brutal Cossacks, and what not, and 
 prefer to appear^ at a smaller salary, in their real characters as 
 loyal Frenchmen, I set the two stories one against the other, 
 so that you may see that it is not from mere mercenary motives 
 that the present performer is desirous to show up and trounce 
 his villains ; but because he has a sincere hatred of them, which 
 he cannot keep down, and which must find a vent in suitable 
 abuse and bad language. 
 
 I warn my " kyind friends," then, that I am going to tell a 
 story of harrowing villainy and complicated — but, as I trust, 
 intensely interesting — crime. My rascals are no milk-and- 
 water rascals, I promise you. When we come to the proper 
 places we won't spare fine language — No, no ! But when we are 
 going over the quiet country we must perforce be calm. A 
 tempest in a slop-basin is absurd. We will reserve that sort 
 of thing for the mighty ocean and the lonely midnight. The 
 
 present Chapter is very mild. Others But we will not 
 
 anticipate those. 
 
 And, as we bring our characters forward, I will ask leave, as a 
 man and a brother, not only to introduce them, but occasionally 
 to step down from the platform, and talk about them: if they 
 are good and kindly, to love them and shake them by the hand : 
 if they are silly, to laugh at them confidentially in the reader's 
 sleeve : if they are wicked and heartless, to abuse them in the 
 strongest terms which politeness admits of. 
 
 Otherwise you might fancy it was I who was sneering at the 
 practice of devotion, which Miss Sharp finds so ridiculous ; that 
 it was I who laughed good-humouredly at the reeling old Silenus 
 of a baronet — whereas the laughter comes from one who has 
 no reverence except for prosperity, and no eye for anything 
 beyond success. Such people there are living and flourishing 
 in the world — Faithless, Hopeless, Charity less; let us have at 
 them, dear friends, with might and main. Some there are, and 
 very successful too, mere quacks and fools: and it was to 
 combat and expose such as those, no doubt, that Laughter 
 was made. 
 
Family Portraits 77 
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 FAMILY PORTRAITS 
 
 Sir Pitt Crawley was a philosopher with a taste for what is ' 
 called low life. His first marriage with the daughter of the 
 noble Binkie had been made under the auspices of his parents; 
 and as he often told Lady Crawley in her lifetime she was such 
 a confounded quarrelsome high-bred jade that when she died 
 he was hanged if he would ever take another of her sort, at her 
 ladyship's demise he kept his promise, and selected for a second 
 wife Miss Rose Dawson, daughter of Mr. John Thomas Dawson, 
 ironmonger, of Mudbury. What a happy woman was Rose to 
 be my Lady Crawley ! 
 
 Let us set down the items of her happiness. In the first place, 
 she gave up Peter Butt, a young man who kept company with 
 her, and in consequence of his disappointment in love, took to 
 smuggling, poaching, and a thousand other bad courses. Then 
 she quarrelled, as in duty bound, with all the friends and 
 intimates of her youth, who, of course, could not be received by 
 my Lady at Queen's Crawley — ^nor did she find in her new rank 
 and abode any persons who were willing to welcome her. Who 
 ever did? Sir Huddleston Fuddleston had three daughters 
 who all hoped to be Lady Crawley. Sir Giles Wapshot's family 
 were insulted that one of the Wapshot girls had not the prefer- 
 ence in the marriage, and the remaining baronets of the county 
 were indignant at their comrade's misalliance. Never mind 
 the commoners, whom v/e will leave to grumble anonymously. -^ 
 
 Sir Pitt did not care, as he said, a brass farden for any one of 
 them. He had his pretty Rose, and what more need a man 
 require than to please himself .f* So he used to get drunk every 
 night; to beat his pretty Rose sometimes: to leave her in 
 Hampshire when he went to London for the parliamentary 
 session, without a single friend in the wide world. Even Mrs. 
 Bute Crawley, the Rector's wife, refused to visit her, as she said 
 she would never give the pas to a tradesman's daughter. 
 
 As the only endowments with which Nature had gifted Lady 
 Crawley were those of pink cheeks and a white skin, and as she 
 had no sort of character, nor talents, nor opinions, nor occupa- 
 tions, nor amusements, nor that vigour of soul and ferocity of 
 temper which often falls to the lot of entirely foolish women. 
 
yS Vanity Fair 
 
 her hold upon Sir Pitt's affections was not very great. Her 
 roses faded out of her cheeks, and the pretty freshness left her 
 figure after the birth of a couple of children, and she became a 
 mere machine in her husband's house, of no more use than the 
 late Lady Crawley's grand piano. Being a light-complexioned 
 woman, she wore light clothes, as most blondes will, and 
 appeared, in preference, in draggled sea-green, or slatternly sky- 
 blue. She worked that worsted day and night, or other pieces 
 like it. She had counterpanes in the course of a few years to 
 all the beds in Crawley. She had a small flower-garden, for 
 which she had rather an affection; but beyond this no other 
 like or disliking. When her husband was rude to her she was 
 apathetic: whenever he struck her she cried. She had not 
 character enough to take to drinking, and moaned about, slip- 
 t shod and in curl-papers, all day. Vanity Fair — Vanity Fair ! 
 1 This might have been, but for you, a cheery lass: — Peter Butt 
 , and Rose a happy man and wife, in a snug farm, with a hearty 
 ^!i family; and an honest portion of pleasures, cares, hopes, and 
 1 struggles : — but a title and a coach and four are toys more pre- 
 cious than happiness in Vanity Fair: and if Harry the Eighth 
 or Bluebeard were alive now, and wanted a tenth wife, do you 
 suppose he could not get the prettiest girl that shall be presented 
 this season. 
 
 The languid dulness of their mamma did not, as it may be 
 supposed, awaken much affection in her little daughters, but 
 they were very happy in the servants' hall and in the stables; 
 and the Scotch gardener having luckily a good wife and some 
 good children, they got a little wholesome society and instruc- 
 tion in his lodge, which was the only education bestowed upon 
 them until Miss Sharp came. 
 
 Her engagement was owing to the remonstrances of Mr. Pitt 
 Crawley, the only friend or protector Lady Crawley ever had, 
 and the only person, besides her children, for whom she enter- 
 tained a little feeble attachment. Mr. Pitt took after the noble 
 Binkies, from whom he was descended, and was a very polite 
 { and proper gentleman. When he grew to man's estate, and 
 came back from Chris tchurch, he began to reform the slackened 
 discipline of the hall, in spite of his father, who stood in awe of 
 him. He was a man of such rigid refinement, that he would 
 have starved rather than have dined without a white neckcloth. 
 Once, when just from college, and when Horrocks the butler 
 brought him a letter without placing it previously on a tray, he 
 gave that domestic a look, and administered to him a speech 
 
Family Portraits 79 
 
 so cutting, that Horrocks ever after trembled before him; the 
 whole household bowed to him: Lady Crawley's curl-papers 
 came off earlier v/hen he vv^as at home : Sir Pitt's muddy gaiters 
 disappeared; and if that incorrigible old man still adhered to 
 other old habits, he never fuddled himself with rum-and-water 
 in his son's presence, and only talked to his servants in a very 
 reserved and polite manner; and those persons remarked that 
 Sir Pitt never swore at Lady Crawley while his own son was in 
 the room. 
 
 It was he who taught the butler to say, " My lady is served," 
 and who insisted on handing her ladyship in to dinner. He 
 seldom spoke to her, but when he did it was with the most 
 powerful respect; and he never let her quit the apartment 
 without rising in the most stately manner to open the door, and 
 making an elegant bow at her egress. 
 
 At Eton he was called Miss Crawley; and there, I am sorry |\ 
 to say, his younger brother Rawdon used to lick him violently. || 
 But though his parts were not brilliant, he made up for his lack I \ 
 of talent by meritorious industry, and was never known, during I ( 
 eight years at school, to be subject to that punishment which it y 
 is generally thought none but a cherub can escape. f 
 
 At college his career was of course highly creditable. And 
 here he prepared himself for public life, into which he was to 
 be introduced by the patronage of his grandfather. Lord Binkie, 
 by studying the ancient and modern orators with great assiduity, 
 and by speaking unceasingly at the debating societies. But 
 though he had a fine flux of words, and delivered his little voice 
 with great pomposity and pleasure to himself, and never 
 advanced any sentiment or opinion which was not perfectly trite 
 and stale, and supported by a Latin quotation; yet he failed 
 somehow, in spite of a mediocrity which ought to have insured 
 any man a success. He did not even get the prize poem, which 
 all his friends said he was sure of. 
 
 After leaving college he became Private Secretary to Lord 
 Binkie, and was then appointed Attache to the Legation at 
 Pumpernickel, which post he filled with perfect honour, and 
 brought home despatches, consisting of Strasburg pie, to the 
 Foreign Minister of the day. After remaining ten years Attache 
 (several years after the lamented Lord Binkie's demise), and 
 finding the advancement slow, he at length gave up the diplo- 
 matic service in some disgust, and began to turn country 
 gentleman. 
 
 He wrote a pamphlet on Malt on returning to England (for 
 
 \ 
 
8o Vanity Fair 
 
 he was an ambitious man, and always liked to be before the 
 dublic), and took a strong part in the Negro Emancipation 
 question. Then he became a friend of Mr. Wilberforce's, 
 whose politics he admired, and had that famous correspondence 
 with the Reverend Silas Hornblov/er, on the Ashantee Mission, 
 He was in London, if not for the Parliament session, at least 
 in May, for the religious meetings. In the country he was a 
 magistrate, and an active visitor and speaker among those 
 destitute of religious instruction. He was said to be paying his 
 addresses to Lady Jane Sheepshanks, Lord Southdown's third 
 daughter, and whose sister. Lady Emily, wrote those sweet 
 tracts, " The Sailor's True Binnacle," and " The Applewoman 
 of Finchley Common." 
 
 Miss Sharp's accounts of his employment at Queen's Crawley 
 were not caricatures. He subjected the servants there to the 
 devotional exercises before mentioned, in which (and so much 
 the better) he brought his father to join. He patronised an 
 Independent meeting-house in Crawley parish, much to the 
 indignation of his uncle the Rector, and to the consequent delight 
 of Sir Pitt, who was induced to go himself once or twice, which 
 occasioned some violent sermons at Crawley parish church, 
 directed point-blank at the Baronet's old Gothic pew there. 
 Honest Sir Pitt, however, did not feel the force of these 
 discourses, as he always took his nap during sermon-time. 
 
 Mr. Crav/ley was very earnest, for the good of the nation and 
 of the Christian world, that the old gentleman should yield him 
 up his place in Parliament; but this the elder constantly 
 refused to do. Both were of course too prudent to give up the 
 fifteen hundred a year which was brought in by the second seat 
 (at this period filled by Mr. Quadroon, with carte-blanche on the 
 I Slave question), indeed the family estate was much embar- 
 rassed, and the income drawn from the borough was of great use 
 to the house of Queen's Crawley. 
 
 It had never recovered the heavy fine imposed upon Walpole 
 Crawley, first baronet, for peculation in the Tape and Sealing- 
 Wax Office. Sir WpJpole was a jolly fellow, eager to seize and 
 to spend money (" alieni appetens, sui profusus," as Mr. Crawley 
 would remark with a sigh), and in his day beloved by all the 
 county for the constant drunkenness and hospitality which was 
 maintained at Queen's Crawley. The cellars were filled with 
 Burgundy then, the kennels with hounds, and the stables with 
 gallant hunters ; now, such horses as Queen's Crawley possessed 
 went to plough, or ran in the Trafalgar Coach; and it was with 
 
Family Portraits 8i 
 
 a team of these ver}^ horses, on an off-day, that Miss Sharp was 
 brought to the Hall; for boor as he was. Sir Pitt was a stickler 
 for his dignity while at home, and seldom drove out but with 
 four horses, and though he dined off boiled mutton, had always 
 three footmen to serve it. 
 
 If mere parsimony could have made a man rich. Sir Pitt 
 Crawley might have become very wealthy — if he had been an 
 attorney in a country town, with no capital but his brains, it is 
 very possible that he would have turned them to good account, 
 and might have achieved for himself a very considerable influence 
 and competency. But he was unluckily endowed with a good 
 name and a large though encumbered estate, both of which 
 went rather to injure than to advance him. He had a taste for 
 law, which cost him many thousands yearly ; and being a great 
 deal too clever to be robbed, as he said, by any single agent, 
 allowed his affairs to be mismanaged by a dozen, whom he all 
 equally mistrusted. He was such a sharp landlord, that he 
 could hardly find any but bankrupt tenants; and such a close 
 farmer, as to grudge almost the seed to the ground, whereupon 
 revengeful Nature grudged him the crops which she gra,nted to 
 more liberal husbandmen. He speculated in every possible 
 way; he worked mines; bought canal-shares; horsed coaches; 
 took government contracts, and was the busiest man and magis- 
 trate of his county. As he would not pay honest agents at his 
 granite quarry, he had the satisfaction of finding that four over- 
 seers ran away, and took fortunes with them to America, For 
 want of proper precautions, his coal-mines filled with water: 
 the government flung his contract of damaged beef upon his 
 hands: and for his coach-horses, every mail proprietor in the 
 kingdom knew that he lost more horses than any man in the 
 country, from underfeeding and buying cheap. In disposition 
 he was sociable, and far from being proud; nay, he rather 
 preferred the society of a farmer or a horse-dealer to that of a 
 gentleman, like my lord, his son : he was fond of drink, of swearing, 
 of joking with the farmers' daughters: he was never known to 
 give away a shilling or to do a good action, but was of a pleasant, 
 sly, laughing mood, and would cut his joke and drink his glass 
 with a tenant and sell him up the next day; or have his laugh 
 with the poacher he was transporting with equal good humour. 
 His politeness for the fair sex has already been hinted at by Miss 
 Rebecca Sharp — in a word, the whole baronetage, peerage, 
 commonage of England, did not contain a more cunning, mean, 
 selfish, foolish, disreputable old man. That blood-red hand of 
 
82 Vanity Fair 
 
 Sir Pitt Crawley's would be in anybody's pocket except his own; 
 and it is with grief and pain, that, as admirers of the British 
 aristocracy, we find ourselves obliged to admit the existence of 
 so many ill qualities in a person whose name is in Debrett. 
 
 One great cause why Mr. Crawley had such a hold over the 
 affections of his father, resulted from money arrangements. The 
 Baronet owed his son a sum of money out of the jointure of his 
 mother, which he did not find it convenient to pay ; indeed he 
 had an almost invincible repugnance to paying anybody, and 
 could only be brought by force to discharge his debts. Miss 
 Sharp calculated (for she became, as we shall hear speedily, 
 inducted into most of the secrets of the family) that the mere 
 payment of his creditors cost the honourable Baronet several 
 hundreds yearly ; but this was a delight he could not forego ; he 
 had a savage pleasure in making the poor wretches wait,^ and in 
 shifting from court to court and from term to term the period 
 of satisfaction. What's the good of being in Parliament, he 
 said, if you must pay your debts ? Hence, indeed, his position 
 as a senator was not a little useful to him. 
 
 Vanity Fair — Vanity Fair ! Here was a man, who could not 
 spell, and did not care to read — who had the habits and the cun- 
 ning of a boor: whose aim in life was pettifogging: who never 
 had a taste, or emotion, or enjoyment, but what was sordid and 
 foul ; and yet he had rank, and honours, and power, somehow : 
 and was a dignitary of the land, and a pillar of the state. He 
 was high sheriff, and rode in a golden coach. Great ministers 
 and statesmen courted him; and in Vanity Fair he had a higher 
 place than the most brilliant genius or spotless virtue. 
 
 Sir Pitt had an unmarried half-sister who inherited her mother's 
 large fortune, and though the Baronet proposed to borrow this 
 money of her on mortgage, Miss Crawley declined the offer, and 
 preferred the security of the funds. She had signified, however, 
 her intention of leaving her inheritance between Sir Pitt's second 
 son and the family at the Rectory and had once or twice paid 
 the debts of Rawdon Crawley in his career at college and in the 
 army. Miss Crawley was, in consequence, an object of great 
 respect when she came to Queen's Crawley, for she had a balance 
 at her banker's which would have made her beloved anywhere. 
 
 What a dignity it gives an old lady, that balance at the 
 banker's ! How tenderly we look at her faults if she is a relative 
 (and may every reader have a score of such), what a kind good- 
 natured old creature we find her! How the junior partner of 
 
Miss Sharp Begins to Make Friends 83 
 
 Hobbs and Dobbs leads her smiling to the carriage with the 
 lozenge upon it, and the fat wheezy coachman 1 How, when 
 she comes to pay us a visit, we generally find an opportunity to 
 let our friends know her station in the world! We say (and 
 with perfect truth) I wish I had Miss MacWhirter's signature to 
 a cheque for five thousand pounds. She wouldn't miss it, says 
 your wife. She is my aunt, say you, in an easy careless way, 
 when your friend asks if Miss MacWhirter is any relative. Your 
 wife is perpetually sending her little testimonies of affection, 
 your little girls work endless worsted baskets, cushions, and 
 footstools for her. What a good fire there is in her room when 
 she comes to pay you a visit, although your wife laces her stays 
 without one! The house during her stay assumes a festive, 
 neat, warm, jovial, snug appearance not visible at other seasons. 
 You yourself, dear sir, forget to go to sleep after dinner, and find 
 yourself all of a sudden (though you invariably lose) very fond 
 of a rubber. What good dinners you have — game every day, 
 Malmsey-Madeira, and no end of fish from London. Even the 
 servants in the kitchen share in the general prosperity; and, 
 somehow, during the stay of Miss MacWhirter's fat coachman, 
 the beer is grown much stronger, and the consumption of tea and 
 sugar in the nursery (where her maid takes her meals) is not 
 regarded in the least. Is it so, or is it not so ? I appeal to the 
 middle classes. Ah, gracious powers ! I wish you would send 
 me an old aunt — a maiden aunt — an aunt with a lozenge on 
 her carriage, and a front of light coffee-coloured hair — how my 
 children should work workbags for her, and my Julia and I 
 would make her comfortable! Sweet — sweet vision! Foolish 
 — foohsh dream! 
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 MISS SHARP BEGINS TO MAKE FRIENDS 
 
 And now, being received as a member of the amiable family 
 whose portraits we have sketched in the foregoing pages, it 
 became naturally Rebecca's duty to make herself, as she said, 
 agreeable to her benefactors, and to gain their confidence to the 
 utmost of her power. Who can but admire this quality of grati- i 
 tude in an unprotected orphan; and, if there entered some 
 
§4 Vanity Fair 
 
 degree of selfishness into her calculations, who can say but that 
 her prudence was perfectly justifiable? "I am alone in the 
 world/' said the friendless girl. " I have nothing to look for but 
 what my own labour can bring me; and while that little pink- 
 faced chit Amelia, with not half my sense, has ten thousand 
 pounds and an establishment secure, poor Rebecca (and my 
 figure is far better than hers) has only herself and her own wits 
 to trust to. Well, let us see if my wits cannot provide me with 
 an honourable maintenance, and if some day or the other I can- 
 not show Miss Amelia my real superiority over her. Not that 
 I dislike poor Amelia: who can dislike such a harmless, good- 
 I natured creature ? — only it will be a fine day when I can take my 
 [place above her in the world, as why, indeed, should I not? " 
 Thus it was that our little romantic friend formed visions of the 
 future for herself, — nor must we be scandalised that, in all her 
 castles in the air, a husband was the principal inhabitant. Of 
 what else have young ladies to think, but husbands ? Of what 
 else do their dear mammas think? "I must be my own 
 mamma," said Rebecca; not without a tingling consciousness 
 of defeat, as she thought over her little misadventure with Jos 
 Sedley. 
 
 So she wisely determined to render her position with the 
 Queen's Crawley family comfortable and secure, and to this end 
 resolved to make friends of every one around her who could at 
 all interfere with her comfort. 
 
 As my Lady Crawley was not one of these personages, and a 
 woman, moreover, so indolent and void of character as not to be 
 of the least consequence in her own house, Rebecca soon found 
 that it was not at all necessary to cultivate her good will — indeed, 
 impossible to gain it. She used to talk to her pupils about their 
 " poor mamma; " and, though she treated that lady with every 
 demonstration of cool respect, it was to the rest of the family 
 that she wisely directed the chief part of her attentions. 
 
 With the young peopje, whose applause she thoroughly gained, 
 her method was pretty* simple. She did not pester their young 
 brains with too much learning, but, on the contrary, let them 
 have their own way in regard to edu(?^ting themselves; for what 
 instruction is more effectual than self-instruction? The eldest 
 was rather fond of books, and as there was in the old library 
 at Queen's Crawley a considerable provision of works of light 
 literature of the last century, both in the French and English 
 languages (they had been purchased by the Secretary of the Tape 
 and Sealing-Wax Office at the period of his disgrace), and as 
 
Miss Sharp Begins to Make Friends 85 
 
 nobody ever troubled the book-shelves but herself, Rebecca was 
 enabled agreeably, and, as it were, in playing, to impart a great 
 deal of instruction to Miss Rose Crawley. 
 
 She and Miss Rose thus read together many delightful French 
 and English works, among which may be mentioned those of the 
 learned Dr. Smollett, of the ingenious Mr. Henry Fielding, of the 
 graceful and fantastic Monsieur Crebillon the younger, whom 
 our immortal poet Gray so much admired, and of the universal 
 Monsieur de Voltaire. Once, when Mr. Crawley asked what the 
 young people were reading, the governess replied " Smollett." 
 " Oh, Smollett," said Mr. Crawley, quite satisfied. " His 
 history is more dull, but by no means so dangerous as that of 
 Mr. Hume. It is history you are reading ? " " Yes," said Miss 
 Rose; without, however, adding that it was the history of Mr. 
 Humphrey Clinker. On another occasion he was rather scan- 
 dalised at finding his sister with a book of French plays ; but as 
 the governess remarked that it was for the purpose of acquiring 
 the French idiom in conversation, he was fain to be content. Mr. 
 Crawley, as a diplom.atist, was exceedingly proud of his own skill 
 in speaking the French language (for he was of the world still), 
 and not a little pleased with the compliments which the gover- 
 ness continually paid him upon his proficiency. 
 
 Miss Violet's tastes were, on the contrary, more rude and 
 boisterous than those of her sister. She knew the sequestered 
 spots where the hens laid their eggs. She could climb a tree to 
 rob the nests of the feathered songsters of their speckled spoils. 
 And her pleasure was to ride the young colts, and to scour the 
 plains like Camilla. She was the favourite of her father and of 
 the stablemen. She was the darling, and withal the terror of 
 the cook; for she discovered the haunts of the jam-pots, and 
 would attack them when they were within her reach. She and 
 her sister were engaged in constant battles. Any of which 
 peccadilloes, if Miss Sharp discovered, she did not tell them to 
 Lady Crawley, who would have told them to the father, or 
 worse, to Mr. Crawley; but promised not to tell if Miss Violet 
 would be a good girl and love her governess. 
 
 With Mr. Crav/ley Miss Sharp was respectful and obedient. 
 She used to consult him on passages of French which she could 
 not understand, though her mother was a Frenchwoman, and 
 which he would construe to her satisfaction : and, besides giving 
 her his aid in profane literature, he was kind enough to select 
 for her books of a more serious tendency, and address to her 
 much of his conversation. She admired, beyond measure, his 
 
86 Vanity Fair 
 
 speech at the Quashimaboo-Aid Society ; took an interest in his 
 pamphlet on Malt : was often affected^ even to tears^ by his dis- 
 courses of an evening, and would say — " Oh, thank you, sir," 
 with a sigh, and a look up to heaven, that made him occasionally 
 condescend to shake hands with her. " Blood is everything, 
 after all," Avould that aristocratic religionist say. " How Miss 
 Sharp is awakened by my words, when not one of the people 
 here is touched. I am too fine for them — too delicate. I must 
 familiarise my style — but she understands it. Her mother was 
 a Montmorency." 
 
 Indeed it was from this famous family, as it appears, that 
 Miss Sharp, by the mother's side, was descended. Of course she 
 did not say that her mother had been on the stage ; it would have 
 shocked Mr. Crawley's religious scruples. How many noble 
 emigrees had this horrid revolution plunged in poverty! She 
 had several stories about her ancestors ere she had been many 
 months in the house; some of which Mr. Crawley happened to 
 find in D'Hozier's dictionary, which was in the library, and 
 which strengthened his belief in their truth, and in the high 
 breeding of Rebecca. Are we to suppose from this curiosity 
 and. prying into dictionaries, could our heroine suppose, that 
 •Mr. Crawley was interested in her? — No, only in a friendly way. 
 Have we not stated that he was attached to Lady Jane Sheep- 
 shanks ? 
 
 He took Rebecca to task once or twice about the propriety 
 of playing at backgammon with Sir Pitt, saying that it was a 
 godless amusement, and that she would be much better engaged 
 in reading " Thrump's Legacy," or " The Blind Washerwoman 
 of Moorfields," or any work of a more serious nature; but Miss 
 Sharp said her dear mother used often to play the same game 
 with the old Count de Trictrac and the venerable Abbe du Cornet, 
 and so found an excuse for this and other worldly amusements. 
 
 But it was not only by playing at backgammon with the 
 Baronet, that the little governess rendered herself agreeable 
 to her employer. She found many different ways of being useful 
 to him. She read over, with indefatigable patience, all those 
 law papers, with which, before she came to Queen's Crawley, he 
 had promised to entertain her. She volunteered to copy many 
 of his letters, and adroitly altered the spelling of them so as to 
 suit the usages of the present day. She became interested in 
 everything appertaining to the estate, to the farm, the park, the 
 garden, and the stables ; and so delightful a companion was she, 
 that the Baronet would seldom take his after-breakfast walk 
 
Miss Sharp Begins to Make Friends 87 
 
 without her (and the children of course)^ when she would give 
 her advice as to the trees which were to be lopped in the shrub- 
 beries, the garden-beds to bed up, the crops which were to be 
 cut, the horses which were to go to cart or plough. Before she 
 had been a year at Queen's Crawley she had quite won the 
 Baronet's confidence ; and the conversation at the dinner- table, 
 which before used to be held between him and Mr. Horrocks the 
 butler, was now almost exclusively between Sir Pitt and Miss 
 Sharp. She was almost mistress of the house when Mr. Crawley \ 
 was absent, but conducted herself in her new and exalted situa- 
 tion with such circumspection and modesty as not to offend 
 the authorities of the kitchen and stable, among whom her 
 behaviour was always exceedingly modest and affable. She 
 was quite a different person from the haughty, shy, dissatisfied \ 
 little girl whom we have known previously, and this change of j 
 temper proved great prudence, a sincere desire of amendment, / 
 or at any rate great moral courage on her part. Whether it was [ 
 the heart which dictated this new system of complaisance and \ 
 humility adopted by our Rebecca, is to be proved by her after 
 history. A system of hypocrisy, which lasts through whole 
 years, is one seldom satisfactorily practised by a person of one- 
 and-twenty; however, our readers will recollect that, though 
 young in years, our heroine was old in life and experience, and 
 we have written to no purpose if they have not discovered that 
 she was a very clever woman. 
 
 The elder and younger son of the house of Crawley were, like 
 the gentleman and lady in the weather-box, never at home 
 together — they hated each other cordially: indeed, Rawdon 
 Crawley, the dragoon, had a great contempt for the establish- 
 ment altogether, and seldom came thither except when his aunt 
 paid her annual visit. 
 
 The great good quality of this old lady has been mentioned. U 
 She possessed seventy thousand pounds, and had almost adopted! j 
 Rawdon. She disliked her elder nephew exceedingly, anq/ 
 despised him as a milksop. In return he did not hesitate to 
 state that her soul was irretrievably lost, and was of opinion that 
 his brother's chance in the next world was not a whit better. 
 *' She is a godless woman of the world," would Mr. Crawley say; 
 " She lives with atheists and Frenchmen. My mind shudders 
 when I think of her awful, awful situation, and that, near as she 
 is to the grave, she should be so given up to vanity, licentious- 
 ness, profaneness, and folly." In fact, the old lady declined 
 altogether to hear his hour's lecture of an evening; and when 
 
88 Vanity Fair 
 
 she came to Queen's Crawley alone^ he was obUged to pretermit 
 his usual devotional exercises. 
 
 " Shut up your sarmons, Pitt, when Miss Crawley comes 
 down/' said his father; " she has written to say that she won't 
 stand the preachifying." 
 
 *' sir! consider the servants." 
 
 ** The servants be hanged ! " said Sir Pitt; and his son thought 
 even worse would happen were they deprived of the benefit of 
 his instruction. 
 
 " Why, hang it, Pitt! " said the father to his remonstrance. 
 " You wouldn't be such a flat as to let three thousand a year go 
 out of the family ? " 
 
 " Wliat is money compared to our souls, sir? " continued Mr. 
 Crawley. 
 
 " You mean that the old lady won't leave the money to you ? " 
 — and who knows but it was Mr. Crawley's meaning ? 
 
 Old Miss Crawley was certainly one of the reprobate. She 
 had a snug little house in Park Lane, and, as she ate and drank 
 a great deal too much during the season in London, she went to 
 Harrowgate or Cheltenham for the summer. She was the most 
 hospitable and jovial of old vestals, and had been a beauty in 
 her day, she said. (All old women were beauties once, we very 
 well know.) She was a bel esprit, and a dreadful Radical for 
 those days. She had been in France (where St. Just, they say, 
 inspired her with an unfortunate passion), and loved, ever after, 
 French novels, French cookery, and French wines. She read 
 Voltaire, and had Rousseau by heart; talked very lightly about 
 divorce, and most energetically of the rights of women. She 
 had pictures of Mr. Fox in every room in the house : when that 
 statesman was in opposition, I am not sure that she had not 
 flung a main with him; and when he came into office, she took 
 great credit for bringing over to him Sir Pitt and his colleague 
 for Queen's Crawley, although Sir Pitt would have come over 
 himself, withoi^t any trouble on the honest lady's part. It is 
 needless to say '^that Sir Pitt was brought to change his views 
 after the death of the great Whig statesman. 
 
 This worthy old lady took a fancy to Rawdon Crawley when 
 a boy, sent him to Cambridge (in opposition to his brother at 
 Oxford), and, when the young, man w^as requested by the authori- 
 ties of the first-named University to quit after a residence of two 
 years, she bought him his commission in the Life Guards Green. 
 
 A perfect and celebrated " blood " or dandy about town, was 
 this young officer. Boxing, rat-hunting, the fives' court, and 
 
Arcadian Simplicity 89 
 
 four-in-hand driving were then the fashion of our British aristo- 
 cracy; and he was an adept in all these noble sciences. And 
 though he belonged to the household troops^ who^ as it was their 
 duty to rally round the Prince Regent, had not shown their 
 valour in foreign service yet, Rawdon Crawley had already 
 {apropos of play, of which he was immoderately fond) fought 
 three bloody duels, in which he gave ample proofs of his con- 
 tempt for death. 
 
 " And for what follows after death," would Mr. Crawley 
 obsePv^e, throwing his gooseberry-coloured eyes up to the ceiling. 
 He was always thinking of his brother's soul, or of the souls of 
 those who differed with him in opinion: it is a sort of comfort 
 which many of the serious give themselves. 
 
 Silly, romantic Miss Crawley, far from being horrified at the 
 courage of her favourite, always used to pay his debts after his 
 duels; and would not listen to a word that was whispered 
 against his morality. " He will sow his wild oats," she would 
 say, " and is worth far more than that puling hypocrite of a 
 ■ brother of his," 
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 ARCADIAN SIMPLICITY ^^ 
 
 pa 4^^^ 
 
 Besides these honest folks at the Hall (whose simplicity and 
 sweet rural purity surely show the advantage of a country life 
 over a town one), we must introduce the reader to their relatives 
 and neighbours at the Rectory, Bute Crawley and his wife. 
 
 The Reverend Bute Crawley was a tall, stately, jolly, shovel- 
 hatted man, far more popular in his county than the Baronet 
 his brother. At college he pulled stroke-oar in the Christchurch 
 boat, and had thrashed all the best bruisers of the " town." He 
 carried his taste for boxing and athletic exercises into private 
 life; there was not a fight withm twenty miles at which he was 
 not present, nor a race, nor a coursing match, nor a regatta, nor 
 
 i a ball, nor an election, nor a visitation dinner, nor indeed a good 
 dinner in the whole county, but he found means to attend it. ' 
 
 j You might see his bay-mare and gig-lam.ps a score of miles away 
 from his Rectory House, whenever there was any dinner-party 
 at Fuddleston, or at Roxby, or at Wapshot Hall, or at the great 
 
9© . Vanity Fair 
 
 lords of the county, with all of whom he was intimate. He had 
 a ffne voice; sang " A southerly wind and a cloudy sky; " and 
 gave the " whoop " in chorus with general applause. He rode 
 to hounds in a pepper-and-salt frock, and was one of the best 
 fishermen in the county. 
 
 Mrs. Crawley, the Rector's wife, was a smart little body, who 
 wrote this worthy divine's sermons. Being of a domestic turn, 
 and keeping the house a great deal with her daughters, she ruled 
 absolutely within the Rectory, wisely giving her husband full 
 liberty without. He was welcome to come and go, and dine 
 abroad as many days as his fanc)'' dictated, for Mrs. Crawley was 
 a saving woman and knew the price of port wine. Ever since 
 Mrs. Bute carried off the young Rector of Queen's Crawley (she 
 was of a good family, daughter of the late Lieut.-Colonel Hector 
 MacTavish, and she and her mother played for Bute and won 
 him at Harrowgate), she had been a prudent and thrifty wife to 
 him. In spite of her care, however, he was always in debt. It 
 took him at least ten years to pay off his college bills contracted 
 during his father's lifetime. In the year 179 — , when he was 
 just clear of these incumbrances, he gave the odds of 100 to i 
 (in twenties) against Kangaroo, who won the Derby. The 
 Rector was obliged to take up the money at a ruinous interest, 
 and had been struggling ever since. His sister helped him with 
 a hundred now and then, but of course his great hope was in her 
 death — ^when " hang it " (as he would say), " Matilda must leave 
 me ha,lf her money." 
 
 So that the Baronet and his brother had every reason which 
 two brothers possibly can have for being by the ears. Sir Pitt 
 had had the better of Bute in innumerable family transactions. 
 Young Pitt not only did not hunt, but set up a meeting-house 
 under his uncle's very nose. Rawdon, it was known, was to 
 come in for the bulk of Miss Crawley's property. These money 
 transactions — these speculations in life and death — these silent 
 I battles for reversionary spoil — make brothers very loving 
 I towards each other in Vanity Fair. I, for my part, have known 
 a five-pound note to interpose and knock up a half-century's 
 attachment between two brethren; and can't but admire, as I 
 think what a fine and durable thing Love is among worldly 
 people. 
 
 It cannot be supposed that the arrival of such a personage as 
 Rebecca at Queen's Crawley, and her gradual establishment in 
 the good graces of all people there, could be unremarked by Mrs. 
 Bute Crawley. Mrs, Bute, who knew how many days the sirloin 
 
Arcadian Simplicity 91 
 
 of beef lasted at the Hall; how much linen was got ready at the 
 great wash; how many peaches were on the south wall; how 
 many doses her ladyship took when she was ill — for such points 
 are matters of intense interest to certain persons in the country 
 — ^Mrs. Bute, I say, could not pass over the Hall governess with- 
 out making every inquiry respecting her history and character. 
 There was always the best understanding between the servants 
 at the Rectory and the Hall. There was always a good glass of 
 ale in the kitchen of the former place for the Hall people, whose 
 ordinary drink was very small — ^and, indeed, the Rector's lady 
 knew exactly how much malt went to every barrel of Hall beer , 
 — ties of relationship existed between the Hall and Rectory || 
 domestics, as between their masters; and through these channels| 
 each family was perfectly well acquainted with the doings of the 
 other. That, by the way, may be set down as a general remark. _ 
 When you and your brother are friends, his doings are indifferent! 
 to you. When you have quarrelled, all his outgoings and in- 1 
 comings you know, as if you were his spy. ^ 
 
 Very soon then after her arrival, Rebecca began to take a 
 regular place in Mrs. Crawley's bulletin from the Hall. It was 
 to this effect: — " The black porker's killed — ^weighed x stone — 
 salted the sides — pig's pudding and leg of pork for dinner. 
 Mr. Cramp from Mudbury, over with Sir Pitt about putting 
 John Blackmore in gaol — Mr. Pitt at meeting (with all the 
 names of the people who attended) — ^my lady as usual — the 
 young ladies with the governess." 
 
 Then the report would come — The new governess be a rare 
 manager — Sir Pitt be very sweet on her — Mr. Crawley too — He 
 be reading tracts to her — " What an abandoned wretch ! " said 
 little, eager, active, black-faced Mrs. Bute Crawley. 
 
 Finally, the reports were that the governess had " come 
 round " everybody, wrote Sir Pitt's letters, did his business, 
 managed his accounts — ^had the upper hand of the whole house, 
 my lady, Mr. Crawley, the girls and all — ^at which Mrs. Crawley 
 declared she was an artful hussey, and had some dreadful 
 designs in view. Thus the doings at the Hall were the great 
 food for conversation at the Rectory, and Mrs. Bute's bright 
 eyes spied out everything that took place in the enemy's camp 
 — everything and a great deal besides. 
 
92 Vanity Fair 
 
 "Mrs. Bute Crawley to Miss Pinkerton, The Mall, 
 
 Chiswick. 
 
 " Rectory, Queen's Crawley, December — . 
 
 " My dear Madam, — Although it is so many years since I pro- 
 fited by your delightful and invaluable instructions, yet I have ever 
 retained the fondest and most reverential regard lor Miss Pinkerton, 
 and dear Chiswick. I hope your health is good. The world and 
 the cause of ediication cannot afford to lose Miss Pinkerton for many 
 many years. When my friend. Lady Fuddleston, mentioned that 
 her dear girls required an instructress (I am too poor to engage a 
 governess for mine, but was I not educated at Chiswick?) — ' Who,' 
 I exclaimed, * can we consult but the excellent, the incomparable 
 Miss Pinkerton? ' In a word, have you, dear madam, any ladies 
 on your list, whose services might be made available to my kind 
 friend and neighbour ? I assure you she wUl take no governess hut 
 of your choosing. 
 
 " My dear husband is pleased to say that he likes everything 
 which comes from Miss Pinkerton's school. How I wish I could 
 present him and my beloved girls to the friend of my youth, and 
 the admired of the great lexicographer of our country ! If you ever 
 travel into Hampshire, Mr. Crawley begs me to say, he hopes you 
 will adorn our rural rectory with yom: presence. 'Tis the humble 
 but happy home of 
 
 " Your affectionate 
 
 " Martha Crawley. 
 
 " P.S. — Mr. Crawley's brother, the baronet, with whom we are 
 not, alas! upon those terms of unity in which it becomes brethren to 
 dwell, has a governess for his little girls, who, I am told, had the good 
 j> fortune to be educated at Chiswick. I hear various reports of her; 
 jj" and as I have the tenderest interest in my dearest little nieces, 
 whom I wish, in spite of family differences, to see among my own 
 children — and as I long to be attentive to any pupil of yours — do, 
 my dear Miss Pinkerton, tell me the history of this young lady, 
 whom, for your sake, I am most anxious to befriend. — ^M. C." 
 
 4 
 
 " Miss Pinkerton to Mrs. Bute Crawley. 
 
 ■v 9.0^0 " Johnson House, Chiswick, Dec. 18 — . 
 
 1^ )^ " Dear Madam, — I have the honour to acknowledge your polite 
 Y communication, to which I promptly reply. 'Tis most gratifying 
 ^ to one in my most arduous position to find that my maternal cares 
 have elicited a responsive affection ; and to recognise in the amiable 
 Mrs. Bute Crawley my excellent pupil of former years, the sprightly 
 and accomplished Miss Martha MacTavish. I am happy to have 
 under my charge now the daughters of many of those who were 
 your contemporaries at my establishment — what pleasure it would 
 give me if your own beloved young ladies had need of my instruc- 
 tive superintendence! 
 
Arcadian Simplicity 93 
 
 " Presenting my respectful compliments to Lady Fuddleston, I 
 have the honour (epistolarily) to introduce to her ladyship my two 
 friends, Miss Tuffin and Miss Hawky. Uti<.K-<U,U futu''^ 
 
 " Either of these young ladies is perfectly qiialipfed to instruct in 
 Greek, Latin, and the rudiments of Hebrew; in mathematics and 
 history; in Spanish, French, Italian, and geography; in music, 
 vocal and instrumental; in dancing, without the aid of a master; 
 and in the elements of natural sciences. In the use of the globes 
 both are proficients. In addition to these. Miss TufEn, who is 
 daughter of the late Reverend Thomas Tuffin (Fellow of Corpus 
 College, Cambridge), can instruct in the Syriac language, and the 
 elements of Constitutional law. But as she is only eighteen years 
 of age, and of exceedingly pleasing personal appearance, perhaps 
 this young lady may be objectionable in Sir Huddleston Fuddle- 
 ston' s family. 
 
 " Miss Letitia Hawky, on the Other hand, is not personally well- 
 favoured. She is twenty-nine; her face is much pitted with the 
 smallpox. She has a halt in her gait, red hair, and a trifling obli- ^ 
 quity of vision. Both ladies are endowed with every moral and "S" 
 religious virtue. Their terms, of course, are such as their accom- c< 
 plishments merit. With my most grateful respects to the Reverend ^ 
 Bute Crawley, I have the honour to be, dear Madam, "^^^ 
 
 " Your most faithful and obedient servant, "^ - 
 
 " Barbara Pinkerton. 
 
 " P.S. — The Miss Sharp whom you mention as governess to Sir 
 Pitt Crawley, Bart., M.P., was a pupil of mine, and I have nothing 
 to say in her disfavour. Though her appearance is disagreeable, we 
 cannot control the operations of nature; and though her parents 
 were disreputable (her father being a painter, several times bank- 
 rupt, and her mother, as I have since learned, with horror, a dancer 
 at the Opera) ; yet her talents are considerable, and I cannot regret 
 that I received her out of charity. My dread is, lest the principles 
 of the mother — who was represented to me as a French Countess, 
 forced to emigrate in the late revolutionary horrors; but who, as 
 I have since found, was a person of the very lowest order and morals 
 — should at any time prove to be hereditary in the unhappy young 
 woman whom I took as an outcast. But her principles have hitherto 
 been correct (I believe), and I am sure nothing will occur to injure 
 them in the elegant and refined circle of the eminent Sir Pitt 
 Crawley." 
 
 " Miss Rebecca Sharp to Miss Amelia Sedley. 
 
 " I have not written to my beloved Amelia for these many weeks 
 past, for w^hat news was there to tell of the sayings and doings at 
 Humdrum Hall, as I have christened it; and what do you care 
 whether the turnip crop is good or bad ; whether the fat pig weighed 
 thirteen stone or fourteen , and whether the beasts thrive well upon 
 mangelwurzel ? Every day since I last wrote has been like its neigh- 
 bour. Before breakfast, a walk with Sir Pitt and his spud; after 
 
94 Vanity Fair 
 
 breakfast studies (such as they are) in the schoolroom ; after school- 
 room, reading and wTiting about lawyers, leases, coal-mines, canals, 
 with Sir Pitt (whose secretary I am become); after dinner, Mr. 
 Crawley's discourses or the baronet's backgammon; during both 
 of which amusements my lady looks on with equal placidity. She 
 has become rather more interesting by being ailing of late, which 
 has brought a new visitor to the Hall, in the person of a young 
 doctor. Well, my dear, young women need never despair. The 
 young doctor gave a certain friend of yours to understand that, if 
 she chose to be Mrs. Glauber, she was welcome to ornament the 
 surgery! I told his impudence that the gilt pestal and mortar was 
 quite ornament enough; as if I was born, indeed, to be a country 
 surgeon's wife ! Mr. Glauber went home seriously indisposed at his 
 rebuff, took a cooling draught, and is now quite cured. Sir Pitt 
 applauded my resolution highly ; he would be sorry to lose his little 
 secretary, I think; and I believe the old wretch likes me as much 
 as it is in his nature to like any one. Marry, indeed! and with a 
 
 country apothecary, after No, no, one cannot so soon forget old 
 
 associations, about which I will talk no more. Let us return to 
 Humdrum Hall. 
 
 " For some time past it is Humdrum Hall no longer. My dear, 
 Miss Crawley has arrived with her fat horses, fat servants, fat 
 spaniel — the great rich Miss Crawley, with seventy thousand pounds 
 in the five per cents., whom, or I had better say which, her two 
 brothers adore. She looks very apoplectic, the dear soul; no 
 wonder her brothers are anxious about her. You should see them 
 struggling to settle her cushions, or to hand her coffee! ' When I 
 come into the country,' she says (for she has a great deal of humour), 
 ' I leave my toady, Miss Briggs, at home. My brothers are my 
 toadies here, my dear, and a pretty pair they are I ' 
 
 " When she comes into the country our hall is thrown open, and 
 for a month, at least, you would fancy old Sir Walpole was come to 
 life again. We have dinner-parties, and drive out in the coach- 
 and-f our — the footmen put on their newest canary-coloured liveries ; 
 we drink claret and champagne as if we were accustomed to it every 
 day. We have wax candles in the schoolroom, and fires to warm 
 ourselves with. Lady Crawley is made to put on the brightest pea- 
 green in her wardrobe, and my pupils leave off their thick shoes and 
 tight old tartan pelisses, and wear silk stockings and muslin frocks, 
 as fashionable baronet's daughters should. Rose came in yesterday 
 in a sad plight — the Wiltshire sow (an enormous pet of hers) ran her 
 down, and destroyed a most lovely flowered lilac silk dress by danc- 
 ing over it — had this happened a week ago. Sir Pitt would have 
 sworn frightfully, have boxed the poor wretch's ears, and put her 
 upon bread and water for a month. All he said was, ' I'll serve you 
 out. Miss, when your aunt's gone,' and laughed off the accident as 
 quite trivial. Let us hope his wrath will have passed away before 
 Miss Crawley's departure. I hope so, for Miss Rose's sake, I am 
 sure. What a charming reconciler and peace-maker money is ! 
 
 " Another admirable effect of Miss Crawley and her seventy 
 thousand pounds is to be seen in the conduct of the two brothers 
 Crawley. I mean the baronet and the rector, not our brothers — 
 
Arcadian Simplicity 95 
 
 but the former, who hate each other all the year round, become 
 quite loving at Christmas. I wrote to you last year how the abomin- 
 able horse-racing rector was in the habit of preaching clumsy ser- 
 mons at us at church, and how Sir Pitt snored in answer. When 
 Miss Crawley arrives there is no such thing as quarrelling heard of — 
 the Hall visits the Rectory and vice versa — the parson and the 
 baronet talk about the pigs and the poachers and the county business, 
 in the most affable manner, and without quarrelling in their cups, 
 I believe — indeed, Miss Crawley won't hear of their quarrelling, and 
 vows that she will leave her money to the Shropshire Crawleys if 
 they offend her. If they were clever people, those Shropshire 
 Crawleys, they might have it all, I think; but the Shropshire 
 Crawley is a clergyman like his Hampshire cousin, and mortally 
 offended Miss Crawley (who had fled thither in a fit of rage against 
 her impracticable brethren) by some strait-laced notions of morality. 
 He would have prayers in the house, I believe. 
 
 " Our sermon books are shut up when Miss Crawley arrives, and 
 Mr. Pitt, whom she abominates, finds it convenient to go to town. 
 On the other hand, the young dandy — ' blood,' I believe is the term 
 — Captain Crawley makes his appearance, and I suppose you will 
 like to know what sort of a person he is. 
 
 " Well, he is a very large young dandy. He is six feet high, and 
 spea,ks with a great voice; and swears a great deal; and orders 
 about the servants, who all adore him nevertheless; for he is very 
 generous of his money, and the domestics will do anything for him. 
 Last week the keepers almost killed a bailiff and his man who came 
 down from London to arrest the Captain, and who were found lurk- 
 ing about the Park wall — they beat them, ducked them, and were 
 going to shoot them for poachers, but the baronet interfered, 
 
 " The Captain has a hearty contempt for his father, I can see, 
 and calls him an old put, an old snob, an old chaw-bacon, and number- 
 less other pretty names. He has a dreadful reputation among the 
 ladies. He brings his hunters home with him, lives with the Squires 
 of the county, asks whom he pleases to dinner, and Sir Pitt dares 
 not say no, for feax of offending Miss Crawley, and missing his 
 legacy when she dies of her apoplexy. Shall I tell you a compli- 
 ment the Captain paid me ? I must, it is so pretty. One evening 
 we actually had a dance; there was Sir Huddleston Fuddleston 
 and his family. Sir Giles Wapshot and his young ladies, and I don't 
 know how many more. W^ell, I heard him say — ' By Jove, she's a 
 neat little filly! ' meaning yoirr humble servant; and he did me the 
 honour to dance two country-dances with me. He gets on pretty^ 
 gaily with the young Squires, with whom he drinks, bets, rides, and \ 
 talks about hunting and shooting; but he says the country girls I 
 are bores ; indeed, I don't think he is far wrong. You should see / 
 the contempt with which they look down on poor me ! When they : 
 dance I sit and play the piano very demurely; but the other night, 
 coming in rather flushed from the dining-room, and seeing me em- 
 ployed in this way, he swore out loud that I was the best dancer in 
 the room, and took a great oath that he would have the fiddlers 
 from Mudbury. 
 
 I'll go and play a country-dance,' said Mrs. Bute Crawley, 
 
96 Vanity Fair 
 
 very readily (she is a little, black-faced old woman in a turban, 
 rather crooked, and with very twinkling eyes) ; and after the Cap- 
 tain and your poor little Rebecca had performed a dance together, 
 do you know she actually did me the honour to compliment me 
 upon my steps ! Such a thing was never heard of before ; the proud 
 Mrs. Bute Crawley, first cousin to the Earl of Tiptoff, who won't 
 condescend to visit Lady Crawley, except when her sister is in the 
 country. Poor Lady Crawley! during most part of these gaieties, 
 she is upstairs taking pills. 
 
 " Mrs. Bute has ail of a sudden taken a great fancy to me. ' My 
 dear Miss Sharp,' she says, ' why not bring over your girls to the 
 Rectory? — their cousins will be so happy to see them.' I know 
 what she means. Signor Clementi did not teach us the piano for 
 nothing; at which price Mrs. Bute hopes to get a professor for her 
 children. I can see through her schemes, as though she told them 
 to me ; but I shall go, as I am determined to make myself agreeable 
 — ^is it not a poor governess's duty, who has not a friend or protector 
 in the world? The Rector's wife paid me a score of compliments 
 about the progress my pupils made, and thought no doubt, to touch 
 
 C'my heart — poor, simple, country soul! — as if I cared a fig about 
 -my pupHs ! 
 
 " Your Indian muslin and your pink silk, dearest Amelia, are said 
 to become me very well. They are a good deal worn now; but, you 
 know, we poor girls can't afford des fraiches toilettes. Happy, happy 
 you! who have but to drive to St. James's Street, and a dear mother 
 who will give you anything you ask. Farewell, dearest girl, 
 
 " Your affectionate 
 
 " Rebecca. 
 
 " P.S. — I wish you could have seen the faces of the Miss Black- 
 brooks (Admiral Blackbrook's daughters, my dear), fine young 
 ladies, with dresses from London, when Captain Rawdon selected 
 poor me for a partner! " 
 
 When Mrs. Bute Crawley (whose artifices our ingenious 
 Rebecca had so soon discovered) had procured from Miss Sharp 
 the promise of a visit, she induced the all-powerful Miss Crawley 
 to make the necessary application to Sir Pitt, and the good- 
 natured old lady, who loved to be gay herself, and to see every 
 one gay and happy round about her, was quite charmed, and 
 ready to establish a reconciliation and intimacy between her 
 two brothers. It was therefore agreed that the young people of 
 both families should visit each other frequently for the future, 
 and the friendship of course lasted as long as the jovial old 
 mediatrix was there to keep the peace. 
 
 " Why did you ask that scoundrel, Rawdon Crawley, to dine ?" 
 said the Rector to his lady, as they were walking home through 
 the park. " / don't want the fellow. He looks down upon us 
 country people as so many blackamoors. He's never content 
 
Arcadian Simplicity 97 
 
 unless he gets my yellow-sealed wine, which costs me ten 
 shillings a bottle, hang him! Besides, he's such an infernal 
 character — he's a gambler — he's a drunkard — ^he's a profligate 
 in every way. He shot a man in a duel — he's over head and 
 ears in debt, and he's robbed me and mine of the best part 
 of Miss Crawley's fortune. Waxy says she has him " — here 
 the Rector shook his fist at the moon, with something very 
 
 like an oath, and added, in a melancholious tone — " , 
 
 down in her will for fifty thousand; and there won't be above 
 thirty to divide." 
 
 " I think she's going," said the Rector's wife. " She was 
 very red in the face when we left dinner. I was obliged to 
 unlace her." 
 
 " She drank seven glasses of champagne," said the reverend 
 gentleman, in a low voice; " and filthy champagne it is, too, 
 that my brother poisons us with — ^but you women never know 
 what's what." ^ ^ ^ l^^^ v.^tM^ 
 
 " We know nothing," said Mrs. Bute Crawley J t/.^tou'V^'^y 
 
 " She drank cherry -brandy after dinner,'^ continued his 
 Reverence, " and took cura9oa with her coffee. I wouldn't 
 take a glass for a five-pound note: it kills me with heartburn. 
 She can't stand it, Mrs. Crawley — she must go — flesh and blood 
 won't bear it! and I lay five to twOj._.Matilxia drops in a 
 year." Linj'oT^utl^^ 
 
 Indulging in these solemnvspeculations, and thinking about 
 his debts, and his son Jim at college, and Frank at Woolwich, 
 and the four girls, who were no beauties, poor things, and would 
 not have a penny but what they got from the aunt's expected 
 legacy, the Rector and his lady walked on for a while. 
 
 "Pitt can't be such an infernal villain as to sell the reversion 
 of the living. And that Methodist milksop of an eldest son 
 looks to Parliament," continued Mr. Crawley, after a pause. 
 
 " Sir Pitt Crawley will do anything," said the Rector's wife. 
 " We must get Miss Crawley to make him promise it to James." 
 
 " Pitt will promise anything," replied the brother. " He 
 promised he'd pay my college bills, when my father died; he 
 promised he'd build the new wing to the Rectory ; he promised 
 he'd let me have Jibb's field and the Six-acre Meadow — and 
 much he executed his promises! And it's to this man's son — 
 this scoundrel, gambler, swindler, murderer of a Rawdon 
 Crawley, that Matilda leaves the bulk of her money. I say it's 
 unchristian. By Jove, it is. The infamous dog has got every 
 vice except hypocrisy, and that belongs to his brother." 
 
98 Vanity Fair 
 
 " Hush, my dearest love ! we're in Sir Pitt's grounds," inter- 
 posed his wife. 
 
 " I say he has got every vice, Mrs. Crawley. Don't, Ma'am, 
 bully me. Didn't he shoot Captain Marker.? Didn't he rob 
 young Lord Dovedale at the Cocoa-Tree ? Didn't he cross the 
 fight between Bill Soames and the Cheshire Trump, by which I 
 lost forty pound.'' You know he did; and as for the women, 
 why, you heard that before me, in my own magistrate's 
 room " 
 
 " For heaven's sake, Mr. Crawley," said the lady, " spare me 
 the details." 
 
 " And you ask this villain into your house ! " continued the 
 exasperated Rector. " You, the mother of a young family — 
 the wife of a clergyman of the Church of England. By Jove ! " 
 
 " Bute Crawley, you are a fool," said the Rector's wife scorn- 
 fully. 
 
 " Well, Ma'am, fool or not — and I don't say, Martha, I'm so 
 clever as you are, I never did. But I won't meet Rawdon 
 Crawley, that's flat. I'll go over to Huddleston, that I will, and 
 see his black greyhound, Mrs. Crawley; and I'll run Lancelot 
 against him for fifty. By Jove, I will; or against any dog in 
 England. But I won't meet that beast Rawdon Crawley." 
 
 " Mr. Crawley, you are intoxicated, as usual," replied his 
 wife. And the next morning, when the Rector woke, and called 
 for small beer, she put him in mind of his promise to visit Sir 
 Huddleston Fuddleston on Saturday, and as he knew he should 
 . have a wet night, it was agreed that he might gallop back again 
 in time for church on Sunday morning. Thus it will be seen 
 that the parishioners of Crawley were equally happy in their 
 Squire and in their Rector. 
 
 Miss Crawley had not long been established at the Hall before 
 Rebecca's fascinations had won the heart of that good-natured 
 London rake, as they had of the country innocents whom we 
 have been describing. Taking her accustomed drive, one day, 
 she thought fit to order that " that Httle governess " should 
 accompany her to Mudbury. Before they had returned Rebecca 
 had made a conquest of her; having made her laugh four times, 
 and amused her during the whole of the little journey. 
 
 " Not let Miss Sharp dine at table ! " said she to Sir Pitt, who 
 had arranged a dinner of ceremony, and asked all the neighbour- 
 ing baronets. " My dear creature, do you suppose I can talk 
 about the nursery with Lady Fuddleston, or discuss jurtices' 
 
Arcadian Simplicity 99 
 
 business with that goose, old Sir Giles Wapshot? I insist 
 upon Miss Sharp appearing. Let Lady Crawley remain 
 upstairs, if there is no room. But little Miss Sharp ! Why, 
 she's the only person fit to talk to in the county ! " 
 
 Of course, after such a peremptory order as this, Miss Sharp, 
 the governess, received commands to dine with the illustrious 
 company below stairs. And when Sir Huddleston had, with 
 great pomp and ceremony, handed Miss Crawley in to dinner, 
 and was preparing to take his place by her side, the old lady 
 cried out, in a shrill voice, " Becky Sharp! Miss Sharp! Come 
 you and sit by me and amuse me; and let Sir Huddleston sit 
 by Lady Wapshot." 
 
 When the parties were over, and the carriages had rolled 
 away, the insatiable Miss Crawley would say, " Come to my 
 dressing-room, Becky, and let us abuse the company," — ^which, 
 between them, this pair of friends did perfectly. Old Sir 
 Huddleston wheezed a great deal at dinner; Sir Giles Wapshot 
 had a particularly noisy manner of imbibing his soup, and her 
 ladyship a wink of the left eye ; all of which Becky caricatured 
 to admiration; as well as the particulars of the night's con- 
 versation; the politics; the war; the quarter-sessions; the 
 famous run with the H. H., and those heavy and dreary themes, 
 about which country gentlemen converse. As for the Misses 
 Wapshot's toilettes and Lady Fuddleston's famous yellow hat, 
 Miss Sharp tore them to tatters, to the infinite amusement of 
 her audience. 
 
 " My dear, you are a perfect trouvaille, ^^ Miss Crawley would 
 say. " I wish you could come to me in London, but I couldn't 
 make a butt of you as I do of poor Briggs — no, no, you little 
 sly creature ; you are too clever — Isn't she, Firkin } " 
 
 Mrs. Firkin (who was dressing the very small remnant of hair 
 which remained on Miss Crawley's pate), flung up her head and 
 said, " I think Miss is very clever," with the most killing 
 sarcastic air. In fact, Mrs. Firkin had that natural jealousy 1 
 which is one of the main principles of every honesFwoman. _J. 
 
 After rebuffing Sir Huddleston Fuddleston, Miss Crawley 
 ordered that Rawdon Crawley should lead her in to dinner every 
 day, and that Becky should follow with her cushion — or else she 
 would have Becky's arm and Rawdon with the pillow. " We 
 must sit together," she said. " We're the only three Christians ■l/\ 
 in the county, my love " — in which case, it must be confessed, 1 1 
 that religion was at a very low ebb in the county of Hants. j 1 
 
 Besides being such a fine religionist. Miss Crawley was, as we ' 
 
loo Vanity Fair 
 
 have said;, an Ultra-liberal in opinions, and always took occasion 
 to express these in the most candid manner, 
 
 " What is birth, my dear? " she would say to Rebecca — 
 " Look at my brother Pitt; look at the Huddlestons, who have 
 been here since Henry II.; look at poor Bute at the parsonage; 
 — is any one of them equal to you in intelligence or breeding? 
 Equal to you — they are not even equal to poor dear Briggs, my 
 companion, or Bowls, my butler. You, my love, are a little 
 para^gon — ^positively a little jewel — You have more brains than 
 haK the shire — if merit had its reward you ought to be a duchess 
 — no, there ought to be no duchesses at all — but you ought to 
 have no superior, and I consider you, my love, as my equal in 
 every respect; and — ^will you put some coals on the fire, my dear; 
 and will you pick this dress of mine, and alter it, you who can 
 do it so well? " So this old philanthropist used to make her 
 equal run her errands, execute her millinery, and read her to 
 sleep with French novels, every night. 
 
 At this time, as some old readers may recollect, the genteel 
 world had been thrown into a considerable state of excitement 
 by two events, which, as the papers say, might give employment 
 to the gentlemen of the long robe. Ensign Shafton had run 
 away with Lady Barbara Fitzurse, the Earl of Bruin's daughter 
 and heiress; and poor Vere Vane, a gentleman who, up to forty, 
 had maintained a most respectable character and reared a 
 numerous family, suddenly and outrageously left his home, for 
 the sake of Mrs. Rougemont, the actress, who was sixty-five 
 years of age. 
 
 " That was the most beautiful part of dear Lord Nelson's 
 character," Miss Crawley said. " He went to the deuce for a 
 woman. There must be good in a man who will do that. I 
 adore all imprudent matches. What I like best, is for a noble- 
 man to marry a miller's daughter, as Lord Flowerdale did, it 
 makes all the women so angry — I wish some great man would 
 run away with you, my dear; I'm sure you're pretty enough." 
 
 "Two post-boys !— Oh, it would be delightful!" Rebecca 
 owned. 
 
 " And what I like next best, is, for a poor fellow to run away 
 with a rich girl. I have set my heart on Rawdon running, away 
 with someone." 
 
 " A rich someone, or a poor someone ? " 
 
 " Why, you goose 1 Rawdon has not a shilling but what I 
 give him. He is crible de deites — ^he must repair his fortunes, 
 and succeed in the world.'* 
 
 I 
 
Arcadian Simplicity loi 
 
 " Is he very clever? " Rebecca asked^ 
 
 "Clever, my love? — not an idea in the world beyond his 
 
 horses, and his regiment, and his hunting, and his play; but 
 
 he must succeed — he's so delightfully wicked. Don't you know 
 
 "^he lias hit a man,' and sliot a^ father through the hat 
 
 only? He's adored in his regiment; and all the young men at 
 
 /Wattier's and the Cocoa-Tree swear by him." 
 
 When Miss Rebecca Sharp wrote to her beloved friend the 
 account of the little ball at Queen's Crawley, and the manner in 
 which, for the first time. Captain Crawley had distinguished 
 her, she did not, strange to relate, give an altogether accurate 
 account of the transaction. The Captain had distinguished 
 her a great number of times before. The Captain had met her 
 in a half-score of walks. The Captain had lighted upon her in 
 a half-hundred of corridors and passages. The Captain had 
 hung over her piano twenty times of an evening (my Lady was 
 now upstairs, being ill, and nobody heeded her) as Miss Sharp 
 sang. The Captain had written her notes (the best that the 
 great blundering dragoon could devise and spell; but dulness 
 gets on as well as any other quality with women). But when 
 he put the first of the notes into the leaves of the song she was 
 singing, the little governess, rising and looking him steadily in 
 the face, took up the triangular missive daintily, and waved it 
 about as if it were a cocked hat, and she, advancing to the 
 enemy, popped the note into the fire, and made him a very low 
 curtsey, and went back to her place, and began to sing away 
 again more merrily than ever* 
 
 " What's that? " said Miss Crawley, interrupted in her after- 
 dinner doze by the stoppage of the music. 
 
 " It's a false note," Miss Sharp said with a laugh; and 
 Rawdon Crawley fumed with rage and mortification. 
 
 Seeing the evident partiality of Miss Crawley for the new 
 governess, how good it was of Mrs. Bute Crawley not to be 
 jealous, and to welcome the young lady to the Rectory, and not 
 only her, but Rawdon Crawley, her husband's rival in the Old 
 Maid's five per cents. ! They became very fond of each other's 
 society, Mrs. Crawley and her nephew. He gave up hunting; 
 he declined entertainments at Fuddleston: he would not dine 
 with the mess of the depot at Mudbury: his great pleasure was 
 to stroll over to Crawley parsonage — whither Miss Crawley came 
 too ; and as their mamma was ill, why not the children with Miss 
 Sharp? So the children (fittle dears!) came with Miss Sharp; 
 and of an evening some of the party would walk back together. 
 
I02 Vanity Fair 
 
 Not Miss Crawley — she preferred her carriage — ^but the walk 
 over the Rectory fields, and in at the little park wicket, and 
 through the dark plantation, and up the checkered avenue to 
 Queen's Crawley, was charming in the moonlight to two such 
 lovers of the picturesque as the Captain and Miss Rebecca. 
 
 " O those stars, those stars ! " Miss Rebecca would say, turn- 
 ing her twinkling green eyes up towards them. " I feel myself 
 almost a spirit when I gaze upon them." 
 
 " Oh — ah — Gad — ^yes, so do I exactly. Miss Sharp," the other 
 enthusiast replied. " You don't mind my cigar, do you. Miss 
 Sharp? " Miss Sharp loved the smell of a cigar out of doors 
 beyond everything in the world — and she just tasted one too, 
 in the prettiest way possible, gave a little puff, and a little 
 scream, and a little giggle, and restored the delicacy to the 
 Captain, who twirled his moustache, and straightway puffed it 
 into a blaze that glowed quite red in the dark plantation, and 
 swore — " Jove — aw — Gad — aw — it's the finest segaw I ever 
 smoked in the world — aw," for his intellect and conversation 
 were alike brilliant and becoming to a heavy young dragoon. 
 
 Old Sir Pitt, who was taking his pipe and beer, and talking 
 to John Horrocks about a " ship " that was to be killed, espied 
 the pair so occupied from his study-window, and with dreadful 
 oaths swore that if it wasn't for Miss Crawley, he'd take Rawdon 
 and bundle un out of doors, like a rogue as he was. 
 
 " He be a bad'n, sure enough," Mr. Horrocks remarked; 
 " and his man Flethers is wuss, and have made such a row in 
 the housekeeper's room about the dinners and hale, as no lord 
 would make — ^but I think Miss Sharp's a match for'n, Sir Pitt," 
 he added, after a pause. 
 
 And so, in truth, she was — ^for father and son too. 
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 QUITE A SENTIMENTAL CHAPTER 
 
 We must now take leave of Arcadia, and those amiable people 
 practising the rural virtues there, and travel back to London, 
 to inquire what has become of Miss Amelia. " We don't care 
 a fig for her," writes some unknown correspondent with a pretty 
 little handwriting and a pink seal to her note. " She is fade 
 
Quite a Sentimental Chapter 103 
 
 and insipid," and adds some more kind remarks in this strain, 
 which I should never have repeated at all, but that they are in 
 truth prodigiously complimentary to the young lady whom they 
 concern. 
 
 Has the beloved reader, in his experience of society, never 
 heard similar remarks by good-natured female friends; who 
 always wonder what you can see in Miss Smith that is so fasci- 
 nating; or what could induce Major Jones to propose for that 
 silly insignificant simpering Miss Thompson, who has nothing 
 but her wax-doll face to recommend her? What is there in a 
 pair of pink cheeks and blue eyes forsooth ? these dear Moralists 
 ask, and hint wisely that the gifts of genius, the accom- 
 plishments of the mind, the mastery of Mangnall's Questions, 
 and a ladylike knowledge of botany and geology, the knack of 
 making poetry, the power of rattling sonatas in the Herz- 
 manner, and so forth, are far more valuable endowments for a 
 female, than those fugitive charms which a few years will inevit- 
 ably tarnish. It is quite edifying to hear women speculate upon 
 the worthlessness and the duration of beauty. 
 
 But though virtue is a much finer thing, and those hapless 
 creatures who suffer under the misfortune of good looks ought 
 to be continually put in mind of the fate which awaits them; 
 and though, very likely, the heroic female character which ladies 
 admire is a more glorious and beautiful object than the kind, 
 fresh, smiling, artless, tender little domestic goddess, whom men 
 a.re inclined to worship — ^yet the latter and inferior sort of 
 women must have this ^consolation — that the men do admire 
 them after all; and that, in spite of all our dear friends' warnings 
 and protests, we go on in our desperate error and folly, and shall 
 to the end of the chapter. Indeed, for my own part, though I 
 have been repeatedly told by persons for whom I have the 
 greatest respect, that Miss Brown is an insignificant chit, and 
 Mrs. White has nothing but her petit minois chiffonne, and Mrs. 
 Black has not a word to say for herself; yet I know that I have 
 had the most delightful conversations with Mrs. Black (of course, 
 my dear Madam, they are inviolable): I see all the men in a 
 cluster round Mrs. White's chair; all the young fellows battling. 
 to dance with Miss Brown; and so I am tempted to think that^jf 
 to be despised by her sex is a very great compliment to a woman.l 
 
 The young ladies in Amelia's society did this for her very ' 
 satisfactorily. For instance, there was scarcely any point upon 
 which the Misses Osborne, George's sisters, and the Mesde- 
 moiselles Dobbin agreed so well as in their estimate of her very 
 
I04 Vanity Fair 
 
 trifling merits : and their wonder that their brothers could find 
 any charms in her. " We are kind to her/' the Misses Osborne 
 said, a pair of fine black-browed young ladies who had had the 
 best of governesses, masters, and milliners; and they treated 
 her with such extreme kindness and condescension, and 
 patronised her so insufferably, that the poor little thing was in 
 fact perfectly dumb in their presence, and to all outward appear- 
 ance as stupid as they thought her. She made efforts to like 
 them, as in duty bound, and as sisters of her future husband. 
 She passed " long mornings " with them — the most dreary and 
 serious of forenoons. She drove out solemnly in their great 
 family coach with them, and Miss Wirt their governess, that 
 raw-boned vestal. They took her to the ancient concerts by 
 way of a treat, and to the oratorio, and to St. Paul's to see the 
 charity children, where in such terror was she of her friends, she 
 almost did not dare be affected by the hymn the children sang. 
 Their house was comfortable ; their papa's table rich and hand- 
 some; their society solemn and genteel; their self-respect pro- 
 digious; they had the best pew at the Foundling: all their 
 habits were pompous and orderly, and all their amusements 
 intolerably dull and decorous. After every one of her visits (and 
 oh how glad she was when they were over !) Miss Osborne and 
 Miss Maria Osborne, and Miss Wirt, the vestal governess, asked 
 each other with increased wonder, " What could George find in 
 that creature? " 
 
 How is this? some carping reader exclaims. How is it that 
 Amelia, who had such a number of friends at school, and was so 
 beloved there, comes out into the world and is spurned by her 
 discriminating sex! My dear sir, there were no men at Miss 
 Pinkerton's establishment except the old dancing-master; and 
 you would not have had the girls fall out about him ? When 
 George, their handsome brother, ran off directly after breakfast, 
 and dined from home half-a-dozen times a week, no wonder the 
 neglected sisters felt a little vexation. When young Bullock 
 (of the firm of Hulker, Bullock & Co., Bankers, Lombard Street), 
 who had been making up to Miss Maria the last two seasons, 
 actually asked Amelia to dance the cotillon, could you expect 
 that the former young lady should be pleased? Aiid yet she 
 said she was, like an artless forgiving creature. " I'm so 
 delighted you like dear Amelia," she said quite eagerly to Mr. 
 Bullock after the dance. " She's engaged to my brother George; 
 there's not much in her, but she's the best-natured and most 
 unaffected young creature; at home we're all so fond of her." 
 
Quite a Sentimental Chapter 105 
 
 Dear girl! who can calculate the depth of affection expressed! 
 in that enthusiastic so ? '^ 
 
 Miss Wirt and these two affectionate young women so 
 earnestly and frequently impressed upon George Osborne's 
 mind the enormity of the sacrifice he was making, and his 
 romantic generosity in throwing himself away upon Amelia, 
 that I'm not sure but that he really thought he was one of the 
 most deserving characters in the British army, and gave himself 
 up to be loved with a good deal of easy resignation. 
 
 Somehow, although he left home every morning, as was 
 stated, and dined abroad six days in the week, when his sisters 
 believed the infatuated youth to be at Miss Sedley's apron- 
 strings: he was not always with Amelia, whilst the world sup- 
 posed him at her feet. Certain it is that on more occasions than 
 one, when Captain Dobbin called to look for his friend. Miss 
 Osborne (who was very attentive to the Captain, and anxious 
 to hear his military stories, and to know about the health of his 
 dear Mamma), would laughingly point to the opposite side of 
 the square, and say, " Oh, you must go to the Sedleys to ask 
 for George; we never see him from morning till night." At 
 which kind of speech the Captain would laugh in rather an 
 absurd constrained manner, and turn off the conversation, like 
 a consummate man of the world, to some topic of general 
 interest, such as the Opera, the Prince's last ball at Carlton 
 House, or the weather — that blessing to society. 
 
 " What,an innocent it is, that pet of yours," Miss Maria would 
 then say to Miss Jane, upon the Captain's departure. " Did 
 you see how he blushed at the mention of poor George on duty ?" 
 
 " It's a pity Frederick Bullock hadn't some of his modesty, 
 Maria," replies the elder sister, with a toss of her head. 
 
 " Modesty ! Awkwardness you mean, Jane, I don't want 
 Frederick to trample a hole in my muslin frock, as Captain 
 Dobbin did in yours at Mrs. Perkins'." 
 
 " In your frock, he, he ! How could he? Wasn't he dancing 
 with Amelia? " 
 
 The fact is, when Captain Dobbin blushed so, and looked so 
 awkward, he remembered a circumstance of which he did not 
 think it was necessary to inform the young ladies, viz., that he 
 had been calling at Mr. Sedley's house already, on the pretence 
 of seeing George, of course, and George wasn't there, only poor 
 little Amelia, with, rather a sad wistful face, seated near the 
 I drawing-room window, who, after some very trifling stupid talk, 
 ventured to ask, was there any truth in the report that the 
 
io6 Vanity Fair 
 
 regiment was soon to be ordered abroad; and had Captain 
 Dobbin seen Mr. Osborne that day? 
 
 The regiment was not ordered abroad as yet; and Captain 
 Dobbin had not seen George. " He was with his sister, most 
 Ukely/' the Captain said. " Should he go and fetch the truant ? " 
 So she gave him her hand kindly and gratefully : and he crossed 
 the square; and she waited and waited, but George never 
 came, 
 j^ Poor little tender heart ! and so it goes on hoping and beating, 
 ' and longing and trusting. You see it is not much of a life to 
 describe. There is not much of what you call incident in it. 
 Only one feeling all day — when will he come ? only one thought 
 to sleep and wake upon. I believe George was playing billiards 
 with Captain Cannon in Swallow Street at the time when Amelia 
 was asking Captain Dobbin about him; for George was a jolly 
 sociable fellow, and excellent in all games of skill. 
 
 Once, after three days of absence. Miss Amelia put on her 
 bonnet, and actually invaded the Osborne house. " What ! 
 leave our brother to come to us.? " said the young ladies. 
 " Have you had a quarrel, Amelia? Do tell us ! " No, indeed, 
 there had been no quarrel. " Who could quarrel with him? " 
 says she, with her eyes filled with tears. She only came over to 
 — to see her dear friends; they had not met for so long. And 
 this day she •vvas. so perfectly stupid and awkward, that the 
 Misses Osborne and their governess, who stared after her as she 
 went sadly away, wondered more than ever what George could 
 see in poor little Amxclia. 
 
 Of course they did. How was she to bare that timid little 
 heart for the inspection of those young ladies with their bold 
 black eyes? It was best that it should shrink and hide itself. 
 I know the Misses Osborne were excellent critics of a Cashmere 
 shawl, or a pink satin slip ; and when Miss Turner had hers dyed 
 purple, and made into spencer; and when Miss Pickford had her 
 ermine tippet twisted into a muff and trimmings, I warrant you 
 the changes did not escape the two intelligent young women 
 before mentioned. But there are things, look you, of a finer 
 texture than fur or satin, and all Solomon's glories, and all the 
 wardrobe of the Queen of Sheba; — things whereof the beauty 
 escapes the eyes of many connoisseurs. And there are sweet 
 modest little souls on which you light, fragrant and blooming 
 tenderly in quiet shady places ; and there are garden-ornaments, 
 as big as brass warming-pans, that are fit to stare the sun itself 
 out of countenance. Miss Sedley was not of the sunflower sort; 
 
Quite a Sentimental Chapter 107 
 
 and I say it is out of the rules of all proportion to draw a violet 
 of the size of a double dahlia. 
 
 No^ indeed; the life of a good young girl who is in the paternal | 
 nest as yet, can't have many of those thrilling incidents to ' 
 which the heroine of romance commonly lays claim. Snares 
 or shot may take off the old birds foraging without — ^hawks"^ 
 may be abroad, from which they escape or by whom they suffer ; 
 but the young ones in the nest have a pretty comfortable 
 unromantic sort of existence in the down and the straw, till it 
 comes to their turn, too, to get on the wing. While Becky 
 Sharp was on her own wing in the country, hopping on all sorts 
 of twigs, and amid a multiplicity of traps, and pecking up her 
 food quite harmless and successful, Amelia lay snug in her 
 home at Russell Square; if she went into the world, it was 
 under the guidance of the elders ; nor did it seem that any evil 
 could befall her or that opulent cheery comfortable home in 
 which she was affectionately sheltered. Mamma had her 
 morning duties, and her daily drive, and the delightful round 
 of visits and shopping which forms the amusement, or the 
 profession as you may call it, of the rich London lady. Papa 
 conducted his mysterious operations in the City — a stirring place 
 in those days, when war was raging all over Euorpe, and empires 
 were being staked; when the " Courier " newspaper had tens of 
 thousands of subscribers; when one day brought you a battle 
 of Vittoria, another a burning of Moscow, or a newsman's horn 
 blowing ^ down Russell Square about dinner-time, announced 
 such a fact as — " Battle of Leipsic — six hundred thousand men 
 engaged — total defeat of the French — two hundred thousand 
 killed." Old Sedley once or twice came home with a very grave 
 face; and no wonder, when such news as this was agitating all 
 the hearts and all the Stocks of Europe. 
 
 .Meanwhile matters went on in Russell Square, Bloomsbury, 
 just as if matters in Europe were not in the least disorganised. 
 The retreat from Leipsic made no difference in the number of 
 meals Mr. Sambo took in the servants' hall; the allies poured 
 into France, and the dinner-bell rang at five o'clock just as 
 usual. I don't think poor Amelia cared anything about Brienne 
 and Montmirail, or was fairly interested in the war until the 
 abdication of the Emperor; when she clapped her hands and 
 said prayers, — oh, how grateful ! and flung herself into George 
 Osborne's arms with all her soul, to the astonishment of every- 
 body who witnessed that ebullition of sentiment. The fact 
 is, peace was declared, Europe was going to be at rest; the 
 
io8 Vanity Fair 
 
 ifCorsican was overthrown, and Lieutenant Osborne's regiment 
 
 i|would not be ordered on service. That was the way in which 
 
 |Miss Amelia reasoned. The fate of Europe was Lieutenant 
 
 i George Osborne to her. His dangers being over, she sang Te 
 
 Deum. He was her Europe : her emperor: her aUied monarchs 
 
 and august prince regent. He was her sun and moon; and I 
 
 beheve she thought the grand illummation and ball at the 
 
 Mansion House, given to the sovereigns, were especially in 
 
 honour of George Osborne. 
 
 We. have talked of shift, self, and poverty, as those dismal 
 instructors under whom poor Miss Becky Sharp got her educa- 
 tion. Now, love was Miss Amelia Sedley's last tutoress, and it 
 was amazing what progress our young lady made under that 
 popular teacher. In the course of fifteen or eighteen months* 
 daily and constant attention to this eminent finishing governess, 
 what a deal of secrets Amelia learned, which Miss Wirt and the 
 black-eyed young ladies over the way, which old Miss Pinker- 
 ton of Chiswick herself, had no cognisance of ! As, indeed, how 
 should any of those prim and reputable virgins? With Misses 
 P. and W. the tender passion is out of the question: I would not 
 dare to breathe such an idea regarding them. Miss Maria 
 Osborne, it is true, was " attached " to Mr. Frederick Augustus 
 Bullock, of the firm of Hulker, Bullock & Bullock; but hers 
 was a most respectable attachment, and she would have taken 
 f Bullock Senior just the same, her mind being fixed, — as that of 
 11 a well-bred young woman should be, — upon a house in Park 
 I Lane, a country house at Wimbledon, a handsome chariot, and 
 15 two prodigious tall horses and footmen, and a fourth of the 
 s annual profits of the eminent firm of Hulker & Bullock, all of 
 I which advantages were represented in the person of Frederick 
 ^ Augustus. Had orange blossoms been invented then (those 
 touching emblems of female purity imported by us from France, 
 where people's daughters are universally sold in marriage). 
 Miss Maria, I say, would have assumed the spotless wreath, and 
 stepped into the travelling carriage by the side of gouty, old, 
 bald-headed, bottle-nosed Bullock Senior; and devoted her 
 beautiful existence to his happiness with perfect modesty, — 
 only the old gentleman was married already; so she bestowed 
 her young affections on the junior partner. Sweet, blooming, 
 orange flowers ! The other day I saw Miss Trotter (that was), 
 arrayed in them, trip into the travelling carriage at St. George's, 
 Hanover Square, and Lord Methuselah hobbled in after. With 
 
Quite a Sentimental Chapter 109 
 
 what an engaging modesty she pulled down the blinds of the 
 chariot — the dear innocent! There were half the carriages of^ 
 Vanity Fair at the wedding. | 
 
 This was not the sort of love that finished Amelia's education; 
 and in the course of a year turned a good young girl into a good 
 young woman — to be a good wife presently, when the happy 
 time should come. This young person (perhaps it was very 
 imprudent in her parents to encourage her, and abet her in such 
 idolatry and silly romantic ideas) loved, with all her heart, the 
 young officer in His Majesty's service with whom we have made 
 a brief acquaintance. She thought about him the^ivery first 
 moment on waking; and his was the very last name mentioned 
 in her prayers. She never had seen a m.an so beautiful or so 
 clever: such a figure on horseback : such a dancer: such a hero 
 in general. Talk of the Prince's bow ! what was it to George's ? 
 She had seen Mr. Brummell, whom everybody praised so. 
 Compare such a person as that to her George! Not amongst 
 all the beaux at the Opera (and there were beaux in those days 
 with actual opera hats) was there any one to equal him. He 
 was only good enough to be a fairy prince; and oh, what mag- 
 nanimity to stoop to such a humble Cinderella! Miss Pinker- 
 ton would have tried to check this blind devotion very likely, 
 had she been Amelia's confidante; but not with much success, 
 depend upon it. It is in the nature and instinct of some women. 
 Some are made to scheme, and some to love; and I wish any 
 respected bachelor that reads this may take the sort that best 
 likes him. 
 
 While under this overpov/ering impression, Miss Amelia 
 neglected her twelve dear friends at Chiswick most cruelly, as 
 such selfish people commonly will do. She had but this sub- 
 ject, of course, to think about; and Miss Saltire was too cold 
 for a confidante, and she couldn't bring her mind to tell Miss 
 Swartz, the woolly-haired young heiress from St. Kitt's. She 
 had little Laura Martin home for the holidays; and my belief 
 is, she made a confidante of her, and promisea that Laura should 
 come and live with her when she was married, and gave Laura 
 a great deal of information regarding the passion of love, which 
 must have been singularly useful and novel to that little person.. 
 Alas, alas ! I fear poor Emmy had not a well-regulated mind. 
 
 What were her parents doing, not to keep this little heart 
 from beating so fast.? Old Sedley did not seem much to notice 
 matters. He was graver of late, and his City affairs absorbed 
 him. Mrs. Sedley was of so easy and uninquisitive a nature. 
 
I lo Vanity Fair 
 
 that she wasn't even jealous. Mr. Jos was away, being 
 besieged by an Irish widow at Cheltenham. Amelia had the 
 house to herself — ah ! too much to herself sometimes — ^not that 
 she ever doubted ; for^ to be sure, George must be at the Horse 
 Guards; and he can't always get leave from Chatham; and he 
 must see his friends and sisters, and mingle in society when in 
 town (he, such an ornament to every society!); and when he is 
 with the regiment, he is too tired to write long letters. I know 
 where she kept that packet she had — and can steal in and out 
 of her chamber like lachimo — like lachimo? No — that is a 
 bad part4 I will only act Moonshine, and peep harmless into 
 the bed where faith and beauty and innocence lie dreaming. 
 
 But if Osborne's v/ere short and soldierlike letters, it must be 
 confessed, that were Miss Sedley's letters to Mr. Osborne to be 
 published, we should have to extend this novel to such a multi- 
 plicity of volumes as not the most sentimental reader could 
 support; that she not only filled sheets of large paper, but 
 crossed them with the most astonishing perverseness ; that she 
 wrote whole pages out of poetry-books without the least pity; 
 that she underlined words and passages with quite a frantic 
 emphasis; and, in fine, gave the usual tokens of her condition. 
 She wasn't a. heroine. Her letters were full of repetition. She 
 wrote rather doubtful grammar sometimes, and in her verses 
 took all sorts of liberties with the metre. But oh, mesdames, 
 if you are not allowed to touch the heart sometimes in spite of 
 syntax, and are not to be loved until you all know the difference 
 between trimeter and tetrameter, may all Poetry go to the 
 deuce, and every schoolmaster perish miserably ! 
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 SENTIMENTAL AND OTHERWISE 
 
 I FEAR the gentleman to whom Miss Amelia's letters were 
 addressed was rather an obdurate critic. Such a number of notes 
 followed Lieutenant Osborne about the country, that he became 
 almost ashamed of the jokes of his mess-room companions 
 regarding them, and ordered his servant never to deliver them 
 except at his private apartment. He was seen lighting his 
 
Sentimental and Otherwise 1 1 1 
 
 cigar with one, to the horror of Captain Dobbin, who, it is my 
 bsHef, would have given a band-note for the document. 
 
 For some time George strove to keep the liaison a secret. 
 There was a woman in the case, that he admitted. " And not 
 the first either," said Ensign Spooney to Ensign Stubble, 
 " That Osborne's a devil of a fellow. There was a judge's 
 daughter at Demerara went almost mad about him ; then there 
 was that beautiful quadroon girl, Miss Pye, at St. Vincent's, 
 you know; and since he's been home, they say he's a regular 
 Don Giovanni, by Jove." 
 
 Stubble and Spooney thought that to be a " regular Don 
 Giovanni, by Jove " was one of the finest qualities a man could; 
 possess; and Osborne's reputation was prodigious amongst thej. 
 young men of the regiment. He was famous in field-sports ,e\ 
 famous at a song, famous on parade ; free with his money, which? l 
 was bountifully supplied by his father. His coats were better; 
 made than any man's in the regiment, and he had more of them. 
 He was adored by the men. He could drink more than any 
 officer of the whole mess, including old Heavytop, the colonel. 
 He could spar better than Knuckles, the private (who would 
 have been a corporal but for his drunkenness, and who had been 
 in the prize-ring); and was the best batter and bowler, out and 
 out, of the regimental club. He rode his own horse. Greased 
 Lightning, and won the Garrison cup at Quebec races. There 
 v/ere other people besides Amelia who worshipped him. Stubble 
 and Spooney thought him a sort of Apollo ; Dobbin took him to 
 be an Admirable Crichton; and Mrs. Major O'Dowd acknow- 
 ledged he was an elegant young fellow, and put her in mind of 
 Fitzjurld Fogarty, Lord Castlefogarty's second son. 
 
 Well, Stubble and Spooney and the rest indulged in most 
 romantic conjectures regarding this female correspondent of 
 Osborne's, — opining that it was a Duchess in London who was 
 in love with him, — or that it was a General's daughter, who was 
 engaged to somebody else, and madly attached to him, — or that 
 it was a Member of Parliament's lady, who proposed four horses 
 and an elopement, — or that it was some other victim of a passion 
 delightfully exciting, romantic, and disgraceful to all parties, on 
 none of which conjectures would Osborne throw the least light, 
 leaving his young admirers and friends to invent and arrange 
 their whole history. 
 
 And the real state of the case would never have been known 
 at all in the regiment but for Captain Dobbin's indiscretion. 
 The Captain was eating his breakfast one day in the mess-room. 
 
112 Vanity Fair 
 
 while Cackle, the assistant-surgeon, and the two above-named 
 worthies were speculating upon Osborne's intrigue — Stubble 
 holding out that the lady was a Duchess about Queen Charlotte's 
 court, and Cackle vowing she wds an opera-singer of the worst 
 reputation. At this idea Dobbin became so moved, that though 
 his mouth was full of eggs and bread-and-butter at the time, and 
 though he ought not to have spoken at all, yet he couldn't help 
 blurting out, "Cackle, you're a stupid fool. You're always 
 talking nonsense and scandal. Osborne is not going to run off 
 with a Duchess or ruin a milliner. Miss Sedley is one of the 
 most charming young women that ever Hved. He's been en- 
 gaged to her ever so long; and the man who calls her names had 
 better not do so in my hearing." With which, turning exceed- 
 ingly red, Dobbin ceased speaking, and almost choked himself 
 with a cup of tea. The story was over the regiment in half-an- 
 hour; and that very evening Mrs. Major O'Dowd wrote off to 
 her sister Glorvina at O'Dowdstown not to hurry from Dublin, 
 — young Osborne being prematurely engaged already. 
 
 She compHmented the Lieutenant in an appropriate speech 
 over a glass of whisky-toddy that evening, and he went home 
 perfectly furious to quarrel with Dobbin (who had declined Mrs. 
 Major O'Dowd's party, and sat in his own room playing the flute, 
 and, I believe, writing poetry in a very melancholy manner) — 
 to quarrel with Dobbin for betraying his secret. 
 
 "Who the deuce asked you to talk about my affairs?" 
 Osborne shouted indignantly. " Why the devil is all the regi- 
 ment to know that I am going to be married.? Why is that 
 tattling old harridan, Peggy O'Dowd, to make free with my 
 
 name at her d d supper-table, and advertise my engagement 
 
 over the three kingdoms? After all, what right have you to say 
 I am engaged, or to meddle in my business at all, Dobbin? " 
 
 " It seems to me," Captain Dobbin began. 
 
 " Seems be hanged, Dobbin," his junior interrupted him, " I 
 
 am under obligations to you, I know it, a d d deal too well 
 
 too; but I won't be always sermonised by you because you're 
 five years my senior. I'm hanged if I'll stand your airs of 
 superiority and infernal pity and patronage. Pity and patron- 
 age ! I should like to know in what I'm your inferior? " 
 
 " Are you engaged? " Captain Dobbin interposed, 
 
 " What the devil's that to you or any one here if I am ? " 
 
 " Are you ashamed of it? " Dobbin resumed. 
 
 " What right have you to ask me that question, sir ? I should 
 like to know," George said. 
 
Sentimental and Otherwise 113 
 
 ** Good God, you don't mean to say you want to break off ? " 
 asked Dobbin, starting up. 
 
 " In other words, yoa ask me if I'm a man of honour," said 
 Osborne fiercely; " is that what you mean? You've adopted 
 such a tone regarding me lately that I'm — - if I'll bear it any 
 more." 
 
 " What have I done? I've told you you were neglecting a 
 sweet girl^ George. I've told you that when you go to town you 
 ought to go to her, and not to the gambling-houses about St. 
 James's." 
 
 " You want your money back, I suppose," said George with 
 a sneer. 
 
 "Of course I do — I always did, didn't I?" says Dobbin. 
 " You speak like a generous fellow." 
 
 " No, hang it, William, I beg your pardon " — ^here George 
 interposed in a fit of remorse; " you have been my friend in a 
 hundred ways. Heaven knows. You've got me out of a score 
 of scrapes. When Crawley of the Guards won that sum of 
 money of me I should have been done but for you: I know I 
 should. But you shouldn't deal so hardly with me; you 
 shouldn't be always catechising me. Ijamvexy^jidoi Amelia,; 
 i^are her, and that sort^of thing. Don't look angry. She's 
 faultless; I know she is. ]^ut you see there's no fun in winning 
 a thing unless you play for it. Hang it: the regiment's just 
 back from the West Indies, I must have a little fling, and then 
 v/hen I'm married I'U reform; I will upon my honour, now. 
 And — I say — Dob — don't be angry with me, and I'll give you 
 a hundred next month, when I know my father will stand some- 
 thing handsome; and I'll ask Heavytop for leave, and I'll go to 
 town, and see Amelia to-morrow — there now, will that satisfy 
 you?" 
 
 " It is impossible to be long angry with you, George," said the 
 good-natured Captain; " and as for the money, old boy, you 
 know if I wanted it you'd share yom: last shilling with me." 
 
 " That I would, by Jove, Dobbin," George said, with the 
 greatest generosity, though by the way he never had any money 
 to spare. 
 
 " Only I wish you had sown those wild oats of yours, George. 
 If you could have seen poor little Miss Emmy's face when she 
 asked me about you the other day, you would have pitched 
 those billiard-balls to the deuce. Go and comfort her, you 
 rascal. Go and write her a long letter. Do something to make 
 her happy; a very little will." 
 
114 Vanity Fair 
 
 " I believe she's d d fond of me/' the Lieutenant said, 
 
 with a self-satisfied air; and went off to finish the evening with 
 some jolly fellows in the mess-room. 
 
 Amelia meanwhile, in Russell Square, was looking at the 
 moon, which ^vas shining upon that peaceful spot, as well as 
 upon the square of the Chatham barracks, where Lieutenant 
 Osborne was quartered, and thinking to herself how her hero 
 was employed. Perhaps he is visiting the sentries, thought she; 
 perhaps he is bivouacking; perhaps he is attending the couch 
 of a wounded comrade, or studying the art of war up in his own 
 desolate chamber. And her kind thoughts sped away as if they 
 were angels and had wings, and flying down the river to Chatham 
 and Rochester, strove to peep into the barracks where George 
 was. . . . All things considered, I think it was as well the gates 
 were shut, and the sentry allowed no one to pass; so that the 
 poor little white-robed angel could not hear the songs those 
 young fellows were ros.ring over the whisky-punch. 
 
 The day after the little conversation at Chatham barracks, 
 young Osborne, to show that he would be as good as his word, 
 prepared to go to town, thereby incurring Captain Dobbin's 
 applause. " I should have liked to make her a little present," 
 Osborne said to his friend in confidence, " only I am quite out 
 of cash until my father tips up." But Dobbin would not allow 
 this good nature and generosity to be balked, and so accom- 
 modated Mr. Osborne with a few pound notes, which the latter 
 took after a little faint scruple. 
 
 And I daresay he would have bought something very hand- 
 some for Amelia ; only, getting off the coach in Fleet Street, he 
 was attracted by a handsome shirt-pin in a jeweller's window, 
 which he could not resist; and having paid for that, had very 
 little money to spare for indulging in any further exercise of 
 kindness. Never mind : you may be sure it was not his presents 
 Amelia wanted. When he came to Russell Square, her face 
 lighted up as if he had been sunshine. The little cares, fears, 
 tears, timid misgivings, sleepless fancies of I don't know how 
 many days and nights, were forgotten, under one moment's 
 influence of that familiar, irresistible smile. He beamicd on 
 her from the drawing-room door — magnificent, with ambrosial 
 whiskers, like a god. Sambo, whose face as he announced 
 Captain Osbin (having conferred a brevet rank on that young 
 officer) blazed with a sympathetic grin, saw the little girl start, 
 and flush, and jump up from her watching-place in the window; 
 and Sambo retreated; and as soon as the door was shut, she 
 
Sentimental and Otherwise 
 
 "5 
 
 went fluttering to Lieutenant George Osborne's hea^rt as if it was 
 the only natural home for her to nestle in. Oh^ thou poor pant- 
 ing little soul! The very finest tree in the whole forest, with 
 the straightest stem and the strongest arms, and the thickest 
 foliage, wherein you choose to build and coo, may be marked 
 for what you know, and may be down with a crash ere long. 
 What an old, old simile that is, between man and timber. 
 
 In the meanwhile, George kissed her very kindly on her fore- 
 head and glistening eyes, and was very gracious and good ; and 
 she thought his diamond shirt-pin (which she had not known 
 him to wear before) the prettiest ornament ever seen. 
 
 The observant reader, who has marked our young Lieu- 
 tenant's previous behaviour, and has preserved our report of the 
 brief conversation which he has just had with Captain Dobbin, 
 has possibly come to certain conclusions regarding the character 
 of Mr. Osborne. Some cynical Frenchman has said that there' 
 are two parties to a love transaction : the one who loves, and 
 the other who condescends to be so treated. Perhaps the love 
 is occasionally on the man's side; perhaps on the lady's. Per- 
 haps some infatuated swain has ere this mistaken insensibility 
 for modesty, dulness for maiden reserve, mere vacuity for sweety 
 bashfulness, and a goose, in a word, for a swan. Perhaps some \ 
 beloved female subscriber has arrayed an ass in the splendour 1 
 and glory of her imagination; admired his dulness as manly/ 
 simplicity; worshipped his selfishness as manly superiority; ' 
 treated his stupidity as majestic gravity, and used him as the 
 brilliant fairy Titania did a certain weaver at Athens. I think I 
 I have seen such comedies of errors going on in the world. But \ 
 this is certain, that Amelia believed her lover to be one of the 1 
 most gallant and brilliant men in the empire : and it is possible 1 
 Lieutenant Osborne thought so too. 
 
 He was a'littte'Wiid'rhbw many young men are; and don't 
 girls like a rake better than a milksop? He hadn't sown his 
 wild oats as yet, but he would soon; and quit the army now 
 that peace was proclaimed; the Corsican monster locked up at 
 Elba; promotion by consequence over; and no chance left for 
 the display of his undoubted military talents and valour: and 
 his allowance, with Amelia's settlement, would enable them to 
 take a snug place in the country somewhere, in a good sporting 
 neighbourhood; and he would hunt a little, and farm a little; 
 and they would be very happy. As for remaining in the army 
 as a married man, that was impossible. Fancy Mrs. George 
 
1 1 6 Vanity Fair 
 
 Osborne in lodgings in a county town; or^ worse still, in the 
 East or West Indies, with a society of officers, and patronised 
 by Mrs. Major O'Dowd? Amelia died with laughing at 
 Osborne's stories about Mrs. Major O'Dowd. He loved her 
 much too fondly to subject her to that horrid woman and her 
 vulgarities, and the rough treatment of a soldier's wife. He 
 didn't care for himself — ^not he; but his dear little girl should 
 take the place in society to which, as his wife, she was entitled : 
 and to those proposals you may be sure she acceded, as she 
 would to any other from the same author. 
 
 Holding this kind of conversation, and building numberless 
 castles in the air (which Amelia adorned with all sorts of flower- 
 gardens, rustic walks, country churches, Sunday schools, and 
 the like; while George had his mind's eye directed to the 
 stables, the kennel, and the cellar), this young pair passed away 
 a couple of hours very pleasantly; and as the Lieutenant had 
 only that single day in town, and a great deal of most important 
 business to transact, it was proposed that Miss Emmy should 
 dine with her future sisters-in-law. This invitation was accepted 
 joyfully. He conducted her to his sisters; where he left her 
 talking and prattling in a way that astonished those ladies, who 
 thought that George might make something of her; and he then 
 went off to transact his business. 
 
 In a word, he went out and ate ices at a pastry-cook's shop in 
 Charing Cross ; tried a new coat in Pall Mall ; dropped in at the 
 Old Slaughters', and called for Captain Cannon; played eleven 
 games at billiards with the Captain, of which he won eight, and 
 returned to Russell Square half-an-hour late for dinner, but in 
 very good humour. 
 
 It was not so with old Mr. Osborne. When that gentleman 
 came from the City, and was welcomed in the drawing-room by 
 his daughters and the elegant Miss Wirt, they saw at once by 
 his face — which was puffy, solemn, and yellow at the best of 
 times — and by the scowl and twitching of his black eye-brows, 
 that the heart within his large white waistcoat was disturbed 
 and uneasy. WTien Amelia stepped forward to salute him, 
 which she always did with great trembling and timidity, he gave 
 a surly grunt of recognition, and dropped the little hand out of 
 his great hirsute paw without any attempt to hold it there. 
 He looked round gloomily at this eldest daughter; who, com- 
 prehending the meaning of his look, which asked unmistakably, 
 " Why the devil is she here? " said at once — 
 
Sentimental and Otherwise 117 
 
 " George is in town, Papa; and has gone to the Horse Guards, 
 and will be back to dinner." 
 
 " Oh, he is, is he ? I won't have the dinner kept waiting for 
 him, Jane ; " with which this worthy man lapsed into his par- 
 ticular chair, and then the utter silence in his genteel, well- 
 furnished drawing-room was only interrupted by the alarmed 
 ticking of the great French clock. 
 
 When that chronometer, which was surmounted by a cheer- 
 ful brass group of the sacrifice of Iphigenia, tolled five in a heavy 
 cathedral tone, Mr. Osborne pulled the bell at his right hand 
 violently, and the butler rushed up. 
 
 " Dinner! " roared Mr. Osborne. 
 
 " Mr. George isn't come in, sir," interposed the man. 
 
 " Damn Mr. George, sir. Am I master of the house ? Din- 
 ner! " Mr. Osborne scowled. Amelia trembled. A telegraphic 
 communication of eyes passed between the other three ladies. 
 The obedient bell in the lower regions began ringing the announce- 
 ment of the meal. The tolling over, the head of the family 
 thrust his hands into the great tail-pockets of his great blue coat 
 and brass buttons, and without waiting for a further announce- 
 ment, strode downstairs alone, scowling over his shoulder at the 
 four females. 
 
 " What's the matter now, my dear? " asked one of the other, 
 as they rose and tripped gingerly behind the sire. 
 
 " I suppose the funds are falling," whispered Miss Wirt; and 
 so, trembling and in silence, this hushed female company followed 
 their dark leader. They took their places in silence. He 
 growled out a blessing, which sounded as gruffly as a curse. The 
 great silver dish-covers were removed. Amelia trembled in her 
 place, for she was next to the awful Osborne, and alone on her 
 side of the table — the gap being occasioned by the absence of 
 George. 
 
 "Soup?" says Mr. Osborne, clutching the ladle, fixing his 
 eyes on her, in a sepulchral tone; and having helped her and 
 the rest, did not speak for a while. 
 
 " Take Miss Sedley's plate away," at last he said. ** She 
 can't eat the soup — no more can I. It's beastly. Take away 
 the soup, Hicks, and to-morrow turn the cook out of the house, 
 Jane." 
 
 Having concluded his observations upon the soup, Mr. 
 Osborne made a few curt remarks respecting the fish, also of 
 a savage and satirical tendency, and cursed Billingsgate with 
 an emphasis quite worthy of liie place. Then he lapsed into 
 
1 1 8 Vanity Fair 
 
 silence^ and swallowed sundry glasses of wine, looking more and 
 more terrible, till a brisk knock at the door told of George's 
 arrival, when everybody began to rally. 
 
 " He could not come before. General Da,guilet had kept 
 him waiting at the Horse Guards. Never mind soup or fish. 
 Give him anything — ^he didn't care what. Capital mutton — 
 capital everything." His good humour contrasted v/ith his 
 father's severity; and he rattled on unceasingly during dinner, 
 to the delight of all — of one especially, who need not be men- 
 tioned. 
 
 As soon as the young ladies had discussed the orange and the 
 glass of wine which formed the ordinary conclusion of the dismal 
 banquets at Mr. Osborne's house, the signal to make sail for 
 the drawing-room was given, and they all arose and departed. 
 Amelia hoped George would soon join them there. She began 
 playing some of his favourite waltzes (then newly imported) at 
 the great carved-legged, leather-cased grand piano in the draw- 
 ing-room overhead. This little artifice did not bring him. He 
 was deaf to the waltzes; they grew fainter and fainter; the 
 discomfited performer left the huge instrument presently; and 
 though her three friends performed some of the loudest and 
 most brilliant new pieces of their repertoire, she did not hear a 
 single note, but sate thinking, and boding evil. Old Osborne's 
 scowl, terrific alv/ays, had never before looked so deadly to her. 
 His eyes followed her out of the room, as if she had been guilty 
 of something. When they brought her coffee, she started as 
 though it were a cup of poison which Mr. Hicks, the butler, 
 wished to propose to her. What mystery was there lurking? 
 Oh, those women ! They nurse and cuddle their presentiments, 
 and make darlings of their ugliest thoughts, as they do of their 
 deformed children. 
 
 The gloom on the paternal countenance had also impressed 
 George Osborne with anxiety. With such eyebrows, and a look 
 so decidedly bilious, how was he to extract that money from 
 the governor, of which George was consumedly in want.? He 
 began praising his father's wine. That was generally a success- 
 ful means of cajoling the old gentleman. 
 
 " We never got such Madeira in the W^est Indies, sir, as yours. 
 Colonel Heavytop took off three bottles of that you sent me 
 down, under his belt the other day." 
 
 " Did he? " said the old gentleman. " It stands me in eight 
 shillings a bottle." 
 
 " Will you take six guineas a dozen for it, sir? " said George, 
 
Sentimental and Otherwise 119 
 
 with a laugh. " There's one of the greatest men in the kingdom 
 wants some." 
 
 " Does he? " growled the senior. " Wish he may get it." 
 
 " When General Daguilet was at Chatham, sir, Heavytop 
 gave him a breakfast, and asked me for some of the wine. The 
 General liked it just as well — wanted a pipe for the Commander- 
 in-Chief. He's his Royal Highness's right-hand man." 
 
 " It is devilish fine wine," said the Eyebrows, and they looked 
 more good-humoured ; and George was going to take advantage 
 of this complacency, and bring the supply question on the 
 mahogany, when the father, relapsing into solemnity, though 
 rather cordial in manner, bade him ring the bell for claret. 
 " And we'll see if that's as good as the Madeira, George, to which 
 his Royal Highness is welcome, I'm sure. And as we are drink- 
 ing it, I'll talk to you about a matter of importance." 
 
 Amelia heard the claret bell ring as she sat nervously upstairs. 
 She thought, somehow, it was a mysterious and presentimental 
 bell. Of the presentiments which some people are always hav- 
 ing, some surely must come right. 
 
 " What I want to know, George," the old gentleman said, after 
 slowly smacking his first bumper — " What I want to know is, 
 how you and — ah — that little thing upstairs, are carrying on ? " 
 
 " I think, sir, it's not hard to see," George said, with a self- 
 satisfied grin. " Pretty clear, sir. — What capital wine ! " 
 
 " What d'you mean, pretty clear, sir.^ " 
 
 " Why, hang it, sir, don't push me too hard. I'm a modest 
 man. I — ah — I don't set up to be a lady-killer; but I do own 
 that she's as devilish fond of me as she can be. Anybody can 
 see that with half an eye." 
 
 " And you yourself.? " 
 
 " Why, sir, didn't you order me to marry her, and ain't I a 
 good boy? Haven't our Papas settled it ever so long? " 
 
 " A pretty boy, indeed. Haven't I heard of your doings, sir, 
 with Lord Tarquin, Captain Crawley of the Guards, the Honour- 
 able Mr. Deuceace, and that set. Have a care, sir, have a care." 
 
 The old gentleman pronounced these aristocratic names with 
 the greatest gusto. Whenever he met a great man he grovelled 
 before him, and my-lorded him as only a free-born Briton can 
 do. He came home and looked out his history in the Peerage.: 
 he introduced his name into his daily conversation; he bragged 
 about his Lordship to his daughters. He fell down prostrate 
 and basked m him as a Neapolitan beggar does in the sun. 
 George was alarmed when he heard the names. He feared his 
 
1 20 Vanity Fair 
 
 father might have been informed of certain transactions at play. 
 But the old moralist eased him by saying serenely: — 
 
 " Well, well, young men will be young men. And the com- 
 fort to me is, George, that living in the best society in England, 
 as I hope you do; as I think you do; as my means will allow 
 you to do " 
 
 " Thank you, sir," says George, making his point at once. 
 " One can't live with these great folks for nothing; and my 
 purse, sir, look at it; " and he held up a little token which had 
 been netted by Amelia, and contained the very last of Dobbin's 
 pound notes. 
 
 " You shan*t want, sir. The British merchant's son shan't 
 want, sir. My guineas are as good as theirs, George, my boy; 
 and I don't grudge 'em. Call on Mr. Chopper as you go through 
 the City to-morrow; he'll have something for you. I don't 
 grudge money when I know you're in good society, because I 
 know that good society can never go wrong. There's no pride 
 in me. I was a humbly born man — but you have had advantages. 
 Make a good use of 'em. Mix with the young nobility. There's 
 many of 'em who can't spend a dollar to your guinea, my boy. 
 And as for the pink bonnets " (here from under the heavy eye- 
 brows there came a knowing and not very pleasing leer) — " why, 
 boys will be boys. Only there's one thing I order you to avoid, 
 which, if you do not I'll cut you ofE with a shilling, by Jove; 
 and that's gambling, sir." 
 
 " Oh, of course, sii*," said George. 
 
 " But to return to the other business about Amelia: why 
 shouldn't you marry higher than a stockbroker's daughter, 
 George — that's what I want to know? " 
 
 " It's a family business, sir," says George, cracking filberts. 
 " You and Mr. Sedley made the match a hundred years ago." 
 
 " I don't deny it; but people's positions alter, sir. I don't 
 deny that Sedley made my fortune, or rather put me in the way 
 of acquiring, by my own talents and genius, that proud position 
 which, I may say, I occupy in the tallow trade and the City of 
 London. I've shown my gratitude to Sedley; and he's tried 
 it of late, sir, as my cheque-book can show. George ! I tell you 
 in confidence I don't like the looks of Mr. Sedley's affairs. My 
 chief clerk, Mr. Chopper, does not like the looks of 'em, and he's 
 an old file, and knows 'Change as well as any man in London. 
 Hulker & Bullock are looking shy at him. He's been dabbling 
 on his own account I fear. They say the Jeune Amelie was his, 
 which was taken by the Yankee privateer Molasses. And that's 
 
Sentimental and Otherwise 121 
 
 flat, — ^unless I see Amelia's ten thousand down you don't marry 
 her, I'll have no lame duck's daughter in my family. Pass 
 the wine, sir — or ring for coffee." 
 
 With which Mr. Osborne spread out the evening paper, and 
 George knew from this signal that the colloquy was ended, and 
 that his papa was about to take a nap. 
 
 He hurried upstairs to Amelia in the highest spirits. What 
 was it that made him more attentive to her on that night than 
 he had been for a long time — more eager to amuse her, more 
 tender, more brilliant in talk? Was it that his generous heart 
 warmed to her at the prospect of misfortune; or that the idea 
 of losing the dear little prize made him value it more ? 
 
 She lived upon the recollections of that happy evening for 
 many days afterwards, remembering his words; his looks; the 
 song he sang; his attitude, as he leant over her or looked at her 
 from a distance. As it seemed to her, no night ever passed so 
 quickly at Mr. Osborne's house before; and for once this young 
 person was almost provoked to be angry by the premature 
 arrival of Mr. Sambo with her shawl. 
 
 George came and took a tender leave of her the next morning; 
 and then hurried off to the City, where he visited Mr. Chopper, 
 his father's head man, and received from that gentleman a docu- 
 ment which he exchanged at Hulker & Bullock's for a whole 
 pocketful of money. As George entered the house, old John 
 Sedley was passing out of the banker's parlour looking very 
 dismal. But his godson was much too elated to mark the 
 worthy stockbroker's depression, or the dreary eyes which the 
 kind old gentleman cast upon him. Young Bullock did not 
 come grinning out of the parlour with him as had been his wont 
 in former years. 
 
 And as the swinging doors of Hulker, Bullock & Co. closed 
 upon Mr. Sedley, Mr. Quill, the cashier (whose benevolent 
 occupation it is to hand out crisp bank-notes from a drawer 
 and dispense sovereigns out of a copper shovel), winked at 
 Mr. Driver, the clerk at the desk on his right. Mr. Driver 
 winked again. 
 
 *' No go," Mr. D. whispered. 
 
 " Not at no price," Mr. Q. said. " Mr. George Osborne, sir, 
 how will you take it? " George crammed eagerly a quantity 
 of notes into his pockets, and paid Dobbin fifty pounds that 
 very evening at mess. 
 
 That very evening Amelia wrote him the tenderest of long 
 letters. Her heart was overflowing with tenderness, but it 
 
122 Vanity Fair 
 
 still foreboded evil. What was the cause of Mr. Osborne's dark 
 looks ? she asked. Had any difference arisen between him and 
 her papa ? Her poor papa returned so melancholy from the City 
 that all were alarmed about him at home — in fine, there were 
 four pages of loves and fears and hopes and forebodings. 
 
 " Poor little Emmy — dear little Emmy. How fond she is of 
 me/' George said, as he perused the missive — " and Gad, what 
 a headache that mixed punch has given me ! " Poor little 
 Emmy, indeed. 
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 MISS CRAWLEY AT HOME 
 
 About this time there drove up to an exceedingly snug and 
 well-appointed house in Park Lane, a travelling chariot with a 
 lozenge on the panels, a discontented female in a green veil and 
 crimpled curls on the rumble, and a large and confidential man 
 on the box. It was the equipage of our friend. Miss Crawley, 
 returning from Hants. The carriage windows were shut; the 
 fat spaniel, whose head and tongue ordinarily lolled out of one 
 of them, reposed on the lap of the discontented female. When 
 the vehicle stopped, a large round bundle of shawls was taken 
 out of the carriage by the aid of various domestics and a young 
 lady who accompanied the heap of cloaks. That bundle con- 
 tained Miss Crawley, who was conveyed upstairs forthwith, 
 and put into a bed and chamber warmed properly as for the 
 reception of an invalid. Messengers went off for her physician 
 and medical man. They came, consulted, prescribed, vanished. 
 The young companion of Miss Crawley, at the conclusion of 
 their interview, came in to receive their instructions, and ad- 
 ministered those antiphlogistic medicines which the eminent 
 men ordered. 
 
 Captain Crawley of the Life Guards rode up from Knights- 
 bridge Barracks the next day; his black charger pawed the 
 straw before his invalid aunt's door. He was most affectionate 
 in his inquiries regarding that amiable relative. There seemed 
 to be much source of apprehension. He found Miss Crawley's 
 maid (the discontented female) unusually sulky and despondent ; 
 he found Miss Briggs, her dame de compagnie, in tears alone in 
 the drawing-room. She had hastened home, hearing of her 
 
Miss Crawley at Home 123 
 
 beloved friend's illness. She wished to fly to her couch, that 
 couch which she, Briggs, had so often smoothed in the hour of 
 sickness. She was denied admission to Miss Crawley's apart- 
 ment. A stranger was administering her medicines — a. stranger 
 from the country — an odious Miss . . . — tears choked 
 the utterance of the dame de compagnie, and she buried her 
 crushed affections and her poor old red nose in her pocket- 
 handkerchief. 
 
 Rawdon Crawley sent up his name by the sulky femme de 
 chafnbre, and Miss Crav/ley's new companion, coming tripping 
 down from the sick-room^ put a little hand into his as he stepped 
 forward eagerly to meet her, gave a glance of great scorn at the 
 bewildered Briggs, and beckoning the young Guardsman out 
 of the back drawing-room, led him downstairs into that now 
 desolate dining-parlour, where so many a good dinner had been 
 celebrated. 
 
 Here these two talked for ten minutes, discussing, no doubt, 
 the symptoms of the old invalid above stairs; at the end of 
 which period the parlour bell rung briskly, and answered on 
 that instant by Mr. Bowls, Miss Crawley's large confidential 
 butler (who, indeed, happened to be at the keyhole during the 
 most part of the interview); and the Captain coming out, curl- 
 ing his mustachios, mounted the black charger pawing among 
 the straw, to the admiration of the little blackguard boys col- 
 lected in the street. He looked in at the dining-room window, 
 managing his horse, which curveted and capered beautifully — 
 for one instant the young person might be seen at the window, 
 when her figure vanished, and, doubtless, she went upstairs 
 again to resume the affecting duties of benevolence. 
 
 Who could this young woman be, I wonder ? That evening a 
 little dinner for two persons was laid in the dining-room — ^when 
 Mrs. Firkin, the lady's maid, pushed into her mistress's apart- 
 ment, and bustled about there during the vacancy occasioned 
 by the departure of the new nurse — and the latter and Miss 
 Briggs sat down to the neat little meal. 
 
 Briggs was so much choked by emotion that she could hardly 
 take a morsel of meat. The young person carved a fowl with 
 the utmost delicacy, and asked so distinctly for egg-sauce, that 
 poor Briggs, before whom that delicious condiment was placed, 
 started, made a great clattering with the ladle, and once more 
 fell back in the most gushing hysterical state. 
 
 " Had you not better give Miss Briggs a glass of wine? " said 
 the person to Mr. Bowls, the large confidential man. He did so. 
 
1 24 Vanity Fair 
 
 Briggs seized it mechanically, gasped it down convulsively, 
 moaned a little, and began to play with the chicken on her plate. 
 
 " I think we shall be able to help each other/' said the person 
 with great suavity : " and shall have no need of Mr. Bowls's 
 kind services. Mr. Bowls, if you please, we will ring when we 
 want you." He went downstairs, where, by the way, he vented 
 the most horrid curses upon the unoffending footman, his sub- 
 ordinate. 
 
 " It is a pity you take on so. Miss Briggs," the young lady 
 said, with a cool, slightly sarcastic air. 
 
 " My dearest friend is so ill, and wo — — o — on't see me," 
 gurgled out Briggs in an agony of renewed grief. 
 
 " She's not very ill any more. Console yourself, dear Miss 
 
 I Briggs. Sh.e has only overeaten herself — that is all. She is 
 
 * greatly better. She will sbori be quite restored again. She 
 
 is weak from being cupped and from medical treatment, but 
 
 she will rally immediately. Pray console yourself, and take a 
 
 little more wine." 
 
 " But why, why won't she see me again? " Miss Briggs bleated 
 out. " Matilda, Matilda, after three-and-twenty years' ten- 
 • demess ! is this the return to your poor, poor Arabella? " 
 
 " Don't cry too much, poor Arabella," the other said (with 
 ever so little of a grin); " she only won't see you, because she 
 says you don't nurse her as well as I do. It's no pleasure to 
 me to sit up all night. I wish you might do it instead." 
 
 " Have I not tended that dear couch for years? " Arabella 
 said, " and now " 
 
 " Now she prefers somebody else. Well, sick people have these 
 fancies, and must be humoured. When she's well I shall go." 
 
 " Never, never," Arabella exclaimed, madly inhaling her salts- 
 bottle. 
 
 "Never be well or never go. Miss Briggs? " the other said, 
 with the same provoking good-nature. " Pooh — she will be 
 well in a fortnight, when I shall go back to my little pupils at 
 
 r Queen's Crawley, and to their mother, who is a great deal more 
 sick than our friend. You need not be jealous about me, my 
 dear Miss Briggs. I am a poor httle girl without any friends, 
 I or any harm in me. I don't want to supplant you in Miss 
 I Crawley's good graces. She will forget me a week after I am 
 gone: and her affection for you has been the work of years. 
 Give me a little wine if you please, my dear Miss Briggs, and let 
 us be friends. I'm sure I want friends." 
 The placable and soft-hearted Briggs speechlessly pushed 
 
Miss Crawley at Home 125 
 
 out her hand at this appeal; but she felt the desertion most 
 keenly for all that, and bitterly, bitterly moaned the fickleness 
 of her Matilda. At the end of half-an-hour, the meal over. 
 Miss Rebecca Sharp (for such, astonishing to state, is the name 
 of her who has been described ingeniously as " the person " 
 hitherto), went upstairs again to her patient's rooms, from 
 which, wdth the most engaging politeness, she eliminated poor 
 Firkin. "Thank you, Mrs. Firkin, that will quite do; how 
 nicely you make it! I will ring when anything is wanted." 
 "Thank you;" and Firkin came downstairs in a tempest of 
 jealousy, only the more dangerous because she was forced to 
 confine it in her own bosom. 
 
 Could it be the tempest which, as she passed the landing of 
 the first floor, blew open the drawing-room door? No; it was 
 stealthily opened by the hand of Briggs. Briggs had been on 
 the watch. Briggs too well heard the creaking Firkin descend 
 the stairs, and the clink of the spoon and gruel-basin the neg- 
 lected female carried. 
 
 "Well, Firkin? " says she, as the other entered the apart- 
 ment. "Well, Jane?" 
 
 " Wuss and wuss. Miss B.," Firkin said, wagging her head. 
 
 " Is she not better then? " 
 
 " She never spoke but once, and I asked her if she felt a little 
 more easy, and she told me to hold my stupid tongue. Miss 
 B., I never thought to have seen this day I " And the water- 
 works again began to play. 
 
 " What sort of a person is this Miss Sharp, Firkin? I little 
 thought, while enjoying my Christmas revels in the elegant home 
 of my firm friends, the Reverend Lionel Delamere and his 
 amiable lady, to find a stranger had taken my place in the affec- 
 tions of my dearest, my still dearest Matilda ! " Miss Briggs, 
 it will be seen by her language, was of a literary and sentimental 
 turn, and had once published a volume of poems — " Trills of the 
 Nightingale " — by subscription. 
 
 " Miss B., they are all infatyated about that young woman," 
 Firkin replied. " Sir Pitt wouldn't have let her go, but he f 
 daredn't refuse Miss Crawley anything. Mrs. Bute at the Ij 
 Rectory jist as bad — ^never happy out of her sight. The Cap- |l 
 ting quite wild about her. Mr. Crawley mortial jealous. Since jl 
 Miss C. was took ill, she won't have nobody near her but Miss || 
 Sharp, I can't tell for where nor for why ; and I think somethink \ I 
 has bewidged everybody." 'j 
 
 Rebecca passed that night in constant watching upon Miss 
 
126 Vanity Fair 
 
 Crawley; the next night the old lady slept so comfortably, that 
 Rebecca had time for several hours' comfortable repose herself 
 on the sofa, at the foot of her patroness's bed; very soon, Miss 
 Crawley was so well that she sat up and laughed heartily at a 
 perfect imitation of Miss Briggs and her grief, which Rebecca 
 described to her. Briggs' weeping snuffle, and her manner of 
 using the handkerchief, were so completely rendered, that Miss 
 Crawley became quite cheerful, to the admiration of the doctors 
 when they visited her, who usually found this v/orthy woman 
 of the world, when the least sickness attacked her, under the 
 most abject depression and terror of death. 
 
 Captain Crawley came every day, and received bulletins from 
 Miss Rebecca respecting his aunt's health. This improved so 
 rapidly, that poor Briggs was allowed to see her patroness ; and 
 persons with tender hearts may imagine the smothered emo- 
 tions of that sentimental female, and the affecting nature of the 
 interview. 
 
 Miss Crawley liked to have Briggs in a good deal soon. 
 Rebecca used to mimic her to her face with the most admirable 
 gravity, thereby rendering the imitation doubly piquant to her 
 worthy patroness. 
 
 The causes which had led to the deplorable illness of Miss 
 Crawley, and her departure from her brother's house in the 
 country, were of such an unromantic nature that they are hardly 
 fit to be explained in this genteel and sentimental novel. For 
 how is it possible to hint of a delicate female, living in good 
 society, that she ate and drank too much, and that a hot supper 
 of lobsters profusely enjoyed at the Rectory was the reason of 
 an indisposition which Miss Crawley herself persisted was solely 
 attributable to the dampness of the weather.'* The attack was 
 so sharp that Matilda — as his Reverence expressed it — was very 
 nearly " off the hooks; " all the family were in a fever of ex- 
 pectation regarding the will, and Rawdon Crawley was making 
 sure of at least forty thousand pounds before the commence- 
 ment of the London season. Mr. Crawley sent over a choice 
 jl parcel of tracts, to prepare her for the change from Vanity Fair 
 ll^and Park Lane for another world; but a good doctor from 
 : Southampton being called in in time, vanquished the lobster 
 which was so nearly fatal to her, and gave her sufficient strength 
 to enable her to return to London. The "Baronet did not dis- 
 guise his exceeding mortification at the turn which affairs took. 
 While everybody was attending on Miss Crawley, and mes- 
 
Miss Crawley at Home 127 
 
 sengers every hour from the Rectory were carrying news of her 
 health to the affectionate folks there^ there was a lady in another 
 part of the house^ being exceedingly ill, of whom no one took 
 any notice at all; and this was the lady of Crawley herself. 
 The good doctor shook his head after seeing her; to which visit 
 Sir Pitt consented, as it could be paid withhout a fee; and she 
 was left fading away in her lonely chamber, with no more heed 
 paid to her than to a weed in the park. 
 
 The young ladies, too, lost much of the inestimable benefit 
 of their governess's instruction. So affectionate a nurse was 
 Miss Sharp, that Miss Crawley would take her medicines from 
 no other hand. Firkin had been deposed long before her mis- 
 tress's departure from the country. That faithful attendant 
 found a gloomy consolation on returning to London, in seeing 
 Miss Briggs suffer the same pangs of jealousy and undergo the 
 same faithless treatment to which she herself had been subject. 
 
 Captain Rawdon got an extension of leave on his aunt's ill- 
 ness, and remained dutifully at home. He was always in her 
 antecham.ber. (She lay sick in the state bedroom, into which 
 you entered by the little blue saloon.) His father was always 
 meeting him there; or if he came down the corridor ever so 
 quietly, his father's door was sure to open, and the hyaena face 
 of the old gentleman to glare out. What was it set one to watch 
 the other so ? A generous rivalry, no doubt, as to which should 
 be most attentive to the dear sufferer in the state bedroom. 
 Rebecca used to come out and comfort both of them ; or one or 
 the other of them rather. Both of these worthy gentlemen were 
 most anxious to have news of the invalid from her little con- 
 fidential messenger. 
 
 At dinner — to which meal she descended for half-an-hour — 
 she kept the peace between them: after which she disappeared 
 for the night; when Rawdon would ride over to the depot of 
 the 150th at Mudbury, leaving his Papa to the society of Mr. 
 Horrocks and his rum and water. She passed as weary a fort- 
 night as ever mortal spent in Miss Crawley's sick-room; but her 
 little nerves seemed to be of iron, as she was quite unshaken by 
 the duty and the tedium of the sick-chamber. 
 
 She never told until long afterwards how painful that duty 
 was; how peevish a patient was the jovial old lady; how angry ; 
 how sleepless ; in what horrors of death; during what long nights 
 she lay moaning, and in almost delirious agonies respecting that 
 future world which she quite ignored when she was in good 
 health. — Picture to yourself, fair young reader, a worldly. 
 
128 Vanity Fair 
 
 ^ selfish, graceless, thankless, religionless old womaii, writhing in 
 j pain and fear, and without her wig. Picture her to yourself, and 
 1 ere you be old, learn to love and pray. 
 
 Sharp watched this graceless bedside with indomitable 
 patience. Nothing escaped her; and, like a prudent steward, 
 she found a use for everything. She told many a good story 
 about Miss Crawley's illness in after days, — stories which made 
 the lady blush through her artificial carnations. During the 
 illness she was never out of temper; always alert; she slept 
 light, having a perfectly clear conscience; and could take that 
 refreshment at almost any minute's warning. And so you saw 
 very few traces of fatigue in her appearance. Her face might 
 be a trifle paler, and the circles round her eyes a little blacker 
 than usual; but whenever she came out from the sick-room 
 she was always smiling, fresh and neat, and looked as trim in 
 her little dressing-gown and cap, as in her smartest evening 
 suit. 
 
 The Captain thought so, and raved about her in uncouth con- 
 li vulsions. The barbed shaft of love had penetrated his dull 
 I hide. Six weeks — appropinquity — opportunity — had victimised 
 I him completely. He made a confidante of his aunt at the 
 " Rectory, of all persons in the world. She rallied him about it; 
 she had perceived his folly; she warned him; she finished by 
 owning that little Sharp was the most clever, droll, odd, good- 
 natured, simple, kindly creature in England. Rawdon must 
 not trifle with her affections, though — dear Miss Crawley would 
 never pardon him for that: for she, too, was quite overcome by 
 the little governess, and loved Sharp like a daughter. Rawdon 
 must go away — go back to his regiment and naughty London, 
 and not play with a poor artless girl's feelings. 
 
 Many and many a time this good-natured lady, compassionate- 
 ing the forlorn life-guardsman's condition, gave him an oppor- 
 tunity of seeing Miss Sharp at the Rectory, and of walking home 
 with her, as we have seen. When men of a certain sort, ladies, 
 are in love, though they see the hook and the string, and the 
 whole apparatus with which they are to be taken, they gorge 
 the bait nevertheless — they must come to it — they must swallow 
 it — and are presently struck and landed gasping. Rawdon 
 saw there was a manifest intention on Mrs. Bute's part to cap- 
 tivate him with Rebecca. He was not very wise; but he was 
 a man about town, and had seen several seasons. A light 
 dawned upon his dusky soul, as he thought, through a speech 
 of Mrs. Bute'Si 
 
Miss Crawley at Home 129 
 
 " Mark my words, Rawdon/' she said. " You will have Miss 
 Sharp one day for your relation." 
 
 " What relation, — my cousin, hey, Mrs. Bute ? James sweet 
 on her, hey ? " inquired the waggish officer. 
 
 " More than that," Mrs. Bute said, with a flash from her 
 black eyes. 
 
 " Not Pitt ? He shan't have her. The sneak a'n't worthy 
 of her. He's booked to Lady Jane Sheepshanks." 
 
 " You men perceive nothing. You silly, blind creature — ^if 
 anything happens to Lady Crawley, Miss Sharp will be your 
 mother-in-law ; and that's what will happen." 
 
 Rawdon Crawley, Esquire, gave vent to a prodigious whistle, 
 in token of astonishment at this announcement. He couldn't 
 deny it. His father's evident liking for Miss Sharp had not 
 escaped him. He knew the old gentleman's character well ; 
 and a more unscrupulous old — whyou — he did not conclude the 
 sentence, but walked home, curling his mustachios, and con- 
 vinced he had found a clue to Mrs. Bute's mystery. 
 
 " By Jove, it's too bad," thought Rav/don, " too bad, by 
 Jove ! I do believe the woman wants the poor girl to be ruined, 
 in order that she shouldn't come into the family as Lady 
 Crawley." 
 
 When he saw Rebecca alone, he rallied her about his father's 
 attachment in his graceful way. She flung up her head scorn- 
 fully, looked him full in the face, and said, — 
 
 " Well, suppose he is fond of me. I know he is, and others 
 too. You don't think I am afraid of him. Captain Crawley .? 
 You don't suppose I can't defend my own honour," said the 
 little woman, looking as stately as a queen. 
 
 " Oh, ah, why — give you fair warning — look out, you know 
 —that's all," said the mustachio-twiddler. 
 
 " You hint at something not honourable, then ? " said she, 
 flashing out. 
 
 " — Gad — really — Miss Rebecca," the heavy dragoon inter- 
 posed. 
 
 " Do you suppose I have no feeling of self-respect, because I 
 am poor and friendless, and because rich people have none ? 
 Do you think, because I am a governess, I have not as much 
 sense, and feeling, and good breeding as you gentlefolks in 
 Hampshire? I'm a Montmorency. Do you suppose a Mont- 
 morency is not as good as a Crawley? " 
 
 When Miss Sharp was agitated, and alluded to her natural 
 relatives, she spoke with ever -so- slight a foreign accent, which 
 E398 
 
130 Vanity Fair 
 
 gave a great charm to her clear ringing voice. " No/' she con- 
 tinued, kindling as she spoke to the Captain ; "I can endure 
 poverty, but not shame — neglect, but not insult; and insult 
 from — from you.'' 
 
 Her feelings gave way, and she burst into tears. 
 
 "Hang it, Miss Sharp — ^Rebecca — by Jove — upon my soul, 
 I wouldn't for a thousand pounds. Stop, Rebecca! " 
 
 She was gone. She drove out with Miss Crawley that day. 
 It was before the latter's illness. At dinner she was unusually 
 brilliant and lively; but she would take no notice of the hints, 
 or the nods, or the clumsy expostulations of the humiliated, 
 infatuated Guardsman. Skirmishes of this sort passed perpetu- 
 ally during the little campaign — tedious to relate, and similar 
 in result. The Crawley heavy cavalry was maddened by defeat, 
 and routed every day. 
 
 If the Baronet of Queen's Crawley had not had the fear of 
 losing his sister's legacy before his eyes, he never would have 
 permitted his dear girls to lose the educational blessings which 
 their invaluable governess was conferring upon them. The old 
 house at home seemed a desert without her, so useful and 
 pleasant had Rebecca made herself there. Sir Pitt's letters 
 were not copied and corrected ; his books not made up ; his 
 household business and manifold schemes neglected, now that 
 his little secretary was away. And it was easy to see how 
 necessary such an amanuensis was to him, by the tenor and 
 spelling of the numerous letters which he sent to her, entreating 
 her and commanding her to return. Almost every day brought 
 a frank from the Baronet, enclosing the most urgent prayers to 
 Becky for her return, or conveying pathetic statements to Miss 
 Crawley, regarding the neglected state of his daughters' educa- 
 tion ; of which docum.ents Miss Crawley took very little heed. 
 
 Miss Briggs was not formally dismissed, but her place as com- 
 panion was a sinecure and a derision; and her company was 
 the fat spaniel in the drawing-room, or occasionally the discon- 
 tented Firkin in the housekeeper's closet. Nor, though the old 
 lady would by no means hear of Rebecca's departure, was the 
 latter regularly installed in office in Park Lane. Like many 
 wealthy people, it was Miss Crawley's habit to accept as much 
 service as she could get from her inferiors ; and good-naturedly 
 to take leave of them when she no longer found them useful. 
 Gratitude among certain rich folks is scarcely natural or to be 
 thought of. They take needy people's services as their due. 
 
Miss Crawley at Home 131 
 
 Nor have you^ O poor parasite and humble hanger-on, much 
 reason to complain! Your friendship for Dives is about as 
 sincere as the return which it usually gets. It is money you 
 love, and not the man ; and were Croesus and his footman to 
 change places, you know^ you poor rogue, who would have the 
 benefit of your allegiance. 
 
 And I am not sure, that, in spite of Rebecca's simplicity and 
 activity, and gentleness and untiring good-humour, the shrewd 
 old London lady, upon whom these treasures of friendship were 
 lavished, had not a lurking suspicion all the while of her affec- 
 tionate nurse and friend. It must have often crossed Miss 
 Crawley's mind that nobody does anything for nothing. If she 
 measured her own feeling towards the world, she must have been 
 pretty well able to gauge those of the world towards herself; 
 and perhaps she reflected, that it is the ordinary lot of people 
 to have no friends if they themselves care for nobody. 
 
 Well, meanwhile Becky was the greatest comfort and con- 
 venience to her, and she gave her a couple of new gowns, and 
 an old necklace and shawl, and showed her friendship by abus- 
 ing all her intimate acquaintances to her new confidante (than 
 which there can't be a more touching proof of regard), and 
 meditated vaguely some great future benefit — to marry her 
 perhaps to Clump the apothecary, or to settle her in some 
 advantageous way of life ; or at any rate, to send her back to 
 Queen's Crawley when she had done with her, and the full 
 London season had begun. 
 
 When Miss Crawley was convalescent and descended to the . 
 drawing-room, Becky sang to her, and otherwise amused her; 
 when she was well enough to drive out, Becky accompanied 
 her. And amongst the drives which they took, whither, of all 
 places in the world, did Miss Crawley's admirable good-nature 
 and friendship actually induce her to penetrate, but to Russell 
 Square, Bloomsbury, and the house of John Sedley, Esquire. 
 
 Ere that event, many notes had passed, as may be imagined, 
 between the two dear friends. During the months of Rebecca's | 
 stay in Hampshire, the eternal friendship had (must it be 1 
 owned ?) suffered considerable diminution, and grown so decrepit • 
 and feeble with old age as to threaten demise altogether. The | 
 fact is, both girls had their own real affairs to think of; Rebecca ^ 
 her advance with her employers — Amelia her own absorbing | 
 topic. When the two girls met, and flew into each other's ' 
 arms with that impetuosity which distinguishes the behaviour 
 of young ladies towards each other, Rebecca performed her 
 
132 Vanity Fail- 
 
 part of the embrace with th-e most perfect briskness and energy. 
 Poor little Amelia blushed as she kissed her friend^ and thought 
 she had been guilty of something very like coldness towards her. 
 
 Their first interview was but a very short one. iVmelia was 
 just ready to go out for a walk. Miss Crawley was waiting in 
 her carriage below, her people wondering at the locality in 
 which they found themselves, and gazing upon honest Sambo, 
 the black footman of Bloomsbury, as one of the queer natives 
 of the place. But when Amelia came down with her kind 
 smiling looks (Rebecca must introduce her to her friend, Miss 
 Crawley was longing to see her, and was too ill to leave her 
 carriage) — when, I say, Amelia came down, the Park Lane 
 shoulder-knot aristocracy wondered more and more that such 
 a thing could come out of Bloomsbury ; and Miss Crawley was 
 fairly captivated by the sweet blushing face of the young lady 
 who came forward so timidly and so gracefully to pay her 
 respects to the protector of her friend. 
 
 " Vv^hat a complexion, my dear ! What a sweet voice ! " 
 Miss Crawley said, as they drove away westward after the little 
 interview. " My dear Sharp, your young friend is charming. 
 Send for her to Park Lane, do you hear ? " Miss Crawley had 
 a good taste. She liked natural manners — a little timidity only 
 set them off. She liked pretty faces near her ; as she liked 
 pretty pictures and nice china. She talked of Amelia with 
 rapture half-a-dozen times that day. She mentioned her to 
 Rawdon Crawley, who came dutifully to partake of his aunt's 
 chicken. 
 
 Of course, on this Rebecca instantly stated that Amelia was 
 engaged to be married — to a Lieutenant Osborne— a very old 
 flame. 
 
 " Is he a man in a line regiment? " Captain Crawley asked, 
 remembering after an effort, as became a Guardsman, the num- 
 ber of the regiment, the — th. 
 
 Rebecca thought that was the regiment. " The Captain's 
 name," she said, " was Captain Dobbin." 
 
 " A lanky gawky fellow," said Crawley, " tumbles over every- 
 body. I know him ; and Osborne's a goodish-looking fellow, 
 with large black whiskers? " 
 
 " Enorm.ous," Miss Rebecca Sharp said, " and enormously 
 proud of them, I assure you." 
 
 Captain Rawdon Crawley burst into a horse-laugh by way of 
 reply ; and being pressed by the ladies to explain, did so when 
 the explosion of hilarity was over. " He fancies he can play at 
 
Miss Crawley at Home 133 
 
 billiards/' said he. "I won two hundred of him at the Cocoa- 
 Tree. He play, the young flat ! He'd have played for anything 
 that day, but his friend Captain Dobbin carried him oS, hang 
 him!" 
 
 " Rawdon, Rawdon, don't be so wicked/' Miss Crawley j 
 ragaarkedy-highly: pleased. -■ 
 
 " Why, Ma'am, of all the young fellows I've seen out of the 
 line, I think this fellow's the greenest. Tarquin and Deuceace 
 get what money they like out of him. He'd go to the deuce to 
 be seen with a lord. He pays their dinners at Greenwich, and 
 they invite the company." 
 
 " And very prett}^ company too, I daresay." 
 
 " Quite right. Miss Sharp. Right, as usual. Miss Sharp. 
 Uncommon pretty company, — haw, haw ! " and the Captain 
 laughed more and more, thinking he had made a good joke. 
 
 " Rawdon, don't be naughty! " his aunt exclaimed. 
 
 " Well, his father's a City man — immensely rich, they say. 
 Hang those City fellows, they must bleed; and I've not done 
 with him yet, I can tell you. Haw, haw 1 " 
 
 " Fie, Captain Crawley; I shall warn Amelia. A gambling 
 husband ! " 
 
 *' Horrid, ain't he, hey.'* " the Captain said with great solem- 
 nity; and then added, a sudden thought having struck him — 
 " Gad, I say, Ma'am, we'll have him here." 
 
 " Is he a presentable sort of a person? " the aunt inquired. 
 
 " Presentable ? — oh, very well. You wouldn't see any differ- 
 ence," Captain Crawle}'- answered. " Do let's have him, when 
 you begin to see a few people; and his whatdyecallem — his 
 inamorato — eh. Miss Sharp ; that's what you call it — comes. 
 Gad, I'll write him a note, and have him; and I'll try if he can 
 play piquet as well as billiards. Where does he live. Miss 
 Sharp? " 
 
 Miss Sharp told Crawley the Lieutenant's town address ; and 
 a few days after this conversation. Lieutenant Osborne received 
 a letter, in Captain Rawdon' s schoolboy hand, and enclosing a 
 note of invitation from Miss Crav/ley. 
 
 Rebecca despatched also an invitation to her darling Amelia, 
 who, you may be sure, was ready enough to accept it when she 
 heard that George was to be of the party. It was arranged that 
 Ameha was to spend the morning with the ladies of Park Lane, 
 where all were very kind to. her. Rebecca patronised her with 
 calm superiority: she was so much the cleverer of the two, and 
 her friend so gentle and unassuming, that she always yielded 
 
1 34 Vanity Fair 
 
 when anybody chose to command, and so took Rebecca's orders 
 with perfect meekness and good humour. Miss Crawley's 
 graciousness was also remarkable. She continued her raptures 
 about little Amelia, talked about her before her face as if she 
 were a doll, or a servant, or a picture, and admired her with the 
 most benevolent wonder possible. I admire that admiration 
 which the genteel world sometimes extends to the commonalty. 
 There is no more agreeable object in life than to see May fair 
 folks condescending. Miss Crawley's prodigious benevolence 
 rather fatigued poor little Amelia, and I am not sure that of the 
 three ladies in Park Lane she did not find honest Miss Briggs 
 the most agreeable. She sympathised with Briggs as with all 
 neglected or gentle people : she wasn't what you call a woman 
 of spirit. 
 
 George came to dinner — a repast en garcon with Captain 
 Crawley. 
 
 The great family coach of the Osbornes transported him to 
 Park Lane from Russell Square; where the young ladies, who 
 were not themselves invited, and professed the greatest indiffer- 
 ence at that slight, nevertheless looked at Sir Pitt Crawley's 
 name in the baronetage; and learned everything which that 
 work had to teach about the Crawley family and their pedigree, 
 and the Binkies, their relatives, etc., etc. Rawdon Crawley 
 received George Osborne with great frankness and graciousness : 
 praised his play at billiards ; asked him when he would have his 
 revenge: was interested about Osborne's regiment: and would 
 have proposed piquet to him that very evening, but Miss 
 Crawley absolutely forbade any gambling in her house ; so that 
 the young Lieutenant's purse was not lightened by his gallant 
 patron, for that day at least. However, they made an engage- 
 ment for the next, somewhere : to look at a horse that Crawley 
 had to sell, and to try him in the Park ; and to dine together, 
 and to pass the evening with some jolly fellows. " That is, if 
 you're not on duty to that pretty Miss Sedley," Crawley said, 
 with a knowing wink. " Monstrous nice girl, 'pon my honour, 
 though, Osborne," he was good enough to add. " Lot's of tin, I 
 suppose, eh? " 
 
 Osborne wasn't on duty; he would join Crawley with pleasure: 
 and the latter, when they met the next day, praised his new 
 friend's horsemanship — as he might with perfect honesty — and 
 introduced him to three or four young men of the first fashion, 
 whose acquaintance immensely elated the simple young officer. 
 
 " How's little Miss Sharp, by the bye? " Osborne inquired of 
 
Miss Crawley at Home 135 
 
 his friend over their wine, with a dandified air. " Good-natured 
 little girl that. Does she suit you well at Queen's Crawley? 
 Miss Sedley liked her a good deal last year." 
 
 Captain Crawley looked savagely at the Lieutenant out of 
 his little blue eyes, and watched him when he went up to resume 
 his acquaintance with the fair governess. Her conduct must 
 have relieved Crawley if there was any jealousy in the bosom of 
 that life-guardsman. 
 
 When the young men went upstairs, and after Osborne's intro- 
 duction to Miss Crawley, he walked up to Rebecca with a 
 patronising, easy swagger. He was going to be kind to her and 
 protect her. He would even shake hands with her, as a friend 
 of Amelia's; and saying, " Ah, Miss Sharp! how-dy-doo? " held 
 out his left hand towards her, expecting that she would be quite 
 confounded at the honour. 
 
 Miss Sharp put out her right forefinger, and gave him a little 
 nod, so cool and killing, that Rawdon Crawley, watching the 
 operations from the other room, could hardly restrain his 
 laughter as he saw the Lieutenant's entire discomfiture; the 
 start he gave, the pause, and the perfect clumsiness with which 
 he at length condescended to take the finger which was offered 
 for his embrace. 
 
 " She'd beat the devil, by Jove ! " the Captain said, in a 
 rapture; and the Lieutenant, by way of beginning the conver- 
 sation, agreeably asked Rebecca how she liked her new place. 
 
 " My place? " said Miss Sharp coolly, " how kind of you to 
 remind me of it ! It's a tolerably good place: the wages are 
 pretty good — not so good as Miss Wirt's, I believe, with your 
 sisters in Russell Square. How are those young ladies — not 
 that I ought to ask." 
 
 " Why not? " Mr. Osborne said, amazed. 
 
 " Why, they never condescended to speak to me, or to ask me 
 into their house, whilst I was staying with Amelia; but we poor 
 governesses, you know, are used to slights of this sort." 
 
 " My dear Miss Sharp! " Osborne ejaculated. 
 
 " At least in some families," Rebecca continued. " You 
 can't think what a difference there is though. We are not so 
 wealthy in Hampshire as you lucky folks of the City. But then 
 I am in a gentleman's family — good old English stock. I 
 suppose you know Sir Pitt's father refused a peerage. And you 
 see how I am treated. I am pretty comfortable. Indeed it is 
 rather a good place. But how very good of you to inquire ! " 
 
 Osborne was quite savage. The little governess patronised 
 
136 Vanity Fair 
 
 him and perstffled him until this young British Lion felt quite 
 uneasy; nor could he muster sufficient presence of mind to find 
 a pretext for backing out of this most delectable conversation. 
 
 " I thought you liked the City famiUes pretty well/' he said 
 haughtily. 
 
 " Last year you mean^ when I was fresh from that horrid 
 school? Of course I did. Doesn't every girl like to come home 
 for the holidays? And how v/as I to know any better? But 
 oh^ Mr. Osborne^ what a difference eighteen months' experience 
 makes ! — eighteen m.onths spent, pardon me for saying so, with 
 gentlemen. As for dear Amelia, she, I grant you, is a pearl, 
 and would be charming anywhere. There now, I see you are 
 beginning to be in a good humour; but oh, these queer odd City 
 people! And Mr. Jos — how is that wonderful Mr. Joseph? " 
 
 " It seem.s to me you didn't dislike that wonderful Mr. Joseph 
 last year," Osborne said kindly. 
 
 '' How severe of you ! Well, entre nous, I didn't break my 
 heart about him ; yet if he had asked me to do what you mean 
 by your looks (and very expressive and kind they are, too), I 
 wouldn't have said no." 
 
 Mr. Osborne gave a look as much as to say, " Indeed, how 
 very obliging ! " 
 
 " What an honour to have had you for a brother-in-law, you 
 are thinking? To be sister-in-law to George Osborne, Esquire, 
 son of John Osborne, Esquire, son of- — what was your grand- 
 papa, Mr. Osborne? Well, don't be angry. You can't help 
 your pedigxee, and I quite agree with you that I would have 
 married Mr. Joe Sedley; for could a poor penniless girl do better ? 
 Now you know the whole secret. Fm frank and open; con- 
 sidering all things, it was very kind of you to allude to the 
 circumstance — very kind and poHte. Amelia dear, Mr. Osborne 
 and I v/ere talking about your poor brother Joseph. How is 
 he?" 
 
 Thus was George utterly routed. Not that Rebecca was in 
 the right; but she had managed most successfully to put him in 
 the wrong. And he now shamefully fled, feeling, if he stayed 
 another minute, that he would have been made to look foolish 
 in the presence of Amelia. 
 
 Though Rebecca had had the better of him, George was above 
 the meanness of tale-bearing or revenge upon a lady, — only he 
 could not help cleverly confiding to Captain Crawley, next day, 
 some notions of his regarding Miss Rebecca— that she was a 
 sharp one, a dangerous one, a desperate flirt, etc; in all of 
 
Miss Cravviey at Home 137 
 
 which opinions Crawley agreed laughingly^ and with every one 
 of which Miss Rebecca was made acquainted before twenty- 
 four hours were over. They added to her original regard for 
 Mr. Osborne. Her woman's instinct had told her," that it was 
 George who had interrupted the success of her first love-passage, 
 and she esteemed him accordingly. 
 
 " I only just warn you," he said to Rawdon Crawley, with a 
 knowing look — he had bought the horse, and lost some score of 
 guineas after dinner, " I just warn you — I know women, and 
 counsel you to be on the look-out." 
 
 " Thank you, my boy," said Crawley, with a look of peculiar 
 gratitude. " You're wide awake, I see." And George went 
 off, thinking Crawley was quite right. 
 
 He told Amelia of what he had done, and how he had coun- 
 selled Rawdon Crawley — a devilish good, straightforward fellow 
 — to be on his guard against that little sly scheming Rebecca. 
 
 " Against whom ? " Amelia cried. 
 
 " Your friend the governess. — Don't look so astonished." 
 
 "O George, what have you done? " Amelia said. For her 
 woman's eyes, which Love had made sharp-sighted, had in one 
 instant discovered a secret which was invisible to Miss Crawley, 
 to poor virgin Briggs, and above all, to the stupid peepers of 
 that young whiskered prig. Lieutenant Osborne. 
 
 For as Rebecca was shawling her in an upper apartment, 
 where these two friends had an opportunity for a little of that 
 secret talking and conspiring which forms the delight of female 
 life, Amelia, coming up to Rebecca, and taking her two little 
 ha.nds in hers, said, " Rebecca, I see it all." 
 
 Rebecca kissed her. 
 
 And regarding this delightful secret, not one syllable more 
 was said by either of the young women. But it was destined 
 to come out before long. 
 
 Some short period after the above events, and Miss Rebecca 
 Sharp still remaining at her patroness's house in Park Lane, one 
 more hatchment might have been seen in Great Gaunt Street, 
 figuring amongst the many which usually ornament that dismal 
 quarter. It was over Sir Pitt Crawley's house ; but it did not 
 indicate the worthy baronet's demise. It was a feminine hatch- 
 ment, and indeed a few years back had served as a funeral com- 
 pliment to Sir Pitt's old mother, the late dowager Lady Crawley. 
 Its period of service over, the hatchment had come down from 
 the front of the house, and hved in retirement somewhere in the 
 back premises of Sir Pitt's mansion. It reappeared now for 
 
138 Vanity Fair 
 
 poor Rose Dawson. Sir Pitt was a widower again. The arms 
 quartered on the shield along with his own were not, to be sure, 
 poor Rose's. She had no arms. But the cherubs painted on 
 the scutcheon answered as well for her a§ for Sir Pitt's mother, 
 and Resurgam was written under the coat, flanked by the 
 Crawley Dove and Serpent. Arms and Hatchments, Resurgam. 
 — Here is an opportunity for moralising ! 
 
 Mr, Crawley had tended that other^dse friendless bedside. 
 She went out of the world strengthened by such words and 
 comfort as he could give her. For many years his was the only 
 kindness she ever knew; the only friendship that solaced in any 
 
 ; way that feeble, lonely soul. Her heart was dead long before 
 
 I her body. She had sold it to become Sir Pitt Crawley's wife. 
 
 f Mothers and daughters are making the same bargain every day 
 
 - in Vanity Fair. 
 
 When the demise took place, her husband was in London 
 attending to some of his innumerable schemes, and busy with his 
 endless lawyers. He had found time, nevertheless, to call often 
 in Park Lane, and to despatch many notes to Rebecca, entreat- 
 ing her, enjoining her, commanding her to return to her young 
 pupils in the country, who were now utterly without companion- 
 ship during their mother's illness. But Miss Crawley would 
 not hear of her departure ; for though there was no lady of 
 fashion in London who would desert her friends more com- 
 placently as soon as she was tired of their society, and though 
 few tired of them sooner, yet as long as her engoument lasted her 
 attachment was prodigious, and she clung still with the greatest 
 energy to Rebecca. 
 
 The news of Lady Crawley's death provoked no more grief or 
 comment than might have been expected in Miss Crawley's 
 family circle. " I suppose I must put off my party for the 3rd," 
 Miss Crawley said; and added, after a pause, " I hope my 
 brother will have the decency not to marry again." — " What a 
 confounded rage Pitt will be in if he does," Rawdon remarked, 
 with his usual regard for his elder brother. Rebecca said 
 nothing. -She seemed by far the gravest and most impressed of 
 the family. She left the room before Rawdon went away that 
 day ; but they met by chance below, as he was going away 
 after taking leave, and had a parley together. 
 
 On the morrow, as Rebecca was gazing from the window, she 
 startled Miss Crawley, who was placidly occupied with a French 
 novel, by crying out in an alarmed tone, " Here's Sir Pitt, 
 Ma'am! " and the Baronet's knock followed this announcement. 
 
Miss Crawley at Home 139 
 
 " My dear, I can't see him. I won't see him. Tell Bowls not 
 at home, or go downstairs and say I'm too ill to receive any one. 
 My nerves really won't bear my brother at this moment; " cried 
 out Miss Crawley, and resumed the novel. 
 
 " She's too ill to see you, sir," Rebecca said, tripping down 
 to Sir Pitt, who was preparing to ascend. 
 
 " So much the better," Sir Pitt answered. " I want to see 
 you, Miss Becky. Come along a me into the parlour," and they 
 entered that apartm.ent together. 
 
 " I wawnt you back at Queen's Crawley, Miss," the Baronet 
 said, fixing his eyes upon her, and taking off his black gloves 
 and his hat with its great crape hat-band. His eyes had such 
 a strange look, and fixed upon her so steadfastly, that Rebecca 
 Sharp began almost to tremble. 
 
 " I hope to come soon," she said in a low voice, " as soon as 
 Miss Crawley is better — and return to — to the dear children." 
 
 " You've said so these three months, Becky," replied Sir 
 Pitt, " and still you- go hanging on to my sister, who'll fling you 
 off like an old shoe, when she's worn you out. I tell you I wani 
 you. I'm going back to the Vuneral. Will you come back? 
 Yes or no? " 
 
 " I daren't — I don't think — it would be right — to be alone — : 
 with you, sir," Becky said, seemingly in great agitation. \ 
 
 " I say agin, I want you," Sir Pitt said, thumping the table.^ 
 " I can't git on without you. I didn't see what it was till you 
 v/ent away. The house all goes wrong. It's not the same 
 place. All my accounts has got muddled agin. You must 
 come back. Do come back. Dear Becky, do come." 
 
 " Come — as what, sir? " Rebecca gasped out. 
 
 "Come as Lady Crawley, if you like," the Baronet said, I 
 grasping his crape hat. "There! will that zatusfy you?| 
 Come back and be my wife. Your vit vor't. Birth be hanged. 1 
 You're as good a lady as ever I see. You've got more brains] 
 in your little vinger than any baronet's wife in the county, f 
 Will you come? Yes or no? " 
 
 " Sir Pitt ! " Rebecca said, very much moved. ; 
 
 " Say yes, Becky," Sir Pitt continued. " I'm an old man, 
 but a good'n. I'm good for twenty years. I'll make you 
 happy, zee if I don't. You shall do what you like ; spend what 
 you like; and 'av it all your own way. I'll make you a zettle- 
 ment. I'll do everything reglar. Look year ! " and the old 
 man fell down on his knees and leered at her like a satyr. 
 
 Rebecca started back a picture of consternation. In the 
 
140 Vanity Fair 
 
 course of this history we have never seen her lose her presence 
 of mind ; but she did now, and wept some of the most genuine 
 tears that ever fell from her eyes, 
 
 " Sir Pitt ! " she said. " sir — I— I'm married already." 
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 IN WHICH Rebecca's husband appears for a short time 
 
 Every reader of a sentimental turn (and we desire no other) 
 must have been pleased with the tableau with which the last act 
 of our little drama concluded ; for what can be prettier than an 
 image of Love on his knees before Beauty? 
 
 But when Love heard that awful confession from Beauty 
 that she was ma^rried already, he bounced up from his attitude 
 of humility on the carpet, uttering exclamations which caused 
 poor Httle Beauty to be more frightened than she was when she 
 made her avowal. " Married ; you're joking/' the Baronet 
 cried, after the first explosion of rage and wonder. " You're 
 making vun of me, Becky. Who'd ever go to marry you with- 
 out a shilling to your fortune? " 
 
 " Married ! married ! '"' Rebecca said, in an agony of tears — 
 her voice choking with emotion, her handkerchief up to her 
 ready eyes, fainting against the mantelpiece — a figure of woe 
 fxt to melt the most obdurate heart. " Sir Pitt, dear Sir Pitt,' 
 do not think me ungrateful for all your goodness to me. It is 
 only your generosity that has extorted my secret." 
 
 " Generosity be hanged! " Sir Pitt roared out. '' Who is it 
 tu, then, you're m.arried? Where was it? " 
 
 " Let me come back with you to the country, sir ! Let me 
 watch over you as faithfully as ever ! Don't, don't separate m^e 
 from dear Queen's Crawley! " 
 
 " The feller has left you, has he? " the Baronet said, begin- 
 ning, as he fancied, to comprehend. " Vv ell, Becky — come 
 back if you like. You can't eat your cake and have it. Any- 
 ways I made you a vair offer. Coom back as governess — you 
 shall have it all your own way." She held out one hand. She 
 cried fit to break her heart; her ringlets fell over her face, and 
 over the marble mantelpiece where she laid it. 
 
 " So the rascal ran off, eh? " Sir Pitt said, with a hideous 
 
In Which Rebecca's Husband Appears 141 
 
 attempt at consolation. " Never mind, Becky, Vll take care 
 of'ee." 
 
 " O sir ! it would be the pride of my life to go back to Queen's 
 Crawley, and take care of the children, and of you as formerly, 
 when you said vou were pleased Avith the services of your little 
 Rebecca. When I think of what you have just offered me, my 
 heart fills with gratitude — indeed it does. I can't be your 
 wife, sir; let me — ^let me be your daughter! " 
 
 Saying which, Rebecca went down on her knees in a most 
 tragical way, and, taking Sir Pitt's horny black hand between 
 her own two (which were very pretty and white, and as soft as 
 satin), looked up in his face with an expression of exquisite 
 pathos and confidence, when — when the door opened and Miss 
 Crawley sailed in. 
 
 Mrs. Firkin and Miss Briggs, who happened by chance to be 
 at the parlour door soon after the Baronet and Rebecca entered 
 the apartment, had also seen accideijtally, through the keyhole, 
 the old gentleman prostrate before the governess, and had heard 
 the generous proposal which he made her. It was scarcely out 
 of his mouth when Mrs. Firkin and Miss Briggs had streamed up 
 the stairs, had rushed into the drawing-room where Miss Crawley 
 was reading the French novel, and had given that old lady the 
 astounding intelligence that Sir Pitt was on his knees, proposing 
 to Miss Sharp. And if you calculate the time for the above 
 dialogue to take place — the time for Briggs and Firkin to fly 
 to the drawing-room — the time for Miss Crawley to be astonished 
 and to drop her volume of Pigault le Brun — and the time for 
 her to come downstairs — you will see] how exactly accurate 
 this history is, and how Miss Crawley must have appeared at 
 the very instant when Rebecca had assumed the attitude of 
 humility. 
 
 " It is the lady on the ground, and not the gentleman," Miss 
 Crawley said, with a look and voice of great scorn. " They told 
 me that you were on your knees. Sir Pitt: do kneel once more, 
 and let me see this pretty couple! " 
 
 " I have thanked Sir Pitt Crawley, Ma'am," Rebecca said, 
 rising, " and have told him that— that I never can become Lady 
 Crawley." 
 
 "Refused him!" Miss Crawley said, more bewildered than 
 ever. Briggs and Firkin at the door opened the eyes of astonish- 
 ment and the lips of wonder. 
 
 "Yes — refused," Rebecca continued, with a sad, tearful 
 voice. 
 
142 Vanity Fair , ' " 
 
 " And am I to credit my ears that you absolutely proposed 
 to her, Sir Pitt? " the old lady asked. 
 
 " Ees/' said the Baronet, " I did." ' 
 
 " And she refused you as she says? " 
 
 " Ees/' Sir Pitt said, his features on a broad grin. 
 
 " It does not seem to break your heart at any rate/' Miss 
 Crawley remarked. ' 
 
 " Nawt a bit/' answered Sir Pitt, with a coolness and good- 
 humour which set Miss Crawley almost mad with bewilderment. 
 That an old gentleman of station should fall on his knees to a 
 penniless governess, and burst out laughing because she refused 
 to marry him, — that a penniless governess should refuse a 
 baronet with four thousand a year, — these were mysteries which 
 Miss Crawley could never comprehend. It surpassed any com- 
 plications of intrigue ii; her favourite, Pigault le Brun. 
 
 " I'm glad you think it good sport, brother," she continued, 
 groping wildly through this amazement. 
 
 " Vamous," said Sir Pitt. " Who'd ha' thought it ! what a 
 sly little devil ! what a little fox it waws ! " he muttered to him- 
 self , ^chuckling with pleasure. 
 
 " Who'd have thought what? " cries Miss Crawley, stamping 
 with her foot. " Pray, Miss Sharp, are you waiting for the 
 Prince Regent's divorce, that you don't think our family good 
 enough for you? " 
 
 " My attitude," Rebecca said, " when you came in. Ma'am, 
 did not look as if I despised such an honour as this good — this 
 noble man has deigned to offer me. Do you think I have no 
 heart? Have you all loved me, and. been so kind to the poor 
 orphan — deserted — girl, and am / to feel nothing? my 
 friends! my benefactors! may not my love, my life, my 
 duty, try to repay the confidence you have shown me? Do 
 you grudge me even gratitude. Miss Crawley ? It is too much 
 ■ — my heart is too full; " and she sank down in a chair so patheti- 
 cally, that most of the audience present, were perfectly melted 
 with her sadness. 
 
 '' Whether you marry me or not, you're a good little girl, 
 Becky, and I'm your vriend, m^nd," said Sir Pitt, and putting 
 on his crape-bound hat, he walked away — greatly to Rebecca's 
 relief; for it was evident that her secret was imrevealed to Miss 
 Crawley, and she had the advantage of a brief reprieve. 
 
 Putting her handkerchief to her eyes, and nodding away 
 honest Briggs, who would have followed her upstairs, she went 
 up to her apartment; while Briggs and Miss Crawley, in a high 
 
In Which Rebecca's Husband Appears 143 
 
 state of excitement, remained to discuss the strange event, and 
 Firkin, not less moved, dived down into the kitchen regions, and 
 talked of it with all the male and female company there. And 
 so impressed was Mrs. Firkin with the news, that she thought 
 proper to write off by that very night's post, " with her humble 
 duty to Mrs. Bute Crawley and the family at the Rectory, and 
 Sir Pitt has been and proposed for to marry Miss Sharp, wherein 
 she has refused him, to the wonder of all." 
 
 The two ladies in the dining-room (where worthy Miss Briggs 
 was delighted to be admitted once more to a confidential con- 
 versation with her patroness) wondered to their hearts' content 
 at Sir Pitt's offer, and Rebecca's refusal; Briggs very acutely 
 suggesting that there must have been some obstacle in the shape 
 of a previous attachment, otherwise no young woman in her 
 senses would ever have refused so advantageous a proposal. 
 
 " You would have accepted it yourself, wouldn't you, Briggs ? " 
 Miss Crawley said kindly. 
 
 " Would it not be a privilege to be Miss Crawley's sister? " 
 Briggs replied, with meek evasion. 
 
 " Well, Becky would have made a good Lady Crawley, after 
 all," Miss Crawley remarked (who was mollified by the girl's 
 refusal, and very liberal and generous now there was no call for 
 her sacrifices). " She has brains in plenty (much more wit in 
 her little finger than you have, my poor dear Briggs, in all your 
 head). Her manners are excellent, now I have formed her. 
 She is a Montmorency, Briggs, and blood is something, though 
 I despise it for my part; and she would have held her own 
 amongst those pompous stupid Hampshire people much better 
 than that unfortunate ironmonger's daughter." 
 
 Briggs coincided as usual, and the " previous attachment " 
 was then discussed in conjectures. " You poor friendless 
 creatures are always having some fooHsh tendrej' Miss Crawley 
 said. " You yourself, you know, were in love with a writing- 
 master (don't cry, Briggs — ^you're always crying, and it won't 
 bring him to life again), and I suppose this unfortunate Becky 
 has been silly and sentimental too — some apothecary, or house- 
 steward, or painter, or young curate, or something of that sort." 
 
 " Poor thing, poor thing! " says Briggs (who was thinking 
 of twenty-four years back, and that hectic young writing-master 
 whose lock of yellow hair, and whose letters, beautiful in their 
 illegibihty, she cherished in her old desk upstairs). " Poor 
 thing, poor thing! " says Briggs. Once more she was a fresh- 
 cheeked lass of eighteen; she was at evening church, and the 
 
144 Vanity Fair 
 
 hectic writing-master and she were quavering out of the same 
 psalm-book. 
 
 "After such conduct on Rebecca's part/' Miss Crawley said 
 enthusiastically, "our family should do something. Find out 
 who is the objetj Briggs. I'll set him up in a shop; or order my 
 portrait of him, you know; or speak to my cousin, the Bishop 
 -^and I'll doter Becky, and we'll have a wedding, Briggs, and 
 you shall make the breakfast, and be a bridesmaid." 
 
 Briggs declared that it would be delightful, and vowed that 
 her dear Miss Crawley was always kind and generous, and went 
 up to Rebecca's bedroom to console her and prattle about the 
 offer, and the refusal, and the cause thereof; and to hint at the 
 generous intentions of Miss Crawley, and to find out who was the 
 gentleman that had the mastery of Miss Sharp's heart. 
 
 Rebecca was very kind, very affectionate and affected — 
 responded to Briggs's offer of tenderness with grateful fervour — 
 owned there was a secret attachment— a delicious mystery — 
 what a pity Miss Briggs had not remained half a minute longer 
 at the keyhole! Rebecca might, perhaps, have told more: but 
 five minutes after Miss Briggs's arrival in Rebecca's apartment. 
 Miss Crawley actually made her appearance there — an unheard- 
 of- honour; her impatience had overcome her; she could not 
 wait for the tardy operations of her ambassadress ; so she came 
 in person, and ordered Briggs out of the room. And expressing 
 her approval of Rebecca's conduct, she asked particulars of the 
 interview, and the previous transactions which had brought 
 about the astonishing offer of Sir Pitt. 
 
 Rebecca said she had long had some notion of the partiality 
 with which Sir Pitt honoured her (for he was in the habit of 
 making his feelings known in a very frank and unreserved man- 
 ner), but, not to mention private reasons with which she would 
 not for the present trouble Miss Crawley, Sir Pitt's age, station, 
 and habits were such as to render a marriage quite impossible; 
 and could a woman with any feeHngs of self-respect and any 
 decency listen to proposals at such a moment, when the funeral 
 of the lover's deceased wife had not actually taken place? 
 
 " Nonsense, my dear, you would never have refused him had 
 there not been some one else in the case," Miss Crawley said, 
 coming to her point at once. " Tell me the private reasons; 
 what are the private reasons .f* There is some one; who is it 
 that has touched your heart ? " 
 
 Rebecca cast down her eyes, and owned there was. " You 
 have guessed right, dear lady," she said, with a sweet simple 
 
In Which Rebecca's Husband Appears i4r 
 
 faltering voice. " You wonder at one so poor and friendless 
 having an attachment, don't you? I have never heard that 
 poverty was any safeguard against it. I wish it were." 
 
 " My poor dear child>" cried Miss Crawley, who was always 
 quite ready to be sentimental, " is our passion unrequited then? 
 Are we pining in secret? Tell me all, and let me console you." 
 
 " I wish you" could, dear Madam," Rebecca said in the same 
 tearful tone. " Indeed, indeed, I need it." And she laid her 
 head upon Miss Crawley's shoulder and wept there so naturally 
 that the old lady, surprised into sym.pathy, embraced her with 
 an almost maternal kindness, uttered many soothing protests 
 of regard and affection for her, vowed that she loved her as a 
 daughter, and would do everything in her power to serve her. 
 " And now who is it, my dear? Is it that pretty Miss Sedley's. 
 brother? You said something about an affair with him. I'll 
 ask him here, my dear. And you shall have him: indeed vot^ 
 shall." 
 
 " Don't ask me now," Rebecca said. " You shall know all 
 soon. Indeed you shall. Dear kind Miss Crawley — Dear friend^ 
 may I say so ? " 
 
 " That you may, my child," the old lady repHed, kissing her. 
 
 " I can't tell you now," sobbed out Rebecca, " I am very 
 miserable. But oh! love me always— promise you will love me 
 alv/ays." And in the midst of mutual tears — for the emotions 
 of the younger woman had awakened the sympathies of the elder 
 — this promise was solemnly given by Miss Crawley, who left 
 her little protegee, blessing and admiring her as a dear, artless, 
 tender-hearted, affectionate, incomprehensible creature. 
 
 And now she was left alone to think over the sudden and 
 wonderful events of the day, and of what had been and what 
 might have been. What think you were the private feehngs of 
 Miss, no (begging her pardon) of Mrs. Rebecca ? If, a few pages 
 back, the present writer claimed the privilege of peeping into 
 Miss Ameha Sedley's bedroom, and understanding with the 
 omniscience of the novelist all the gentle pains and passions 
 which were tossing upon that innocent pillow, why should he not 
 declare liimself to be Rebecca's confidante too, master of her 
 secrets, and seal-keeper of that young woman's conscience? 
 
 Well, then, in the first place, Rebecca gave way to some very 
 sincere and touching regrets that a piece of marvellous good 
 fortune should have been so near her, and she actually obliged 
 to dechne it. In this natural emotion every properly regulated 
 mind will certainly share. What good mother is there that 
 
146 Vanity Fair 
 
 would not commiserate a penniless spinster, who might have 
 been my lady, and have shared four thousand a year? \Vhat 
 well-bred young person is there in all Vanity Fair, who will not 
 feel for a hardworking, ingenious, meritorious girl, who gets such 
 an honourable, advantageous, provoking offer, just at the very 
 moment when it is out of her power to accept it? I am sure our 
 friend Becky's disappointment deserves and will command every 
 sympathy. 
 
 I remember one night being in the Fair myself, at an evening 
 party. I observed Old Miss Toady, there also present, single 
 •out for her special attentions and flattery little Mrs. Briefless, the 
 barrister's wife, who is of a good family certainly, but, as we all 
 know, is as poor as poor can be. 
 
 Wliat, I asked in my own mind, can cause this obsequious- 
 ness on the part of Miss Toady; has Briefless got a county 
 court, or has his wife had a fortune left her? Miss Toady ex- 
 plained presently, with that simplicity which distinguishes all 
 her conduct. " You know," she said, " Mrs. Briefless is grand- 
 daughter of Sir John Redhand, who is so ill at Cheltenham that 
 he can't last six months. Mrs. Briefless's papa succeeds; so 
 you see she will be a baronet's daughter." And Toady asked 
 Briefless and his \vife to dinner the very next week. 
 
 If the mere chance of becoming a baronet's daughter can pro- 
 cure a lady such homage in the world, surely, surely we may 
 respect the agonies of a young woman who has lost the oppor- 
 tunity of becoming a baronet's wife. Who would have dreamed 
 of' Lady Crawley dying so soon? She was one of those sickly 
 -women that might have lasted these ten years — Rebecca thought 
 to herself, in all the woes of repentance — ^and I might have been 
 my lady ! I might have led that old man whither I would. I 
 might have thanked Mrs. Bute for her patronage, and Mr. Pitt 
 lor his insufferable condescension. I would have had the town 
 tiouse newly furnished and decorated. I would have had the 
 handsomest carriage in London, and a box at the opera; and 
 I would have been presented next season. All this might have 
 been ; and now — now all was doubt and mystery. 
 
 But Rebecca was a yoimg lady of too much resolution and 
 energy of character to permit herself much useless and 
 unseemly sorrow for the irrevocable past; so, having devoted only 
 the proper portion of regret to it, she wisely turned her whole 
 -attention towards the future, which was now vastly more 
 important to her. And she surveyed her position, and its hopes, 
 'doubts, and chances. 
 
In Which Rebecca's Husband Appears 147 
 
 In the first place, she was married; — that was a great fact. 
 Sir Pitt knew it. She was not so much surprised into the 
 avowal, as induced to make it by a sudden calculation. It 
 must have come some day: and why not now as at a later 
 period? He who would have married her himself must at 
 least be silent with regard to her marriage. — How Miss Crawley 
 would bear the news — was the great question. Misgivings 
 Rebecca had; but she remembered all Miss Crawley had said; 
 the old lady's avowed contempt for birth; her daring liberal 
 opinions ; her general romantic propensities ; her almost doting 
 attachment to her nephew, and her repeatedly expressed fond- 
 ness for Rebecca herself. She is so fond of him, Rebecca 
 thought, that she will forgive him anything: she is so used to 
 me that I don't think she could be comfortable without me: 
 when the eclaircissement comes there will be a scene, and 
 hysterics, and a great quarrel, and then a great reconciliation. 
 Vt all events, what use was there in delaying? the die was 
 thrown, and now or to-morrow the issue must be the same. 
 And so, resolved that Miss Crawley should have the news, the 
 young person debated in her mind as to the best means of con- 
 veying it to her; and whether she should face the storm that 
 niust come, or fly and avoid it until its first fury was blown 
 over. In this state of meditation she wrote the following 
 letter : — 
 
 " Dearest Friend, — The great crisis which we have debated 
 about so often is come. Half of my secret is known, and I have 
 thought and thought, until I am quite sure that now is the time to 
 reveal the whole of the mystery. Sir Pitt came to me this morning, 
 and made — ^what do you think ? — a declaration in form.. Think of 
 that! Poor little me. I might have been Lady Crawley. How 
 pleased Mrs. .Bute would have been; and ma tante if I had taken 
 precedence of her! I might have been somebody's mamma, instead 
 of — Oh, I tremble, I tremble, when I think how soon we must tell 
 all!— 
 
 " Sir Pitt knows I am married, and not knowing to whom, is not 
 very much displeased as ^'■et. Ma tante is actually angry that I 
 should have refused him. But she is all kindness and graciousness. 
 She condescends to say I would have made him a good wife; and 
 vows that she will be a mother to your little Rebecca. She will be 
 shaken when she first hears the news. But need we fear anything 
 beyond a momentary anger? I think not: I am sure not. She 
 dotes upon you so (you naughty, good-for-nothing man), that she 
 would pardon you anything : and, indeed, I believe, the next place 
 in her heart is mine: and that she would be miserable without me. 
 Dearest! something tells me we shall conquer. You shall leave 
 that odious regiment : quit gaming, racing, and be a good hoy ; 
 
1 4^ Vanity Fair 
 
 and w6 Shall d,ll llvb in Park Lane, and ma tante shall leave us all 
 her money. 
 
 " I shall try and walk to-morrow at 3 in the usual place. If Miss 
 B. accompanies me, you must come to dinner, and bring an answer, 
 and put it in the third volume of Porteus's sermons. But, at all 
 events, come to your own R. 
 
 " To Miss Eliza Styles. 
 
 " At Mr. Barnet's, Saddler, Knightsbridge." 
 
 An4 I trust there is no reader of this little story who has not 
 discernment enough to perceive that the Miss Eliza Styles (an 
 old schoolfellow, Rebecca said, with whom she had resumed an 
 active correspondence of late, and who used to fetch these 
 letters from the saddler's), wore brass spurs, and large curling 
 mustachios, and was indeed no other than Captain Rawdon 
 Crawley. 
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 
 THE LETTER ON THE PINCtJSHION 
 
 How they were married is not of the slightest coilsequence to 
 anybody. What is to hinder a Captain who is a major, and a 
 young lady who is of age, from purchasing a licence, and uniting 
 themselves at any church in this town? Who needs to be told, 
 that if a woman has a will, she will assuredly find a way ? — My 
 belief is, that one day, when Miss Sharp had gone to pass the 
 forenoon with her dear friend Miss Ameha Sedley in Russell 
 Square, a lady very like her might have been seen entering a 
 church in the City, in company with a gentleman with dyed 
 mustachios, who, after a quarter of an hour's interval, escorted 
 her back to the hackney-coach in waiting, and that this was a 
 quiet bridal party. 
 
 I And who on earth, after the daily experience we have, can 
 t question the probability of a gentleman marrying anybody? 
 How many of the wise and learned have married their cooks ? 
 Did not Lord Eldon himself, the most prudent of men, make 
 a runaway match? Were not Achilles and Ajax both in love 
 with their servant-maids? And are we to expect a heavy 
 dragoon, with strong desires and small brains, who had never 
 controlled a passion in his life, to become prudent all of a sudden, 
 ^and to refuse to pay ^y price for an indulgence to which he 
 
The Letter on the Pincushion 149 
 
 had a mind ? If people only made prudent marriages, what a I 
 stop to population there would be ! I 
 
 It seems to me, for my part, that Mr. Rawdon's marriage was 
 one of the honestest actions which we shall have to record in 
 any portion of that gentleman's biography, which has to do 
 with the present history. No one will say it is unmanly to be 
 captivated by a woman, or, being captivated, to marry her; 
 and the admiration, the delight, the passion, the wonder, the 
 unbounded confidence, the frantic adoration, with which, by 
 degrees, this big warrior got to regard the little Rebecca, were 
 feehngs which the ladies at least will pronounce were not alto- 
 gether discreditable to him. When she sang, every note thrilled 
 in his dull soul, and tingled through his huge frame. When 
 she spoke, he brought all the force of his brains to listen and 
 wonder. If she was jocular, he used to revolve her jokes in his 
 mind, and explode over them half-an-hour afterwards in the 
 street, to the surprise of the groom in the tilbury by his side, or 
 the comrade riding with him in Rotten Row. Her words v/ere | 
 oracles to him, her smallest actions marked by an infallible |\ 
 grace and wisdom. " How she sings,— how she paints," thought u 
 he. " How she rode that kicking mare at Queen's Crawley! '*| 
 And he would say to her in confidential moments, " By Jove/- 
 Beck, you're fit to be Commander-in-Chief, or Archbishop of 
 Canterbury, by Jove." Is his case a rare one? and don't we 
 see every day in the world many an honest Hercules at the apron- 
 strings of Omphale, and great whiskered Samsons prostrate in 
 Delilah's lap? 
 
 When, then, Becky told him that the great crisis was near, 
 and the time for action had arrived, Rawdon expressed himself 
 as ready to act under her orders, as he would be to charge with 
 his troop at the command of his colonel. There was no need 
 for him to put his letter into the third volume of Porteus. 
 Rebecca easily found a means to get rid of Briggs, her com- 
 panion, and m.et her faithful friend in " the usual place " on 
 the next day. She had thought over matters at night, and 
 communicated to Rawdon the result of her determinations. 
 He agreed, of course, to everything; was quite sure that it was] 
 all right: that what she proposed was best; that Miss Crawley 
 would infalUbly relent, or " come round," as he said, after a 
 time. Had Rebecca's resolutions been entirely different, he 
 would have followed them as implicitly. "You have head 
 enough for both of us, Beck," said he. " You're sure to get us 
 out of the scrape. I never saw your equal, anci I've met with 
 
150 Vanity Fair 
 
 some clippers in my time too." And with this simple confession 
 of faith, the love-stricken dragoon left her to execute his part 
 of the project which she had formed for the pair. 
 
 It consisted simply in the hiring of quiet lodgings at Bromp- 
 ton, or in the neighbourhood of the barracks, for Captain 
 and Mrs. Crawley. For Rebecca had determined, and very 
 prudently, we think, to fly. Rawdon was only too happy at 
 her resolve; he had been entreating her to take this measure 
 any time for weeks past. He pranced off to engage the lodg- 
 ings with all the impetuosity of love. He agreed to pay two 
 guineas a week so readily, that the landlady regretted she had 
 asked him so little. He ordered in a piano, and half a nursery- 
 house full of flowers : and a heap of good things. As for shawls, 
 kid gloves, silk stockings, gold French watches, bracelets and 
 perfumery, he sent them in with the profusion of blind love 
 and unbounded credit. And having relieved his mind by 
 this outpouring of generosity, he went and dined nervously 
 at the club, waiting until the great moment of his life should 
 come. 
 
 The occurrences of the previous day; the admirable conduct 
 of Rebecca in refusing an offer so advantageous to her, the 
 secret unhappiness preying upon her, the sweetness and silence 
 with which she bore her affliction, made Miss Crawley much 
 more tender than usual. An event of this nature, a marriage, 
 or a refusal, or a proposal, thrills through a v/hole household of 
 women, and sets all their hysterical S5mipathies at work. As 
 an observer of human nature, I regularly frequent St. George's, 
 Hanover Square, during the genteel marriage season ; and though 
 I have never seen the bridegroom's male friends give way to 
 tears, or the beadles and officiating clergy any way affected, yet 
 it is not at all uncommon to see women who are not in the least 
 concerned in the operations going on— old ladies who are long 
 past marrying, stout middle-aged females v/ith plenty of sons 
 and daughters, let alone pretty young creatures in pink bonnets, 
 who are on their promotion, and may naturally take an interest 
 in the ceremony, — I say it is quite common to see the women 
 present piping, sobbing, sniffling; hiding their little faces in 
 their little useless pocket-handkerchiefs ; and heaving, old and 
 young, with emotion. When my friend, the fashionable John 
 Pimlico, married the lovely Lady Belgravia Green Parker, the 
 excitement was so general, that even the little snuffy old pew- 
 opener who let me into the seat was in tears. And wherefore? 
 I inquired of my own soul: she was not going to be married. 
 
The Letter on the Pincushion 151 
 
 Miss Crawley and Briggs, in a word, after the affair of Sir Pitt, 
 indulged in the utmost luxury of sentiment, and Rebecca became 
 an object of the most tender interest to them. In her absence 
 Miss Crawley solaced herself with the most sentimental of the 
 novels in her library. Little Sharp with her secret griefs was the 
 heroine of the day. 
 
 That night Rebecca sang more sweetly and talked more 
 pleasantly than she had ever been heard to do in Park Lane. 
 She twined herself round the heart of Miss Crawley. She spoke 
 lightly and laughingly of Sir Pitt's proposal, ridiculed it as the 
 foolish fancy of an old man ; and her eyes filled with tears, and 
 Briggs's heart with unutterable pangs of defeat, as she said she 
 desired no other lot than to remain for ever with her dear bene- 
 factress. " My dear little creature," the old lady said, " I don't 
 intend to let you stir for years, that you may depend upon it. 
 As for going back to that odious brother of mine after what has 
 passed, it is out of the question. Here you stay with me and 
 Briggs. Briggs wants to go to see her relations very often. 
 Briggs, you may go when you like. But as for you, my dear, 
 you must stay and take care of the old woman." 
 
 If Rawdon Crawley had been then and there present, instead 
 of being at the club nervously drinking claret, the pair might 
 have gone down on their knees before the old spinster, avowed 
 all, and been forgiven in a twinkling. But that good chance 
 was denied to the young couple, doubtless in order that this 
 story might be written, in which numbers of their wonderful 
 adventures are narrated — adventures which could never have 
 occurred to them if they had been housed and sheltered under 
 the comfortable uninteresting forgiveness of Miss Crawley. 
 
 Under Mrs. Firkin's orders, in the Park Lane establishment, 
 was a young woman from Hampshire, whose business it was, 
 among other duties, to knock at Miss Sharp's door with that jug 
 of hot water, which Firkin would rather have perished than have 
 presented to the intruder. This girl, bred on the family estate, 
 had a brother in Captain Crawley's troop, and if the truth were 
 known, I daresay it would come out that she was aware of 
 certain arrangements, which have a great deal to do with this 
 history. At any rate she purchased a yellow shawl, a pair of 
 green boots, and a light blue hat with a red feather with three 
 guineas which Rebecca gave her, and as little Sharp was by no 
 means too liberal with her money, no doubt it was for services 
 rendered that Betty Martin was so bribed. 
 
152 Vanity Fair 
 
 On the second day after Sir Pitt Crawley's offer to Miss Sharp, 
 the sun rose as usual, and at the usual hour Betty Martin, the 
 upstairs maid, knocked at the door of the governess's bed- 
 chamber. 
 
 No answer was returned, and she knocked again. Silence was 
 still uninterrupted; and Betty, with the hot water, opened the 
 door and entered the chamber. 
 
 The little white dimity bed was as smooth and trim as on the 
 day previous, when Betty's own hands had helped to make it. 
 Two little trunks v/ere corded in one end of the room; and on 
 the table before the window — on the pincushion — the great fat 
 pincushion lined with pink inside, and twilled like a lady's night- 
 cap — lay a letter. It had been reposing there probably all night. 
 
 Betty advanced towards it on tiptoe, as if she were afraid 
 to awake it—looked at it, and round the room, with an air of 
 great wonder and satisfaction; took up the letter, and grinned 
 intensely, as she turned it round and over, and finally carried 
 it into Miss Briggs's room below. 
 
 How could Betty tell that the letter was for Miss Briggs, I 
 should Hke to know.? All the schooling Betty had was at Mrs. 
 Bute Crawley's Sunday School, and she could no more read 
 writing than Hebrew. 
 
 " La, Miss Briggs," the girl exclaimed, " O Miss, something 
 must have happened — there's nobody in Miss Sharp's room ; 
 the bed ain't been siep in, and she've run away, and left this 
 letter for you, Miss." 
 
 *' What I " cries Briggs, dropping her comb, the thin wisp of 
 faded hair falling over her shoulders; "an elopement! Miss 
 Sharp a fugitive! What, what is this? " and she eagerly broke 
 the neat seal, and, as they say, " devoured the contents " of the 
 letter addressed to her. 
 
 " Dear Miss Briggs," the refugee wrote, " the kindest heart in 
 the world, as yours is, will pity and sympathise v/ith me and excuse 
 m.e. With tears, and prayers, and blessings, I leave the home where 
 the poor orphan has ever met with kindness and affection. Claims 
 even superior to those of my benefactress call me hence. I go to 
 my duty — to my husband. Yes, I am married. My husband com- 
 mands me to seek the humble home which we call ours. Dearest 
 Miss Briggs, break the news as your delicate sympathy will know 
 how to do it — to my dear, my beloved friend and benefactress. 
 Tell her, ere I went, I shed tears on her dear pillow — that pillow 
 that I have so o;ften soothed in sickness — that I long again to watch 
 — Oh, with what joy shall I return to dear Park Lane! How I 
 tremble for the answer which is to seal my fate ! When Sir Pitt 
 deigned to offer me his hand, an honour of which my beloved Miss 
 
The Letter on the Pincushion 153 
 
 Crawley said I was deserving (my blessings go with her for judging 
 the poor orphan worthy to be her sister I) I told Sir Pitt that I was 
 already a wife. Even he forgave me. But my courage failed me, 
 when I should have told him all — that I could not be his wife, for 
 I was his daughter ! I am wedded to the best and most generous 
 of men — Miss Crawley's Rawdon is my Rawdon. At his command 
 I open my lips, and follow him to our humbJe home, as I would 
 through the world. O my excellent and kind friend, intercede with 
 my Rawdon' s beloved aunt for him and the poor girl to .whom all 
 his noble race have shown such unparalleled affection. Ask Miss 
 Crawley to receive her children. I can say no more, but blessings, 
 blessings on all in the dear house I leave, prays 
 
 " Your affectionate and grateful 
 
 " Rebecca Crawley. 
 " Midnight." 
 
 Just as Briggs had finished reading this affecting and in- 
 teresting document, which reinstated her in her position as first 
 confidante of Miss Crawley, M's. Firkin entered the room. 
 " Here's Mrs. Bute Crawley just arrived by the mail from Hamp- 
 shire, and wants some tea; will you come down and make break- 
 fast, Miss.? " 
 
 And to the surprise of Firkin, clasping her dressing-gown 
 around her, the wisp of hair floating dishevelled behind her, the 
 little curl-papers still sticking in bunches round her forehead, 
 Briggs sailed down to Mrs. Bute with the letter in her hand con- 
 taining the wonderful news. 
 
 " O Mrs. Firkin," gasped Betty, " seen a business. Miss 
 Sharp have a gone and run away with the Cap ting, and they're 
 off to Gretney Green! " We would devote a chapter to describe 
 the emotions of Mrs. Firkin, did not the passions of her mis- 
 tresses occupy our genteeler muse. 
 
 When Mrs. Bute Crawley, numbed with midnight travelling, 
 and warming herself at the newly crackling parlour fire, heard 
 from Miss Briggs the intelligence of the clandestine mamage, 
 she declared it was quite providential that she should have 
 airived at such a time to assist poor dear Miss Crawley in sup- 
 porting the shock — that Rebecca was an artful little hussey of 
 whom she had always had her suspicions ; and that as for 
 Rawdon Crawley, she never could account for his aunt's infatua- 
 tion regarding him, and had long considered him a profligate, lost, 
 and abandoned being. And this awful conduct, Mrs. Bute said, 
 will have at least this good effect, it will open poor dear Miss 
 Crawley's eyes to the real character of this wicked man. Then 
 Mrs. Bute had a comfortable hot toast and tea; and as there 
 
154 Vanity Fair 
 
 was a vacant room in the house now, there was no need for her 
 to remain at the Gloster Coffee-House where the Portsmouth 
 mail had set her down, and whence she ordered Mr. Bowls's aide- 
 de-camp the footman to bring away her trunks. 
 
 Miss Crawley, be it known, did not leave her room until near 
 noon — taking chocolate in bed in the morning, while Becky 
 Sharp read the Morning Post to her, or otherwise amusing 
 herself or dawdling. The conspirators below agreed that they 
 would spare the dear lady's feelings until she appeared in her 
 drawing-room: meanwhile it was announced to her, that Mrs. 
 Bute Crawley had come up from Hampshire by the mail, was 
 staying at the Gloster, sent her love to Miss Crawley, and asked 
 for breakfast with Miss Briggs. The arrival of Mrs. Bute, which 
 would not have caused any extreme delight at another period, 
 was hailed with pleasure now; Miss Crawley being pleased at 
 the notion of a gossip with her sister-in-law regarding the late 
 Lady Crawley, the funeral arrangements pending, and Sir Pitt's 
 abrupt proposals to Rebecca. 
 
 It was not until the old lady was fairly ensconced in her usual 
 arm-chair in the drawing-room, and the preliminary embraces 
 and inquiries had taken place between the ladies, that the con- 
 spirators thought it advisable to submit her to the operation. 
 Who has not admired the artifices and delicate approaches with 
 which women " prepare " their friends for bad news ? Miss 
 Crawley's two friends made such an apparatus of mystery before 
 they broke the intelligence to her, that they worked her up to 
 the necessary degree of doubt and alarm. 
 
 " And she refused Sir Pitt, my dear, dear Miss Crawley, pre- 
 pare yourself for it," Mrs. Bute said, " because — because she 
 couldn't help herself." 
 
 " Of course there was a reason," Miss Crawley answered. 
 " She liked somebody else. I told Briggs so yesterday." 
 
 " Lihes somebody else ! " Briggs gasped. " my dear friend, 
 she is married already." 
 
 " Married already," Mrs. Bute chimed in; and both sate with 
 hands clasped looking from each other at their victim. 
 
 " Send her to me, the instant she comes in. The little sly 
 wretch: how dare she not tell me? " cried out Miss Crawley. 
 
 " She won't come in soon. Prepare yourself, dear friend — 
 she's gone out for a long time — she's — she's gone altogether." 
 
 " Gracious goodness, and who's to make my chocolate? 
 Send for her and have her back: I desire that she come back," 
 the old lady said. 
 
The Letter on the Pincushion 155 
 
 " She decamped last night, Ma'am/' cried Mrs. Bute. 
 
 " She left a letter for me/' Briggs exclaimed. " She's married 
 to" 
 
 " Prepare her, for heaven's sake. Don't torture her, my dear 
 Miss Briggs." 
 
 " She's married to whom? " cries the spinster in a nervous fury. 
 
 " To— to a relation of " 
 
 " She refused Sir Pitt/' cried the victim. " Speak at once. 
 Don't drive me mad." 
 
 " O Ma'am — prepare her, Miss Briggs — she's married to 
 Rawdon Crawley." 
 
 " Rawdon married — ^Rebecca — governess — nobod — Get out 
 of my house, you fool, you idiot — you stupid old Briggs — how 
 dare 3^ou ? You're in the plot — you made him marry, thinking 
 that I'd leave my money from him — you did, Martha," the poor 
 old lady screamed in hysteric sentences. 
 
 " I, Ma'am, ask a member of this family to marry a drawing- 
 master's daughter ? " 
 
 " Her mother was a Montmorency," cried out the old lady, 
 pulling at the bell with all her might. 
 
 " Her mother was an opera-girl, and she has been on the stage 
 or worse herself," said Mrs. Bute. r-% 
 
 Miss Crawley gave a final scream, and fell back m a famt.| :~:. 
 They were forced to take her back to the room which she hadi . T 
 just quitted. One fit of hysterics succeeded another. The 
 doctor was sent for — the apothecary arrived. Mrs. Bute took 
 up the post of nurse by her bedside. " Her relations ought to 
 be round about her," that amiable woman said. 
 
 She had scarcely been carried up to her room, when a new 
 person arrived to whom it was also necessary to break the 
 news. This was Sir Pitt. " Where's Becky? " he said, coming 
 in. " Where's her traps? She's coming with me to Queen's 
 Crawley." 
 
 " Have you not heard the astonishing intelligence regarding 
 her surreptitious union? " Briggs asked. 
 
 "What's that to me?" Sir Pitt asked. "I know she's 
 married. That makes no odds. Tell her to come down at once, 
 and not keep me." 
 
 " Are 3^ou not aware, sir," Miss Briggs asked, " that she has 
 left our roof, to the dismay of Miss Crawley, who is nearly killed 
 by the intelligence of Captain Rawdon' s union with her ? " 
 
 When Sir Pitt Crawley heard that Rebecca was married to 
 his son, he broke out into a fury of language, which it would do 
 
156 Vanity Fair 
 
 no good to repeat in this place, as indeed it sent poor Briggs 
 shuddering out of the room; and with her we will shut the door 
 upon the figure of the frenzied old man, wild with hatred and 
 insane with bafHed desire. 
 
 One day after he went to Queen's Crawley, he burst like a 
 madman into the room she had used when there — dashed open 
 her boxes with his foot, and flung about her papers, clothes, and 
 other relics. Miss Horrocks, the butler's daughter, took some 
 of them. The children dressed themselves and acted plsLjs in 
 the others. It was but a few days after the poor mother had 
 gone to her lonely burying-place; and was laid, unwept and 
 disregarded, in a vault full of strangers. 
 
 " Suppose the old lady doesn't come to," Rawdon said to his 
 little wife, as they sate together in the snug fittle Brompton 
 lodgings. She had been trying the new piano all the morning. 
 The new gloves fitted her to a nicety; the new shawls becam^e 
 her wonderfully; the new rings glittered on her little hands, and 
 the new watch ticked at her waist; " suppose she don't come 
 round, eh, Becky? " 
 
 " III make your fortune," she said; and Delilah patted Sam- 
 son's cheek. 
 
 *' You can do anything," he said, kissing her Httle hand. 
 " By Jove you can; and v*re'li drive down to the Star and Garter, 
 and dine, by Jove." 
 
 CHAPTER XVII 
 
 HOW CAPTAIN DOBBIN BOUGHT A PIANO 
 
 If there is any exhibition in all Vanity Fair which Satire and 
 Sentiment can visit arm in arm together; where you light on 
 the strangest contrasts, laughable and tearful: where you may 
 be gentle and pathetic, or savage and cynical with perfect pro- 
 priety : it is at one of those pubHc assemblies, a crowd of which 
 are advertised every day in the last page of the Times news- 
 paper, and over which the late Mr. George Robins used to preside 
 with so much dignity. There are veiy few London people, as 
 I fancy, who have not attended at these meetings, and all with 
 a taste for moralising must have thought^ with a sensation and 
 
How Captain Dobbin Bought a Piano 157 
 
 interest not a little startling and queer, of the day when their 
 turn shall come too, and Mr. Hammerdown will sell by the orders 
 of Diogenes's assignees, or will be instructed by the executors to 
 offer to pubhc competition, the library, furniture, plate, ward- 
 robe, and choice cellar of wines of Epicurus deceased. 
 
 Even with the most selfish disposition, the Vanity-fairian, as 
 he witnesses this sordid part of the obsequies of a departed 
 friend, can't but feel some sympathies and regret. My Lord 
 Dives's remains are in the family vault: the statuaries are 
 cutting an inscription veraciously commemorating his virtues, 
 and the sorrows of his heir, who is disposing of his goods. What 
 guests at Dives's table can pass the familiar house without a 
 sigh.? — the familiar house of which the lights used to shine so 
 cheerfully at seven o'clock, of which the hall-doors opened so 
 readily, of which the obsequious servants^ as you passed up the 
 comifortable stair, sounded your name from landing to landing, 
 until it reached the apartment where jolly old Dives welcomed 
 his friends ! What a number of them he had ; and what a noble 
 way of entertaining them. How witty people used to be here 
 who were morose when they got out of the door; and how 
 courteous and friendly men who slandered and hated each other 
 ever}'where else ! He was pompous, but with such a cook what 
 would not one swallow ? he was rather dull, perhaps, but would 
 not such wine make any conversation pleasant ? We must get 
 some of his Burgundy at any price, the mourners cry at his club. 
 " I got this box at old Dives's sale," Pincher says, handing it 
 round, " one of Louis XV.'s mistresses— pretty thing, is it not? 
 — sweet miniature," and they talk of the way in which young 
 Dives is dissipating his fortune. 
 
 How changed the house is, though! The front is patched 
 
 over with bills, setting forth the particulars of the furniture in 
 
 staring capitals. They have hung a shred of carpet out of an 
 
 /upstairs window — a half dozen of porters are lounging on the 
 
 /dirty steps- — the hall swarms with dingy guests of Oriental 
 
 ( countenance, who thrust printed cards into your hand, and offer 
 
 I to bid. Old women and amateurs have invaded the upper 
 
 apartments, pinching the bed-curtains, poking into the feathers, 
 
 shampooing the mattresses, and clapping the wardrobe drawers 
 
 fo and fro. Enterprising young housekeepers are measuring 
 
 he looking-glasses and hangings to see if they will suit the new 
 
 menage — (Snob will brag for years that he has purchased this or 
 
 that at Dives's sale), and Mr. Hammerdown is sitting on the 
 
 great mahogany dining- tables, in the dining-room below, waving 
 
158 Vanity Fair 
 
 the ivory hammer, and employing all the artifices of eloquence, 
 enthusiasm, entreaty, reason, despair; shouting to his people; 
 satirising Mr. Davids for his sluggishness ; inspiriting Mr. Moss 
 into action; imploring, commanding, bellowing, until down 
 comes the hammer like fate, and we pass to the next lot. 
 Dives,, who would ever have thought, as we sat round the broad 
 table sparkling with plate and spotless linen, to have seen such 
 a dish at the head of it as that roaring auctioneer ? 
 
 It was rather late in the sale. The excellent drawing-rocm 
 furniture by the best makers; the rare and famous wines 
 selected, regardless of cost, and with the well-known taste of 
 the purchaser; the rich and complete set of family plate, had 
 been sold on the previous days. Certain of the best wines 
 (which all had a great character among amateurs in the neigh- 
 bourhood) had been purchased for his master, who knew them 
 very well, by the butler of our friend John Osborne, Esquire, 
 of Russell Square. A small portion of the most useful articles 
 of the plate had been bought by some young stockbrokers from 
 the City. And now the public being invited to the purchase 
 of minor objects, it happened that the orator on the table was 
 expatiating on the merits of a picture, which he sought to 
 recommend to his audience: it was by no means so select or 
 numerous a company as had attended the previous days of the 
 auction. 
 
 " No. 369," roared Mr. Hammerdown. " Portrait of a gentle- 
 man on an elephant. Who'll bid for the gentleman on the 
 elephant? Lift up the picture, Blowman, and let the company 
 examine this lot." A long, pale, military-looking gentleman, 
 seated demurely at the mahogany table, could not help grinning 
 as this valuable lot was shown by Mr. Blowman. " Turn the 
 elephant to the Captain, Blowman. What shall we say, sir, for 
 the elephant? " but the Captain, blushing in a very hurried and 
 discomfited manner, turned away his head. 
 
 " Shall we say twenty guineas for this work of art? — fifteen, 
 five, name your own price. The gentleman without the elephant 
 is worth five pound." 
 
 ''^ I wonder it ain't come down with him," said a professional 
 wag, ** he's anyhow a precious big one; " at which (for the 
 elephant-rider was represented as of a very stout figure) there 
 was a general giggle in the room. 
 
 " Don't be trying to deprecate the value of the lot, Mr. Moss," 
 Mr. Hammerdown said; " let the company examine it as a work 
 of art — the attitude of the gallant animal quite according to 
 
How Captain Dobbin Bought a Piano 159 
 
 natur' ; the gentleman in an nankeen-jacket, his gun in his hand, 
 is going to the chase; in the distance a banyhann-tree and a 
 pagody, most likely resemblances of some interesting spot in our 
 famous Eastern possessions. How much for this lot? Com.e, 
 gentlemen, don't keep me here all day." 
 
 Some one bid five shillings, at which the military gentleman 
 looked towards the quarter from which this splendid o^er had 
 come, and there saw another officer with a young lady on his 
 arm, who both appeared to be highly amused with the scene, 
 and to whom, finally, this lot was knocked down for half-a- 
 guinea. He at the table looked more surprised and discom- 
 posed than ever when he spied this pair, and his head sank into 
 his military collar, and he turned his back upon them, so as to 
 avoid them altogether. 
 
 Of all the other articles which Mr. Hammerdown had the 
 honour to offer for public competition that day it is not our pur- 
 pose to make mention, save of one only, a little square piano, 
 which came down from the upper regions of the house (the state 
 grand piano having been disposed of previously); this the young 
 lady tried with a rapid and skilful hand (making the officer 
 blush and start again), and for it, when its turn came, her agent 
 began to bid. 
 
 But there was an opposition here. The Hebrew aide-de-camp 
 in the service of the officer at the table bid against the Hebrew 
 gentleman employed by the elephant purchasers, and a brisk 
 battle ensued over this little piano, the combatants being greatly 
 encouraged by Mr. Hammerdown. 
 
 At last, when the competition had been prolonged for some 
 time, the elephant captain and lady desisted from the race ; and 
 the hammer coming down, the auctioneer said: — -"Mr. Lewis, 
 twenty-five," and Mr. Lewis's chief thus became the proprietor 
 of the little square piano. Having effected the purchase, he sate 
 up as if he was greatly relieved, and the unsuccessful competitors 
 catching a glimpse of him at this moment, the lady said to her 
 friend — 
 
 " Why, Rawdon, it's Captain Dobbin." 
 
 I suppose Becky was discontented with the new piano her 
 husband had hired for her, or perhaps the proprietors of that 
 instrument had fetched it away, declining further credit, or per- 
 haps she had a particular attachment for the one which she had 
 just tried to purchase, recollecting it in old days, when she used 
 to play upon it, in the little sitting-room of our dear Amelia 
 Sedley, 
 
i6o Vanity Fair 
 
 The sale was at the old house in Russell Square, where we 
 passed some evenings together at the beginning of this story. 
 Good old John Sedley was a ruined man. His name had been 
 proclaimed as a defaulter on the Stock Exchange^ and his 
 bankruptcy and commercial extermination had followed. Mr. 
 Osborne's butler came to buy some of the famous port wine to 
 transfer to the cellars over the way. As for one dozen well- 
 manufactured silver spoons and forks at per oz., and one dozen 
 dessert ditto ditto, there wefe three young stockbrokers (Messrs. 
 Dale, Spiggot & Dale, of Threadneedle Street, indeed), who, 
 having had dealings with the old man, and kindnesses from him 
 in days when he was kind to everybody with whom he dealt, 
 sent this little spar out of the wreck with their love to good Mrs. 
 Sedley; and with respect to the piano, as it had been Amelia's, 
 and as she might miss it and want one now, and as Captain 
 William Dobbin could no more play upon it than he could dance 
 on the tight-rope, it is probable that he did not purchase the 
 instrument for his own use. 
 
 In a word, it arrived that evening at a wonderful small cottage 
 in a street leading from the Fulham Road — one of those streets 
 which have the finest romantic names — (this was called St. 
 Adelaide Villas, Anna-Maria Road, West), where the houses 
 look like baby-houses; where the people, looking out of the 
 first-floor windows, must infallibly, as you think, sit v/ith their 
 feet in the parlours; where the shrubs in the little gardens in 
 front bloom with a perennial display of little children's pina- 
 fores, little red socks, caps, etc. (polyandria polygynia); whence 
 you hear the sound of jingling spinets and women singing ; where 
 little porter pots hang on the railing sunning themselves; 
 whither of evenings you see City clerks padding wearily; here 
 it was that Mr. Clapp, the clerk of Mr. Sedley, had his domicile, 
 and in this asylum the good old gentleman hid his head with his 
 wife and daughter when the crash came. 
 
 Jos Sedley had acted as a man of his disposition would, when 
 the announcement of the family misfortune reached him. He 
 did not come to London, but he wrote to his mother to draw 
 upon his agents for whatever money was wanted, so that his 
 kind broken-spirited old parents had no present poverty to fear. 
 This done, Jos went on at the boarding-house at Cheltenham 
 pretty much as before. He drove his curricle; he drank his 
 claret; he played his rubber; he told his Indian stories, and the 
 Irish widow consoled and flattered him as usual. His present 
 of money, needful as it was, made little impression <jn his 
 
How Captain Dobbin Bought a Piano i6i 
 
 parents ; and I have heard Amelia say, that the first day on 
 which she saw her father Hft up his head after the failure, was 
 on the receipt of the packet of forks and spoons with the young 
 stockbrokers' love, over which he burst out crying like a child, 
 being greatly more affected than even his wife, to whom the 
 present was addressed. Edward Dale, the junior of the house, 
 who purchased the spoons for the firm, was, in fact, very sweet 
 upon Anielia, and offered for her in spite of all. He married 
 Miss Louisa Cutts (daughter of Higham and Cutts, the eminent 
 corn-factors) with a handsome fortune in 1820; and is now living 
 in splendour, and \vith a numerous family, at his elegant villa, 
 Musweil Hill. But we must not let the recollections of this good 
 fellow cause us to diverge from the principal history. 
 
 I hope the reader has much too good an opinion of Captain 
 and Mrs. Crawley to suppose that they ever would have dreamed 
 of paying a visit to so remote a district as Bloomsbury, if they 
 thought the family whom they proposed to honour with a visit 
 were not merely out of fashion, but out of money, and could be 
 serviceable to them in no possible manner. Rebecca was en- 
 tirely surprised at the sight of the comfortable old house where 
 she had met with no sma,ll kindness, ransacked by brokers and 
 bargainers, and its quiet family treasures given up to pubHc 
 desecration and plunder. A month after her flight, she had 
 bethought her of Amelia, and Rawdon, with a horse-laugh, had 
 expressed a perfect willingness to see young George Osborne 
 again. " He's a very agreeable acquaintance, Beck," the wag 
 added. " I'd like to sell him another horse. Beck. I'd like to 
 play a few more games at billiards v/ith him. He'd be what I 
 call useful just now, Mrs. C. — ha, ha! " by which sort of speech 
 it is not to be supposed that Rawdon Crawley had a deliberate | 
 desire to cheat Mr. Osborne at play, but only wished to take j 
 that fair advantage of him v/hich almost every sporting gentle- | 
 man in Vanity Fair considers to be his due from his neighbour. I 
 
 The old aunt was long in " coming to." A month had elapsed. 
 Rawdon was denied the door by Mr. Bowls; his servants could 
 not get a lodgment in the house at Park Lane; his letters were 
 sent back unopened. Miss Crav/ley never stirred out — she was 
 unwell — and Mrs. Bute remained still and never left her. 
 Crawley and his wife both of them augured evil from the con- 
 tinued presence of Mrs. Bute. 
 
 " Gad, I begin to perceive now why she was always bringing 
 us together at Queen's Crawley," Rawdon said. 
 
 y 298 
 
1 62 Vanity Fair 
 
 " What an artful little woman! " ejaculated Rebecca. 
 
 " Well^ / don't regret it^ if you don't/' the Captain cried, 
 still in an amorous rapture with his wife, who rewarded him 
 with a kiss by way of reply, and was indeed not a little gratified 
 by the generous confidence of her husband. 
 
 " If he had but a little more brains/' she thought to herself, 
 " I might make something of him; " but she never let him per- 
 ceive the opinion she had of him; listened with indefatigable 
 complacency to his stories of the stable and the mess; laughed 
 at all his jokes; felt the greatest interest in Jack Spatterdash, 
 whose cabhorse had come down, and Bob Martingale, who had 
 been taken up in a gambling-house, and Tom Cinqbars, who 
 was going to ride the steeplechase. When he came home she 
 was alert and happy: when he went out she pressed him to go; 
 when he stayed at home, she played and sang for him, made 
 him good drinks, superintended his dinner, warmed his slippers, 
 and steeped his soul in comfort. The best of women (I have 
 heard my grandmother say) are hypocrites. We don't know 
 how much they hide from us : how watchful they are when they 
 seem most artless and confidential: how often those frank 
 smiles, which they wear so easily, are traps to cajole or elude or 
 disarm — I don't mean in your mere coquettes, but your domestic 
 models, and paragons of female virtue. Who has not seen a 
 woman hide the dulness of a stupid husband, or coax the fury 
 of a savage one? We accept this amiable slavishness, and 
 praise a woman for it; we call this pretty treachery truth. A 
 good housewife is of necessity a humbug; and Cornelia's hus- 
 band was hoodwinked, as Potiphar was — only in a diffei nt 
 way. 
 
 By these attentions, that veteran rake, Rawdon Crawley, 
 found himself converted into a very happy and submissive 
 T-'crned man. His former haunts knew him not. They asked 
 ^i-'-'Out him once or twice at his clubs, but did not miss him much; 
 xu those booths of Vanity Fair people seldom do miss each other. 
 His secluded wife ever smiling and cheerful, his little comfort- 
 able lodgings, snug meals, and homely evenings, had all the 
 charms of novelty and secrecy. The marriage was not yet 
 declared to the world, or published in the Morning Post. All 
 his creditors would have come rushing on him in a body, had 
 they known that he was united to a woman without fortune. 
 " My relations won't cry fie upon me," Becky said, with rather 
 a bitter laugh; and she was quite contented to wait until the 
 old aunt should be reconciled, before she claimed her place in 
 
How Captain Dobbin Bought a Piano 163 
 
 society. So she lived at Brompton, and meanwhile saw no one, 
 or only those few of her husband's male companions who were 
 admitted into her little dining-room. These were all charmed 
 with her. The little dinners, the laughing and chatting, the 
 music afterwards, delighted all who participated in these enjoy- 
 ments. Major Martingale never thought about asking to see 
 the marriage licence. Captain Cinqbars was perfectly enchanted 
 with her skill in making punch. And young Lieutenant Spatter- 
 dash (who was fond of piquet, and whom Crawley would often 
 invite) was evidently and quickly smitten by Mrs. Crawley; but 
 her own circumspection and modesty never forsook her for a 
 moment, and Crawley's reputation as a fire-eating and jealous 
 warrior was a further and complete defence to his little 
 wife. 
 
 There are gentlemen of very good blood and fashion in this 
 city, who never have entered a lady's drawing-room; so that 
 though Rawdon Crawley's marriage might be talked about in 
 his county, where, of course, Mrs. Bute had spread the news, in 
 London it was doubted, or not heeded, or not talked about at 
 all. He hved comfortably on credit. He had a large capital 
 of debts, which, laid out judiciously, will carry a man along for 
 many years, and on which certain men about town contrive to 
 live a hundred times better than even men with ready money 
 can do. Ind'^ed, who is there that walks London streets, but 
 can point out a half dozen of men riding by him splendidly 
 while he is on foot, courted by fashion, bowed into their carriages 
 by tradesmen, denying themselves nothing, and living on who 
 knows what? We see Jack Thriftless prancing in the park, or 
 darting in his brougham down Pall Mall: we eat his dinners. 
 served on his miraculous plate. " How did this begin," we 
 say, " or where will it end? " — " My dear fellow," I heard Jack 
 say once, " I owe money in every capital in Europe." Thi?, t d 
 must come some day, but in the meantime Jack thrives as imi^^ 
 as ever; people are glad enough to shake him by the hano} 
 ignore the little dark stories that are whispered every now and 
 then against him, and pronounce him a good-natured, jovial, 
 reckless fellow. 
 
 Truth obliges us to confess that Rebecca had married a . 
 gentleman of this order. Everything was plentiful in his house | 
 but ready money, of which their menage pretty early felt the} 
 want; and reading the Gazette one day, and coming upon the^ 
 announcement of " Lieutenant G. Osborne to be Captain by^ 
 purchase, vice Smith, who exchanges," Rawdon uttered that 
 
164 Vanity Fair 
 
 sentiment regarding Amelia's lover, which ended in the visit 
 to Russell Square. 
 
 When Rawdon and his wife wished to communicate with 
 Captain Dobbin at the sale, and to know particulars of the 
 catastrophe which had befallen Rebecca's old acquaintances, 
 the Captain had vanished; and such information as they got 
 was from a stray porter or broker at the auction. 
 
 " Look at them with their hooked beaks/' Becky said, getting 
 into the buggy, her picture under her arm, in great glee. 
 " They're like vultures after a battle." 
 
 " Don't know. Never was in action, my dear. Ask Martin- 
 gale ; he was in Spain, aide-de-camp to General Blazes." 
 
 " He was a very kind old man, Mr. Sedley," Rebecca said; 
 " I'm really sorry he's gone wrong." 
 
 " Oh, stockbrokers — bankrupts— used to it, you know," 
 Rawdon replied, cutting a fly oft" the horse's ear. 
 
 " I wish we could have afforded some of the plate, Rawdon," 
 the wife continued sentimentally. " Five-and- twenty guineas 
 was monstrously dear for that little piano. We chose it at 
 Broadwood's for Amelia, when she came from school. It only 
 cost five-and- thirty then." 
 
 " What-d'ye-call'em — * Osborne,' will cry off now, I suppose, 
 since the family is smashed. How cut up your pretty little 
 friend will be; hey, Becky? " 
 
 " I daresay she'll recover it; " Becky said, with a smile — and 
 they drove on and talked about something else. 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 WHO PLAYED ON THE PIANO CAPTAIN DOBBIN BOUGHT 
 
 Our surprised story now finds itself for a moment among very 
 famous events and personages, and hanging on t(5 the skirts of 
 history. When the eagles of Napoleon Bonaparte, the Corsican 
 upstart, were flying from Provence, where they perched after a 
 brief sojourn in Elba, and from steeple to steeple until they 
 reached the towers of Notre Dam^e, I wonder whether the Im- 
 perial birds had any eye for a little comer of the parish of 
 Bloomsbury, London, which you might have thought so quiet. 
 
Who Played on the Piano 165 
 
 that even the whirring and flapping of those mighty wings would 
 pass unobserved there? 
 
 " Napoleon has landed at Cannes." Such news might create 
 a panic at Vienna, and cause Russia to drop his cards^ and take 
 Prussia into a corner^ and Talle^vTand and Metternich to wag 
 their heads together, while Prince Hardenberg, and even the 
 present Marquis of Londonderry^ were puzzled; but how was 
 this intelligence to affect a young lady in Russell Square, before 
 whose door the watchman sang the hours when she was asleep : 
 who, if she strolled in the square, was guarded there by the rail- 
 ings and the beadle : who, if she walked ever so short a distance 
 to buy a ribbon in Southampton Row, was followed by black 
 Sambo, with an enormous cane: who was always cared for, 
 dressed, put to bed, and watched over by ever so many guardian 
 angels, with and without wages ? Bon Dieu, I say, is it not hard 
 that the fateful rush of the great Imperial struggle can't take 
 place without affecting a poor little harmless girl of eighteen, 
 who is occupied in billing and cooing, or working muslin collars 
 in Russell Square? You, too, kindly, homely flower! — is the 
 great roaring war tempest coming to sweep you down, here, 
 although cowering under the shelter of Holbom? Yes; 
 Napoleon is flinging his last stake, and poor little Emmy Sedley's 
 happiness forms, somehow, part of it. 
 
 In the first place, her father's fortune was swept down with 
 that fatal news. All his speculations had of late gone wrong 
 with the luckless old gentleman. Ventures had failed; — mer- 
 chants had broken; funds had risen when he calculated they 
 would fall. What need to particularise ? If success is rare and 
 slov/, everybody knows how quick and easy ruin is. Old Sedley 
 had kept his own sad counsel. Everything seemed to go on as 
 usual in the quiet, opulent house; the good-natured mistress 
 pursuing, quite unsuspiciously, her bustling idleness, and daily 
 easy avocations; the daughter absorbed still in one selfish, 
 tender thought, and quite regardless of all the world besides, 
 when that final crash came, under which the worthy family fell. 
 
 One night Mrs. Sedley was writing cards for a party; the 
 Osbornes had given one, and she must not be behindhand ; John 
 Sedley, who had come home very late from the City, sate silent 
 at the chimney side, while his wife was prattling to him ; Emmy 
 had gone up to her room aiUng and low-spirited. " She's not 
 happy," the mother went on. " George Osborne neglects her. 
 I've no patience with the airs of those people. . The girls have 
 not been in the house these three v^eeks; and George has been 
 
1 66 Vanity Fair 
 
 twice in town without coming. Edward Dale saw him at the 
 Opera. Edward would marry her, I'm sure: and there's Cap- 
 tain Dobbin, who, I think, would — only I hate all army men. 
 Such a dandy as George has become. With his military airs, 
 indeed ! We must show some folks that we're as good as they. 
 Only give Edwar^ Dale any encouragement, and you'll see. 
 We must have a party, Mr. S. Why don't you speak, John? 
 Shall I say Tuesday fortnight ? Why don't you answer ? Good 
 God, John, what has happened ? " 
 
 Jolm Sedley sprang out of his chair to meet his wife, who ran 
 to him. He seized her in his arms, and said with a hasty voice, 
 " We're ruined, Mary. We've got the world to begin over 
 again, dear. It's best that you should know all, and at once." 
 As he spoke, he trembled in every limb, and almost fell. He 
 thought the news would have overpowered his wife — his wife, 
 to whom he had never said a hard word. But it was he that was 
 the most moved, sudden as the shock was to her. When he sank 
 back into his seat, it was the wife that took the office of consoler. 
 She took his trembling hand, and kissed it, and put it round her 
 neck: she called him her John — her dear John — her old man — 
 her kind old man ; she poured out a hundred words of incoherent 
 love and tenderness; her faithful voice and simple caresses 
 wrought this sad heart up to an inexpressible delight and 
 anguish, and cheered and solaced his overburdened soul. 
 
 Only once in the course of the long night as they sate together, 
 and poor Sedley opened his pent-up soul, and told the story of 
 his losses and embarrassments — the treason of some of his oldest 
 friends, the manly kindness of some, from whom he never could 
 have expected it — in a general confession — only once did the 
 faithful wife give way to emotion. 
 
 " My God, my God, it will break Emmy's heart," she said. 
 
 The father had forgotten the poor girl. She was lying, awake 
 
 and unhappy, overhead. In the midst of friends, home, and 
 
 kind parents, she was alone. To how many people can any one 
 
 tell all ? Who will be open where there is no sympathy, or has 
 
 call to speak to those who can never understand? Our gentle 
 
 i| Amelia was thus solitary. She had no confidante, so to speak, 
 
 jl ever since she had anything to confide- She could not tell the 
 
 U old mother her doubts and cares; the would-be sisters seemed 
 
 1 1 every day more strange to her. And she had misgivings and 
 
 If fears which she dared not acknowledge to herself, though she 
 
 I was always secretly brooding over them. 
 
 Her heart tried to persist in asserting that George Osborne 
 
Who Played on the Piano 167 
 
 was worthy and faithful to her, though she knew otherwise. 
 How many a thing had she said, and got no echo from him. 
 How many suspicions of selfishness and indifference had she to 
 encounter and obstinately overcome. To whom could the poor 
 little martyr tell these daily struggles and tortures? Her hero 
 himself only half understood her. She did not dare to own that 
 the man she loved was her inferior; or to feel that she had given 
 her heart away too soon. Given once, the pure bashful maiden 
 was too modest, too tender, too trustful, too weak, too much 
 woman to recall it. We are Turks with the affections of our 
 women; and have made them subscribe to our doctrine too. 
 We let their bodies go abroad liberally enough, with smiles and 
 ringlets and pink bonnets to disguise them instead of veils and 
 yakmaks. But their souls must be seen by only one man, and 
 they obey not unwillingly, and consent to remain at home as our 
 slaves — ministering to us and doing drudgery for us. 
 
 So imprisoned and tortured was this gentle little heart, when 
 in the month of March, Anno Domini 1815, Napoleon landed at 
 Cannes, and Louis XVIII. fled, and all Europe was in alarm, 
 and the funds fell, and old John Sedley was ruined. 
 
 We are not going to follow the worthy old stockbroker through 
 those last pangs and agonies of ruin through which he passed 
 before his commercial demise befell. They declared him at the 
 Stock Exchange; he was absent from his house of business : his 
 bills were protested : his act of bankruptcy formal. The house 
 and furniture of Russell Square were seized and sold up, and he 
 and his family were thrust away, as we have seen, to hide their 
 heads where they might. 
 
 John Sedley had not the heart to review the domestic estab- 
 lishment who have appeared now and anon in our pages, and of 
 whom he was now forced by poverty to take leave. The wages 
 of those worthy people were discharged with that punctuality 
 which men frequently show who only owe in great sums — they 
 were sorry to leave good places — but they did not break their 
 hearts at parting from their adored master and mistress. 
 Amelia's maid was profuse in condolences, but went off quite 
 resigned to better herself in a genteeler quarter of the town. 
 Black Sambo, with the infatuation of his profession, determined 
 on setting up a public-house. Honest old Mrs. Blenkinsop in- 
 deed, who had seen the birth of Jos and Amelia, and the wooing 
 of John Sedley and his wife, was for staying by them without 
 wages, having amassed a considerable sum in their service : and 
 
1 68 Vanity Fair 
 
 she accompanied the fallen people into their new and humble 
 place of refuge, where she tended them and grumbled against 
 them for a while. 
 
 Of all Sedley's opponents in his debates with liis creditors 
 which now ensued, and harassed the feelings of the humiliated 
 old gentleman so severely, that in six weeks he oldened more 
 than he had done for fifteen years before — the most determined 
 and obstinate seemed to be John Osborne, his old friend and 
 neighbour-— John . Osborne, whom he had set up in life — who 
 was under a hundred obligations to him — and whose son was to 
 marry Sedley's daughter. Any one of these circumstances 
 would account for the bitterness of Osborne's opposition. 
 
 When one man has been under very remarkable obligations 
 to another, with whom he subsequently quarrels, a common 
 sense of decency, as it were, makes of the former a much severer 
 enemy than a mere stranger would be. To account for your own 
 hardheartedness and ingratitude in such a case, you are bound 
 to prove the other party's crime. It is not that you are selfish, 
 brutal, and angry at the failure of a speculation — no, no — it is 
 that your partner has led you into it by the basest treachery 
 and with the most sinister motives. From a mere sense of con- 
 sistency, a persecutor is bound to show that the fallen man is a 
 villain — otherwise he, the persecutor, is a wretch himself. 
 
 And as a general rule, which may make all creditors who are 
 inclined to be severe pretty comfortable in their minds, no men 
 embarrassed are altogether honest, very likely. They conceal 
 something; they exaggerate chances of good luck; hide away 
 the real state of affairs; say that things are flourishing when 
 they are hopeless ; keep a smiling face (a dreary smile it is) upon 
 the verge of bankruptcy — are ready to lay hold of any pretext 
 for delay or of any money, so as to stave off the inevitable ruin 
 a few days longer. " Down with such dishonesty," says the 
 creditor in triumph, and reviles his sinking enemy. " You fool, 
 why do you catch at a straw? " calm good sense says to the man 
 that is drowning. " You \dllain, why do you shrink from plung- 
 ing into the irretrievable Gazette? " says prosperity to the poor 
 devil battling in that black gulf. Who has not remarked the 
 readiness with which the closest of friends and honestest of men 
 suspect and accuse each other of cheating when they fall out on 
 money matters? Everybody does it. Everybody is right, I 
 suppose,' and the world is a rogue. 
 
 Then Osborne had the intolerable sense of former benefits to 
 goad and irritate him: these are always a cause of hostility 
 
Who Played on the Piano fi69 
 
 aggravated. Finally, he had to break off the match between 
 Sedley's daughter and his son; and as it had gone very far 
 indeed, and as the poor girl's happiness and perhaps character 
 were compromised, it was necessary to show the strongest 
 reasons for the rupture, and for John Osborne to prove John 
 Sedley to be a very bad character indeed. v;; 
 
 At the meetings of creditors, then, he comported himself with ■ 
 a savageness and scorn towards Sedley, which almost succeeded i 
 in breaking the heart of that ruined bankrupt man. On ] 
 George's intercourse with Amelia he put an instant veto — 
 menacing the youth with maledictions if he broke his commands, 
 and vilipending the poor innocent girl as the basest and 
 most artful of vixens. One of the great conditions of anger and 
 hatred is, that you must tell and believe lies against the hated 
 object, in order, as we said, to be consistent. 
 
 When the great crash came — the announcement of ruin, and 
 the departure from Russell Square, and the declaration that all 
 was over between her and George — all over between her and love, 
 her and happiness, her and faith in the world: — a brutal letter 
 from John Osborne told her in a few curt lines that her father's 
 conduct had been of such a nature that all engagements betv/een 
 the families were at an end — when the final award came, it did 
 not shock her so much as her parents, as her mother rather 
 expected (for John Sedley himself was entirely prostrate in the 
 ruins of his own affairs and shattered honour). Amelia took j 
 the news very palely and calmly. It was only the confirmation 
 of the dark presages which had long gone before. It was the 
 mere reading of the sentence — of the crime she had long ago 
 been guilty — the crime of loving wrongly, too violently, against 
 reason. She told no more of her thoughts now than she had 
 before. She seemed scarcely more unhappy now when con- 
 vinced all hope was over, than before when she felt but dared 
 not confess that it was gone. So she changed from the large 
 house to the small one without any mark or difference; remained 
 in her little room for the most part; pined silently; and died\ 
 away day by day. I do not mean to say that all females are so. \ 
 My dear Miss Bullock, I do not think your heart would break in 
 this way. You are a strong-minded young woman, with proper 
 principles. I do not venture to say that mine would; it has 
 suffered, and, it must be confessed, survived. But there are 
 some souls thus gently constituted, thus frail, and delicate, and 
 tender. 
 
 Whenever old John .Sedley thought of the affair between 
 
170 Vanity Fair 
 
 George and Amelia, or alluded to it, it was with bitterness almost 
 as great as Mr. Osborne himself had shown. He cursed Osborne 
 and his family as heartless, wicked, and ungrateful. No power 
 on earth, he swore, would induce him to marry his daughter to 
 the son of such a villain, and he ordered Emmy to banish George 
 from her mind, and to return all. the presents and letters which 
 she had ever had from him. 
 
 She promised acquiescence, and tried to obey. She put up 
 the two or three trinkets : and, as for the letters, she drew them 
 out of the place where she kept them; and read them over — as 
 if she did not know them by heart already: but she could not 
 part with them. That effort was too much for her; she placed 
 them back in her bosom again — as you have seen a woman nurse 
 a child that is dead. Young Amelia felt that she would die or 
 lose her senses outright, if torn away from this last consolation. 
 How she used to blush and lighten up when those letters came ! 
 How she used to trip away with a beating heart, so that she 
 might read unseen ! If they were cold, yet how perversely this 
 fond little soul interpreted them into warmth. If they were^ 
 short or selfish, what excuses she found for the writer ! 
 
 It was over these few worthless papers that she brooded and 
 brooded. She lived in her past life — every letter seemed to 
 recall some circumstance of it. How well she remembered 
 them all ! His looks and tones, his dress, what he said and how 
 — these relics and remembrances of dead affection were all that 
 were left her in the world. And the business of her life, was — to 
 watch the corpse of Love. 
 
 To death she looked with inexpressible longing. Then, she 
 
 thought, I shall always be able to follow him. I am not praising 
 
 her conduct or setting her up as a model for Miss Bullock to 
 
 imitate. Miss B. knows how to regulate her feelings better than 
 
 this poor little creature. Miss B. would never have committed 
 
 herself as that imprudent Amelia had done; pledged her love 
 
 irretrievably; confessed her heart away, and got back nothing 
 
 • — only a brittle pi'omise which was snapt and worthless in a 
 
 '1 moment. A long engagement is a partnership which one party 
 
 i is free to keep or to break, but which involves all the capital of 
 
 |- the other. 
 
 I! Be cautious, then, young ladies; be wary how you engage. Be 
 
 ■j! shy of loving frankly; never tell all you feel, or (a better way 
 
 I still), feel very Httle. See the consequences of being prematurely 
 
 1 honest and confiding, and mistrust yourselves and everybody. 
 
 Get yourselves married as they do in France, where the lawyers 
 
Who Played on the Piano 171 
 
 are the bridesmaids and confidantes. At any rate^ never have 
 any feelings which may make you uncomfortable, or make any 
 promises which you cannot at any required moment command 
 and withdraw. That is the way to get on, and be respected, 
 and have a virtuous character in Vanity Fair. 
 
 If Amelia could have heard the comments regarding her which 
 were made in the circle from which her father's ruin had just 
 driven her, she would have seen what her own crimes were, and 
 how entirely her character was jeopardised. Such criminal im- 
 prudence Mrs. Smith never knew of; such horrid familiarities 
 Mrs. Brown had always condemned, and the end might be a 
 warning to her daughters. " Captain Osborne, of course, could 
 not marry a bankrupt's daughter," the Misses Dobbin said. 
 " It was quite enough to have been swindled by the father. As 
 for that little Amelia, her folly had really passed all " 
 
 " All what? " Captain Dobbin roared out. " Haven't they 
 been engaged ever since they were children ? Wasn't it as good 
 as a marriage ? Dare any soul on earth breathe a word against 
 the sweetest, the purest, the tenderest, the most angelical of 
 young women? " 
 
 " La, William, don't be so highty-tighty with us. We're not 
 men. We can't fight you," Miss Jane said. " We've said 
 nothing against Miss Sedley: but that her conduct throughout 
 was most imprudent, not to call it by any worse name ; and that 
 her parents are people who certainly merit their misfortunes." 
 
 " Hadn't you better, now that Miss Sedley is free, propose for 
 her yourself, William?" Miss Ann asked sarcastically. "It 
 would be a most eligible family connection. He ! he ! " 
 
 " I marry her! " Dobbin said, blushing very much, and talk- 
 ing quick. " If you are so ready, young ladies, to chop and 
 change, do you suppose that she is ? Laugh and sneer at that 
 angel. She can't hear it; and she's miserable and unfortunate 
 and deserves to be laughed at. Go on joking, Ann. You're 
 the wit of the family, and the others like to hear it." 
 
 " I must tell you again we're not in a barrack, William," Miss 
 Ann remarked. 
 
 " In a barrack, by Jove — I wish anybody in a barrack would 
 say what you do," cried out this uproused British lion. " I 
 should like to hear a man breathe a word against her, by Jupiter. 
 But men don't talk in this way, Ann : it's only women, who get 
 together and hiss, and shriek, and cackle. There, get away — • 
 don't begin to cry. I only said you were a couple of geese," 
 Will Dobbin said, perceiving Miss Ann's pink eyes were begin- 
 
172 Vanity Fair 
 
 ning to moisten as usual. " Well, you're, not geese, you're 
 swans — anything you like, only do, do leave Miss Sedley alone." 
 
 Anything like William's infatuation about that silly little 
 flirting, ogling thing was never known, the mamma and sisters 
 agreed together in thinking: and they trembled lest, her en- 
 gagement being off with Osborne, she should take up im- 
 mediately her other admirer the Captain. In which forebodings 
 these worthy young wom.en no doubt judged according to the 
 best of their experience ; or rather (for as yet they had had no 
 opportunities of marrying or of jilting) according to their own 
 notions of right and wrong. 
 
 " It is a mercy, Mamma, that the regiment is ordered abroad," 
 the girls said. " This danger, at any rate, is spared our brother." 
 
 Such, indeed, was the fact; and so it is that the French 
 Emperor comes in to perform a part in this domestic comedy 
 of Vanity Fair which we are now playing, and which would 
 never have been enacted without the intervention of this august 
 mute personage. It was he that ruined the Bourbons and Mr. 
 John Sedley. It was he whose arrival in his capital called up 
 all France in a.rms to defend him there; and all Europe to oust 
 him. While the French nation and army were swearing fidelity 
 round the eagles in the Champ de Mars, four mighty European 
 hosts were getting in motion for the great chasse a Vaigle ; and 
 one of these was a British army, of which two heroes of ours, 
 Captain Dobbin and Captain 'Osborne, formed a portion. 
 
 The news of Napoleon's escape and landing was received by 
 the gallant — th with a fiery delight and enthusiasm, which 
 everybody can understand who knows that famous corps. 
 From the colonel to the smallest drummer in the regiment, all 
 were filled with hope and ambition and patriotic fury; and 
 thanked the French Emperor as for a personal kindness in 
 coming to disturb the peace of Europe. Now was the time the 
 — th had so long panted for, to show their comrades in arms that 
 they could fight as well as the Peninsular veterans, and that all 
 the pluck and valour of the — th had not been killed by the West 
 Indies and the yellow fever. Stubble and Spooney looked to 
 get their companies without purchase. Before the end of the 
 camipaign (which she resolved to share), Mrs. Major O'Dowd 
 hoped to write herself Mrs. Colonel O'Dowd, C.B. Our two 
 friends (Dobbin and Osborne) were quite as much excited as 
 the rest: and each in his way — Mr. Dobbin very quietly, Mr. 
 Osborne very loudly and energetically — was bent upon doing 
 his duty, and gaining Hs share of honour and distinction. 
 
Who Played on the Piano 173 
 
 The agitation thrilling through the conntry and army in con- 
 sequence of this news was so great, that private matters were 
 little heeded : and hence probably George Osborne, just gazetted 
 to his company, busy with preparations for the march, which 
 must come inevitably, and panting for further promotion — • 
 was not so much affected by other incidents which would have 
 interested him at a more quiet period. He was not, it must be 
 confessed, very much cast down by good old Mr. Sedley's catas- 
 trophe. He tried his new uniform, which became him very 
 handsomely, on the day when the first meeting of the creditors 
 of the unfortunate gentleman took place. His father told him 
 of the wicked, rascally, shameful conduct of the bankrupt, 
 reminded him of what he had said about Amelia, and that their 
 connection was broken off for ever; and gave him that even- 
 ing a good sum of money to pay for the new clothes and epaulets 
 in which he looked so well. Money was always useful to this 
 free-handed young fellow, and he took it without many words. 
 The bills were up in the Sedley House, where he had passed so 
 many, many happy hours. He could see them as he walked 
 from home that night (to the Old Slaughters', where he put up 
 when in town) shining white in the moon. That comfortable 
 home was shut then, upon Amelia and her parents : where had 
 they taken refuge ? The thought of their ruin affected him not 
 a little. He was very melancholy that night in the coffee-room 
 at the Slaughters' ; and drank a good deal, as his comrades 
 remarked there. 
 
 Dobbin came in presently, cautioned him about the drink, 
 which he only took, he said, because he was deuced low; but 
 when his friend began to put to him clumsy inquiries, and 
 asked him for news in a significant manner, Osborne declined 
 entering into conversation with him; avowing, however, that 
 he was devilish disturbed and unhappy. 
 
 Three days afterwards, Dobbin found Osborne in his room at 
 the barracks ; — his head on the table, a number of papers about, 
 the young Captain evidently in a state of great despondency. 
 " She — she's sent me back some things I gave her — some 
 damned trinkets. Look here!" There was a little packet 
 directed in the well-known hand to Captain George Osborne, 
 and some things lying about — a ring, a silver knife he had 
 bought, as a boy, for her at a fair; a gold chain, and a 
 locket with hair in it. " It's all over," said he, with a groan 
 of sickening remorse. " Look, Will, you may read it if you 
 like." 
 
174 Vanity Fair 
 
 There was a little letter of a few lines, to which he pointed, 
 which said : — 
 
 " My papa has ordered me to return to you these presents, which 
 you made in happier days to me; and I am to write to you for the 
 last time. I think, I know you feel as much as I do the blow which 
 has come upon us. It is I that absolve you from an engagement 
 which is impossible in our present misery. I am sure you had no 
 share in it, or in the cruel suspicions of Mr. Osborne, which are the 
 hardest of all our griefs to bear. Farewell, Farewell. I pray to 
 God to strengthen me to bear this and other calamities, and to bless 
 you always. A. 
 
 " I shall often play upon the piano — your piano. It was like 
 you to send it." 
 
 I Dobbin was very soft-hearted. The sight of women and 
 
 I children in pain always used to melt him. The idea of Amelia 
 
 Vbroken-hearted and lonely, tore that good-natured soul with 
 
 languish. And he broke out into an emotion, which anybody 
 
 who likes may consider unmanly. He swore that Amelia was 
 
 an angel, to which Osborne said aye with all his heart. He, 
 
 too, had been reviewing the history of their lives — and had 
 
 seen her from her childhood to her present age, so sweet, so 
 
 innocent, so charmingly simple, and artlessly fond and tender. 
 
 What a pang it was to lose all that: to have had it and not 
 
 I prized it ! A thousand homely scenes and recollections crowded 
 
 \ on him — in which he always saw her good and beautiful. And 
 
 I for himself, he blushed with remorse and shame, as the remem- 
 
 I brance of his own selfishness and indifference contrasted with 
 
 I that perfect purity. For a while, glory, war, ever5^hing was 
 
 ' forgotten, and the pair of friends talked about her only. 
 
 " Where are they? " Osborne asked, after a long talk, and a 
 long pause, — and, in truth, with no little shame at thinking 
 that he had taken no steps to follow her. " Where are they? 
 There's no address to the note." 
 
 Dobbin knew. He had not merely sent the piano; but had 
 written a note to Mrs. Sedley, and asked permission to come and 
 see her, — and he had seen her, and Amelia too, yesterday, before 
 he came down to Chatham; and, what is more, he had brought 
 that farewell letter and packet which had so moved them. 
 
 The good-natured fellow had found Mrs. Sedley only too will- 
 ing to receive him, and greatly agitated by the arrival of the 
 piano, which, as she conjectured, must have come from George, 
 and was a signal of amity on his part. Captain Dobbin did not 
 
Who Played on the Piano 175 
 
 correct this error of the worthy lady, but Hstened to all her 
 story of complaints and misfortunes with great sympathy — • 
 condoled with her losses and privations, and agreed in repre- 
 hending the cruel conduct of Mr. Osborne towards his first 
 benefactor. When she had eased her overflowing bosom some- 
 what, and poured forth many of her sorrows, he had the courage 
 to ask actually to see Amelia, who was above in her room as 
 usual, and whom her mother led trembling downstairs. 
 
 Her appearance was so ghastly, and her look of despair so 
 pathetic, that honest William Dobbin was frightened as he beheld 
 it; and read the most fatal forebodings in that pale fixed face. 
 After sitting in his company a minute or two, she put the packet 
 into his hand, and said, " Take this to Captain Osborne, if you 
 please, and— and I hope he's quite well — and it was very kind 
 of you to come and see us — and we like our new house very 
 m.uch. And I — I think I'll go upstairs. Mamma, for I'm not 
 very strong." And with this, and a curtsey and a smile, the 
 poor child went her way. The mother, as she led her up, cast 
 back looks of anguish towards Dobbin. The good fellow 
 wanted no such appeal. He loved her himself too fondly for 
 that. Inexpressible grief, and pity, and terror pursued him, 
 and he came away as if he was a criminal after seeing her. 
 
 When Osborne heard that his friend had found her, he made 
 hot and anxious inquiries regarding the poor child. How was 
 she? How did she look? What did she say? His comrade 
 took his hand, and looked him in the face. 
 
 " George, she's dying," William Dobbin said, — and could 
 speak no more. 
 
 There was a buxom Irish servant-girl, who performed all the 
 duties of the little house where the Sedley family had found 
 refuge: and this girl had in vain, on many previous days, 
 striven to give Amelia aid or consolation. Emmy was much 
 too sad to answer, or even to be aware of the attempts the other 
 was making in her favour. 
 
 Four hours after the talk between Dobbin and Osborne, this 
 servant-maid came into Amelia's room, where she sate as usual, 
 brooding silently over her letters — her little treasures. The 
 girl, smiling, and looking arch and happy, made many trials to 
 attract poor Emmy's attention, who, however, took no heed of 
 her. 
 
 " Miss Emmy," said the girl. 
 
 " I'm coming," Emmy said, not looking round. 
 
 " There's a message," the maid went on. " There's some- 
 
176 Vanity Fair 
 
 thing— somebody — sure, here's a new letter for you— don't be 
 
 reading them old ones any more." And she gave her a letter/ 
 
 which Emmy took, and read. 
 
 : " I must see you/' the letter said. " Dearest Emmy — 
 
 dearest love — dearest wife, come to 'me." ^ 
 
 1 George and her mother were outside, waiting until she had 
 
 read the letter. 
 
 CHAPTER XIX 
 
 MISS CRAWLEY AT NURSE 
 
 We have seen how Mrs. Firkin, the lady's maid, as soon as any 
 event of importance to the Crawley family came to her know- 
 ledge, felt bound to communicate it to Mrs. Bute Crawley, at 
 the Rectory; and have before mentioned how particularly kind 
 and attentive that good-natured lady was to Miss Crawley's 
 confidential servant. She had been a gracious friend to Miss 
 Briggs, the companion, also; and had secured the latter's good- 
 will by a number of those attentions and promises, v/hich cost 
 so little in the making, and are yet so valuable and agreeable to 
 the recipient. Indeed, every good economist and manager of a 
 household must know how cheap and yet how amiable these 
 professions are, and what a flavour they give to the most homely 
 dish in life. Who was the blundering idiot who said that " fine 
 words butter no parsnips " ? Half the parsnips of society are 
 served and rendered palatable v/ith no other sauce. As the 
 immortal Alexis Soyer can make more delicious soup for a half- 
 penny than an ignorant cook can concoct with pounds of vege- 
 tables and meat, so a skilful artist will make a few simple and 
 pleasing phrases go further than ever so much substantial 
 benefit-stock in the hands of a mere bungler. Nay, we know 
 that substantial benefits often sicken some stomachs; whereas, 
 most will digest any amount of fine words, and be always eager 
 for more of the sa^me food. Mrs. Bute had told Briggs and Firkin 
 so often of the depth of her affection for them; and what she 
 would do, if she had Miss Crawley's fortune, for friends so ex- 
 cellent and attached, that the ladies in question had the deepest 
 regard for her; and felt as much gratitude and confidence as if 
 Mrs. Bute had loaded tliem with the most expensive ^favours.' 
 
Miss Grawley at Nurse 177 
 
 Rawdon Crawley, on the other hand, like a selfish heavy 
 dragoon as he was, never took the least trouble to conciliate his 
 aunt's aides-de-camp, showed his contempt for the pair with 
 entire frankness — made Firkin pull off his boots on one occasion 
 — sent her out in the rain on ignominious messages — and if he 
 gave her a guinea, flung it to her as if it were a box on the ear. 
 As his aunt, too, made a butt of Briggs, the Captain follov/ed 
 the example, and levelled his jokes at her — jokes about as deli- 
 cate as a kick from his charger. Whereas, Mrs. Bute consulted 
 her in matters of taste or difficulty, admired her poetry, and by 
 a thousand acts of kindness and politeness, showed her appre- 
 ciation of Briggs; and if she made Firkin a twopenny-halfpenny 
 present, accompanied it with so many compliments, that the 
 twopence-halfpenny was transmuted into gold in the heart of 
 the grateful waiting-maid, who, besides, was looking forward 
 quite contentedly to some prodigious benefit which must happen 
 to her on the day v/hen Mrs. Bute came into her fortune. 
 
 The different conduct of these two people is pointed out 
 respectfully to the attention of persons commencing the world. 
 Praise everybody, I say to such : never be squeamish, but speak 
 out your compliment both point-blank in a man's face, and be- 
 hind his back, when you know there is a reasonable chance of 
 his hearing it again. Never lose a chance of saying a kind vv^ord. 
 As Collingwood never saw a vacant place in his estate but he 
 took an acorn out of his pocket and popped it in; so deal with 
 your compliments through life. An acorn costs nothing; but 
 it may sprout into a prodigious bit of timber. 
 
 In a word, during Rawdon Crawley's prosperity, he was only 
 obeyed with sulk}^ acquiescence; when his disgrace came, there 
 was nobody to help or pity him. Whereas, when Mrs, Bute took 
 the command at Miss Crawley's house, the garrison there were 
 charmed to act under such a leader, expecting all sorts of 
 promotion from her promises, her generosity, and her kind words. 
 
 That he would consider himself beaten, after one defeat, and 
 m-ake no attempt to regain the position he had lost, Mrs. Bute 
 Crawley never allowed herself to suppose. She knew Rebecca 
 to be too clever and spirited and desperate a woman to submit 
 without a struggle ; and felt that she must prepare for that com- 
 bat, and be incessantly watchful against assault, or mine, or 
 surprise. 
 
 In the first place, though she held the town^ was she sure of the 
 principal inhabitant? Would Miss Crawley herself hold out; 
 and had she not a secret longing to welcome back the ousted 
 
178 Vanity Fair 
 
 adversary? The old lady liked Rawdon, and Rebecca;, who 
 amused her. Mrs. Bute could not disguise from herself the fact 
 that none of her party could so contribute to the pleasures of 
 the town-bred lady. " My girls' singings, after that little odious 
 governess's^ I know^, is unbearable/"' the candid Rector's wife 
 owned to herself. " She always used to go to sleep when 
 Martha and Louisa played their duets. Jim's stiff college 
 manners^ and poor dear Bute's talk about his dogs and horses, 
 always annoyed her. If I took her to the Rectory^, she would grow 
 angry with us all, and fly, I know she would ; and might fall into 
 that horrid Rawdon's clutches again, and be the victim of that 
 little viper of a Sharp. Meanwhile, it is clear to me that she is 
 exceedingly unwell, and cannot move for some weeks, at any 
 rate; during which we must think of some plan to protect her 
 from the arts of those unprincipled people." 
 
 In the very best of moments, if anybody told Miss Crawley 
 that she was, or looked ill, the trembling old lady sent off for 
 her doctor; and I daresay she was very unwell after the sudden 
 family event, which might serve to shake stronger nerves than 
 hers. At least, Mrs. Bute thought it was her duty to inform the 
 physician, and the apothecary, and the dame de compagnie, and 
 the domestics, that Miss Crawley was in a most critical state, 
 and that they were to act accordingly. She had the street laid 
 knee-deep with straw; and the knocker put by with Mr. Bowls's 
 plate. She insisted that the Doctor should call twice a day; 
 and deluged her patient with draughts every two hours. When 
 anybody entered the room, she uttered a shshshsh so sibilant and 
 ominous, that it frightened the poor old lady in her bed, from 
 which she could not look without seeing Mrs. Bute's beady eyes 
 eagerly fixed on her, as the latter sate steadfast in the arm-chair 
 by the bedside. They seemed to lighten in the dark (for she kept 
 the curtains closed) as she moved about the room on velvet paws 
 like a cat. There Miss Crawley lay for days — ever so many days 
 — Mrs. Bute reading books of devotion to her: for nights, long 
 nights, during which she had to hear the watchman sing, the 
 night-light sputter; visited at midnight, the last thing, by the 
 stealthy apothecary; and then left to look at Mrs. Bute's 
 twinkling eyes, or the flicks of yellow that the rushlight threw 
 on the dreary darkened ceiling. Hygeia herself would have 
 fallen sick under such a regimen; and how much more this poor 
 old nervous victim? It has been said that when she was in 
 health and good spirits, this venerable inhabitant of Vanity Fair 
 had as free notions about religion and morals as Monsieur de 
 
Miss Crawley at Nurse 179 
 
 Voltaire himself could desire^ but when illness overtook her, it 
 was aggravated by the most dreadful terrors of death, and an 
 utter cowardice took possession of the prostrate old sinner. 
 
 Sick-bed homilies and pious reflections are, to be sure, out of 
 place in mere story-books, and we are not going (after the fashion 
 of some novelists of the present day) to cajole the public into a 
 sermon, when it is only a comedy that the reader pays his money 
 to witness. But, without preaching, the truth may surely be 
 borne in mind, that the bustle, and triumph, and laughter, and 
 gaiety which Vanity Fair exhibits in public, do not always pursue 
 the performer into private life, and that the most dreary depres- 
 sion of spirits and dismal repentances sometimes overcome him. 
 Recollection of the best ordained banquets will scarcely cheer 
 sick epicures. Reminiscences of the most becoming dresses and 
 brilliant ball- triumphs will go very little way to console faded 
 beauties. Perhaps statesmen, at a particular period of exist- 
 ence, are not much gratified at thinking over the most triumph- 
 ant divisions; and the success of the pleasure of yesterday 
 becomes of very small account when a certain (albeit uncertain) 
 morrow is in view, about which all of us must some day or other 
 be speculating. brother wearers of motley! Are there not 
 moments when one grows sick of grinning and tumbling, and the 
 jingling of cap and bells? This, dear friends and companions, 
 is my amiable object — to walk with you through the Fair, to 
 examine the shops and the shows there ; and that we should all 
 come home after the flare, and the noise, and the gaiety, and be 
 perfectly miserable in private. 
 
 " If that poor man of mine had a head on his shoulders," Mrs. 
 Bute Crawley thought to herself, " how useful he might be, under 
 present circumstances, to this unhappy old lady! He might 
 make her repent of her shocking, freethinking ways; he might 
 urge her to do her duty, and cast off that odious reprobate who 
 has disgraced himself and his family; and he might induce her 
 to do justice to my dear girls and the two boys, who require and 
 deserve, I am sure, every assistance which their relatives can 
 give them." 
 
 And, as the hatred of vice is always a progress towards virtue, 
 Mrs. Bute Crawley endeavoured to instil into her sister-in-law 
 a proper abhorrence for all Rawdon Crawley's manifold sins: 
 of which his uncle's wife brought forward such a catalogue as 
 indeed would have served to condemn a whole regiment of young 
 officers. If a man has committed wrong in life, I don't know 
 
i8o Vanity Fair 
 
 any moralist more anxious to point his errors out to the world 
 than his own relations; so Mrs. Bute showed a perfect family 
 interest and knowledge of Rawdon's history. She had all the 
 particulars of that ugly quarrel with Captain Marker, in which 
 Rawdon, wrong from the beginning, ended in shooting the 
 Captain. She knew how the unhappy Lord Dovedale, whose 
 mamma had taken a house at Oxford, so that he might be 
 educated there, and who had never touched a card in his life 
 till he came to London, was perverted by Rawdon at the Cocoa- 
 Tree, made helplessly tipsy by this abominable seducer and 
 perverter of youth, and fleeced of four thousand pounds. She 
 described with the most vivid minuteness the agonies of the 
 country families whom he had ruined — the sons whom he had 
 plunged into dishonour and poverty — the daughters whom he 
 had inveigled into perdition. She knew the poor tradesmen who 
 were bankrupt by his extravagance — the mean shifts and 
 rogueries with which he had ministered to it — the astounding 
 falsehoods by which he had imposed upon the most generous of 
 aunts, and the ingratitude and ridicule by which he had repaid 
 her sacrifices. She imparted these stories gradually to Miss 
 Crawley; gave her the whole benefit of them; felt it to be her 
 bounden duty as a Christian woman and mother of a family 
 to do so; had not the smallest remorse or compunction for 
 the victim whom her tongue was immolating; nay, very 
 likely thought her act was quite meritorious, and plumed 
 herself upon her resolute manner of performing it. Yes, if a 
 man's character is to be abused, say what you will, there's 
 nobody like a relation to do the business. And one is bound to 
 own, regarding this unfortunate wretch of a Rawdon Crawley, 
 that the mere tmth was enough to condemn him, and that all 
 inventions of scandal were quite superfluous pains on his friends' 
 parts. 
 
 R,ebecca too, being now a relative, came in for the fullest 
 share of Mrs. Bute's kind inquiries. This indefatigable pursuer 
 of truth (having given strict orders that the door was to be 
 denied to all emissaries or letters from Rawdon), took Miss 
 Crawley's carriage, and drove to her old friend Miss Pinkerton, 
 at Minerva House, Chiswick Mall, to whom she announced the 
 dreadful intelligence of Captain Rawdon's seduction by Miss 
 Sharp, and from whom she got sundry strange particulars 
 regarding the ex-governess's birth and early history. The friend 
 of the Lexicographer had plenty of information to give. Miss 
 Jemima was made to fetch the drawing-master's receipts and 
 
Miss Crawley at Nurse ;i8i 
 
 letters. This one was from a spunging-house : that entreated 
 an advance: another was full of gratitude for Rebecca's recep- 
 tion by the ladies of Chiswick: and the last document from the 
 unlucky artist's pen was that in which, from his dying bed, he 
 recommended his orphan child to Miss Pinkerton's protection. 
 There were juvenile letters and petitions from Rebecca, too, in 
 the collection, imploring aid for her father or declaring her own 
 gratitude. Perhaps in Vanity Fair there are no better satires 
 than letters. Take a bundle of your dear friend's of ten years 
 back — your dear friend whom you hate now. Look at a file of 
 your sister's! how you clung to each other till you quarrelled 
 about the twenty-pound legacy! Get down the round-hand 
 scrawls of your son who has half broken your heart with selfish 
 undutifulness since; or a parcel of your own, breathing endless 
 ardour and love eternal, which were sent back by your mistress 
 when she married the Nabob — your mistress for whom you now 
 care no more than for Queen Elizabeth. Vows, love, promises, 
 confidences, gratitude, how queerly they read after a while! 
 There ought to be a law in Vanity Fair ordering the destruction 
 of every written document (except receipted tradesmen's bills) 
 after a certain brief and proper interval. Those quacks and 
 misanthropes who advertise indelible Japan ink should be made 
 to perish along with their wicked discoveries. The best ink for 
 Vanity Fair use would be one that faded utterly in a couple of 
 days, and left the paper clean and blank, so that you might 
 write on it to somebody else. 
 
 From Miss Pinkerton's the indefatigable Mrs. Bute followed 
 the track of Sharp and his daughter back to the lodgings in 
 Greek Street, which the defunct painter had occupied; and 
 where portraits of the landlady in white satin, and of the husband 
 in brass buttons, done by Sharp in lieu of a quarter's rent, still 
 decorated the parlour walls. Mrs. Stokes was a communicative 
 person, and quickly told all she knew about Mr. Sharp; how 
 dissolute and poor he was; how good-natured and amusing; 
 how he was always hunted by bailiffs and duns; how, to the 
 landlady's horror, though she never could abide the woman, he 
 did not marry his wife till a short time before her death;' and 
 what a queer little wild vixen his daughter was ; how she kept 
 them all. laughing with her fun and mimicry; how she used 
 to fetch the gin from the public-house, and was known in 
 all the studios in- the quarter — in brief, Mrs, Bute got such 
 a full account of her new niece's parentage, education, 
 and behaviour as would scarcely have pleased Rebecca, had 
 
1 82 Vanity Fair 
 
 the latter known that such inquiries were being made concern- 
 ing her. 
 
 Of all these industrious researches Miss Crawley had the full 
 benefit. Mrs. Rawdon Crawley was the daughter of an opera- 
 girl. She had danced herself. She had been a model to the 
 painters. She was brought up as became her mother's daughter. 
 She drank gin with her father, etc., etc. It was a lost woman who 
 was married to a lost man; and the moral to be inferred from 
 Mrs. Bute's tale was, that the knavery of the pair was irreme- 
 diable, and that no properly-conducted person should ever 
 notice them again. 
 
 These were the materials which prudent Mrs. Bute gathered 
 together in Park Lane, the provisions and ammunition, as it 
 were, with which she fortified the house against the siege which 
 she knew that Rawdon and his wife would lay to Miss Crawley. 
 
 But if a fault may be found with her arrangements, it is 
 tliis, that she was too eager; she managed rather too well; un- 
 doubtedly she made Miss Crawley more ill than was necessary; 
 and though the old invalid succumbed to her authority, it was 
 so harassing and severe, that the victim would be inclined to 
 escape at the very first chance which fell in her way. Managing 
 women, the ornaments of their sex, — women who order every- 
 thing for everybody, and know so much bettef" than any person 
 concerned what is good for their neighbours, don't sometimes 
 speculate upon the possibility of a domestic revolt, or upon 
 other extreme consequences resulting from their overstrained 
 authority. 
 
 Thus, for instance, Mrs. Bute, with the best intentions no 
 doubt in the world, and wearing herself to death as she did by 
 foregoing sleep, dinner, fresh air, for the sake of her invalid 
 sister-in-law, carried her conviction of the old lady's illness so 
 far that she almost managed her into her coffin. She pointed 
 out her sacrifices and their results one day to the constant 
 apothecary, Mr. Clump. 
 
 " I am sure, my dear Mr. Clump," she said, " no efforts of 
 mine have been wanting to restore our dear invalid, whom the 
 ingratitude of her nephew has laid on the bed of sickness. / 
 never shrink from personal discomfort: / never refuse to sacri- 
 fice myself." 
 
 " Your devotion, it must be confessed, is admirable," Mr. 
 Clump says, with a low bow; " but " 
 
 " I have scarcely closed my eyes since my arrival: I give up 
 
Miss Crawley at Nurse 183 
 
 sleep, health, every comfort, to my sense of duty. When my 
 poor James was in the small-pox, did I allow any hireling to 
 nurse him? No." ^ 
 
 " You did what became an excellent mother, my dear Madam 
 — the best of mothers; but " 
 
 " As the mother of a family and the wife of an English clergy- 
 man, I humbly trust that my principles are good," Mrs. Bute 
 said, with a happy solemnity of conviction; " and, as long as 
 Nature supports me, never, never, Mr. Clump, will I desert the 
 post of duty. Others may bring that grey head with sorrow to 
 the bed of sickness " (here Mrs. Bute, waving her hand, pointed 
 to one of old Miss Crawley's coffee-coloured fronts, which was 
 perched on a stand in the dressing-room), " but / will never quit 
 it. Ah, Mr. Clump! I fear, I know, that that couch needs 
 spiritual as well as medical consolation." 
 
 " What I was going to observe, my dear Madam," — here the 
 resolute Clump once more interposed with a bland air — " what 
 I was going to observe when you gave utterance to sentiments 
 which do you so much honour, was that I think you alarm your- 
 self needlessly about our kind friend, and sacrifice your own 
 health too prodigally in her favour." 
 
 *' I would lay down my life for my duty, or for any member 
 of my husband's family," Mrs. Bute interposed. 
 
 " Yes, madam, if need were; but we don't want Mrs. Bute 
 Crawley to be a martyr," Clump said gallantly. " Dr. Squills 
 and myself have both considered Miss Crawley's case with every 
 anxiety and care, as you may suppose. We see her low-spirited 
 and nervous; family events have agitated her." 
 
 " Her nephew will come to perdition," Mrs. Crawley cried. 
 
 " Have agitated her: and you arrived like a guardian angel, 
 my dear Madam, a positive guardian angel, I assure you, to 
 soothe her under the pressure of calamity. But Dr. Squills 
 and I were thinking that our amiable friend is not in such a state 
 as renders confinement to her bed necessary. She is depressed, 
 but this confinement perhaps adds to her depression. She 
 should have change, fresh air, gaiety; the most delightful 
 remedies in the pharmacopoeia," Mr. Clump said, grinning and 
 showing his handsome teeth. " Persuade her to rise, dear 
 Madam; drag her from her couch and her low spirits; insist 
 upon her taking little drives. They will restore the roses too to 
 your cheeks, if I may so speak to Mrs. Bute Crawley." 
 
 " The sight of her horrid nephew casually in the Park, where 
 I am told the wretch drives with the brazen partner of his 
 
184 Vanity Fair 
 
 crimes/"' Mrs. Bute said (letting the cat of selfishness out of the 
 bag of secrecy)^ " would cause her such a shock, that we should 
 have to bring her back to bed again. She must not go out, Mr. 
 Clump. She shall not go out as long as I remain to watch over 
 her. And as for my health, what matters it? I give it cheer- 
 iuUy, sir. I sacrifice it at the altar of my duty." 
 
 " Upon my word, Madam," Mr. Clump now said bluntly, " I 
 won't answer for her life if she remains locked up in that dark 
 room. She is so nervous that we may lose her any day; and if 
 you wish Captain Crawley to be her heir, I warn you frankl)^, 
 Madam, that you are doing your very best to serve him." 
 
 " Gracious mercy! is her life in danger.? " Mrs. Bute cried. 
 " Why, why, Mr. Clump, did you not inform me sooner? " 
 
 The night before, Mr. Clump and Dr. Squills had had a con- 
 sultation (over a bottle of wine at the house of Sir Lapin Warren, 
 whose lady was about to present him with a thirteenth blessing), 
 regarding Miss Crawley and her case. 
 
 " What a little harpy that woman from Hampshire is, Clump," 
 Squills remarked, " that has seized upon old Tilly Crawley. 
 Devilish good Madeira." 
 
 " What a fool Rawdon Crawley has been," Clump replied, 
 "to go and marry a governess! There was something about 
 the girl, too." 
 
 " Green eyes, fair skin, pretty figure, famous frontal develop- 
 ment," Squills remarked. " There is something about her; and 
 Crawley was a fool. Squills." 
 
 "A d fool — always was," the apothecary replied. 
 
 " Of course the old girl will fling him over," said the physician, 
 and after a pause added, " She'll cut up well, I suppose." 
 
 " Cut up," says Clump with a grin; " I wouldn't have her 
 cut up for two hundred a year." 
 
 " That Hampshire woman will kill her in two months. Clump, 
 my boy, if she stops about her," Dr. Squills said. " Old woman; 
 full feeder; nervous subject; palpitation of the heart; pressure 
 on the brain; apoplexy; off she goes. Get her up. Clump; get 
 her out: or I wouldn't give m.any weeks' purchase for your two 
 hundred a year." And it was acting upon this hint that the 
 worthy apothecary spoke with so much candour to Mrs. Bute 
 Crawley. 
 
 Having the old lady under hand ; in bed ; with nobody 
 near, Mrs. Bute had made more than one assault upon her, to 
 induce her to alter her will. But Miss Crawley's usual terrors 
 regarding death increased greatly when such dismal propositions 
 
Miss Crawley at Nurse. 185 
 
 were made to her, and Mrs. Bute saw that she must get her 
 patient into cheerful spirits and health before she could hope to 
 attain the pious object which she had in view. Whither to take 
 her was the next puzzle. The only place where she is not likely 
 to meet those odious Rawdons is at church, and that won't amuse 
 her, Mrs. Bute justly felt. " We must go and visit our beautiful 
 suburbs of London," she then thought. " I hear they are the 
 most picturesque in the world; " and so she had a sudden in- 
 terest for Hampstead, and Hornsey, and found that Dulwich 
 had great charms for her, and getting her victim into her 
 carriage, drove her to those rustic spots, beguiling the little 
 journeys with conversations about Rawdon and his wife, and 
 telling every story to the old lady which could add to her 
 indignation against this pair of reprobates. 
 
 Perhaps Mrs. Bute pulled the string unnecessarily tight. For 
 though she worked up Miss Crawley to a proper dislike of her 
 disobedient nephew, the invalid had a great hatred and secret 
 terror of her victimiser, and panted to escape from her. After a 
 brief space, she rebelled against Highgate and Hornsey utterly. 
 She would go into the Park. Mrs. Bute knew they would meet 
 the abominable Rawdon there, and she was right. One day in 
 the ring, Rawdon's stanhope came in sight; Rebecca was seated 
 by him. In the enemy's equipage Miss Crav/ley occupied her 
 usual place, with Mrs. Bute on her left, the poodle and Miss 
 Briggs on the back seat. It was a nervous moment, and 
 Rebecca's heart beat quick as she recognised the carriage; and 
 as the two vehicles crossed each other in a line, she clasped her 
 hands, and looked towards the spinster with a face of asronised 
 attachment and devotion. Rawdon himself trembled, and his 
 face grew purple behind his dyed mustachios. Only old Briggs 
 was moved in the other carriage, and cast her great eyes nervously 
 towards her old friends. Miss Crawley's bonnet was resolutely 
 turned towards the Serpentine. Mrs. Bute happened to be in 
 ecstasies with the poodle, and was calling him a little darling, 
 and a sweet little zoggy, and a pretty pet. The carriages moved 
 on, each in his line. 
 
 " Done, by Jove," Rawdon said to his wife. 
 
 "Try once more, Rawdon," Rebecca answered. "Could 
 not you lock your wheels into theirs, dearest? " 
 
 Rawdon had not the heart for that manoeuvre. When the 
 carriages met again, he stood up in his stanhope; he raised his 
 hand ready to doff his hat; he looked with all his eyes. But 
 this time Miss Crawley's face was not turned away; she and 
 
1 86 Vanity Fair 
 
 Mrs. Bute looked him full in the face, and cut their nephew 
 pitilessly. He sank back in his seat with an oath, and, striking 
 out of the ring, dashed away desperately homewards. 
 
 It was a gallant and decided triumph for Mrs. Bute. But 
 she felt the danger of many such meetings, as she saw the 
 evident nervousness of Miss Crawley; and she determined 
 that it was most necessary for her dear friend's health, that 
 they should leave town for a while, and recommended Brighton 
 very strongly. 
 
 CHAPTER XX 
 
 IN WHICH CAPTAIN DOBBIN ACTS AS THE MESSENGER 
 OF HYMEN 
 
 Without knowing how. Captain William Dobbin found himself 
 the great promoter, arranger, and manager of the match between 
 George Osborne and Amelia. But for him it never would have 
 taken place: he could not but confess as much to himself, and 
 smiled rather bitterly as he thought that he of all men in the 
 world should be the person upon whom the care of this marriage 
 had fallen. But though indeed the conducting of this negotia- 
 tion v/as about as painful a task as could be set to him, yet 
 when he had a duty to perform. Captain Dobbin was accustomed 
 to go through it without many words or much hesitation : and, 
 having made up his mind completely, that if Miss Sedley was 
 balked of her husband she would die of the disappointment, he 
 was determined to use all his best endeavours to keep her alive. 
 I forbear to enter into minute particulars of the interview 
 between George and Amelia, when the former was brought back 
 to the feet (or should we venture to say the arms ?) of his young 
 mistress by the intervention of his friend honest William. A 
 much harder heart than George's would have melted at the 
 sight of that sweet face so sadly ravaged by grief and despair, 
 and at the simple tender accents in which she told her little 
 broken-hearted story: but as she did not faint when her mother, 
 trembling, brought Osborne to her; and as she only gave relief 
 to her overcharged grief, by laying her head on her lover's 
 shoulder and there weeping for a while the most tender, copious, 
 and refreshing tears — old Mrs. Sedley, too, greatly relieved, 
 thought it was best to leave the young persons to themselves; 
 
Captain Dobbin as Messenger of Hymen 1 87 
 
 and so quitted Emmy crying over George's hand, and kissing 
 it humbly, as if he were her supreme chief and master, and as if 
 she were quite a guilty and unworthy person needing every 
 favour and grace from him. 
 
 This prostration and sweet unrepining obedience exquisitely 
 touched and flattered George Osborne. He saw a slave before 
 him in that simple yielding faithful creature, and his soul within 
 him thrilled secretly somehow at the knowledge of his power. 
 He would be generous-minded. Sultan as he was, and raise up 
 this kneeling Esther and make a queen of her : besides, her sad- 
 ness and beauty touched him as mucii as her submission, and 
 so he cheered her, and raised her up and forgave her, so to 
 speak. All her hopes and feelings, which were dying and wither- 
 ing, this her sun having been removed from her, bloomed again 
 and at once, its light being restored. You would scarcely have 
 recognised the beaming little face upon Amelia's pillow that 
 night as the one that was laid there the night before, so wan, so 
 lifeless, so careless of all round about. The honest Irish maid- 
 servant, delighted with the change, asked leave to' kiss her face 
 that had grown all of a sudden so rosy. Amelia put her arms 
 round the girl's neck and kissed her with all her heart, like a 
 child. She was little more. She had that night a sweet refresh- 
 ing sleep, like one — and what a spring of inexpressible happiness 
 as she woke in the morning sunshine ! 
 
 " He will be here again to-day," Amelia thought. " He is 
 the greatest and best of men." And the fact is, that George 
 thought he was one of the generousest creatures alive : and that 
 he was making a tremendous sacrifice in marrying this young 
 creature. 
 
 While she and Osborne were having their delightful tete-a-tete 
 above stairs. Old Mrs. Sedley and Captain Dobbin were convers- 
 ing below upon the state of the affairs, and the chances and 
 future arrangements of the young people. Mrs. Sedley having 
 brought the two lovers together and left them embracing each 
 other with all their might, like a true woman, was of opinion 
 that no power on earth would induce Mr. Sedley to consent to 
 the match between his daughter and the son of a man who had 
 so shamefully, wickedly, and monstrously treated him. And 
 she told a long story about happier days and their earlier 
 splendours, when Osborne lived in a very humble way in the 
 New Road, and his wife was too glad to receive some of Jos's 
 little baby things, with which Mrs. Sedley accommodated her 
 at the birth of one of Osborne's own children. The fiendish 
 
1 88 Vanity Fair 
 
 ingratitude of that man^ she was sure, had broken Mr. S.'s 
 heart: and as for a marriage, he would never, never, never, 
 never consent. 
 
 " They must run away together, Ma'am," Dobbin said, 
 laughing, " and follow the example of Captain Rawdon Crawley, 
 and Miss Emmy's friend the little governess." Was it possible? 
 Well, she never! Mrs. Sedley was all excitement about this 
 news. She wished that Blenkinsop were here to hear it : 
 Blenkinsop always mistrusted that Miss Sharp. — ^What an 
 escape Jos had had ! and she described the already well-known 
 love-passages betv/een Rebecca and the Collector of Boggley 
 WoUah. 
 
 It was not, however, Mr. Sedley's wrath which Dobbin feared, 
 so much as that of the other parent concerned, and he owned 
 that he had a very considerable doubt and anxiety respecting 
 the behaviour of the black-browed old tyrant of a Pvussia mer- 
 chant in Russell Square. He has forbidden the ma^tch peremp- 
 torily, Dobbin thought. He knew what a savage determined 
 man Osbornd was, and how he stuck by his word. "The only 
 chance George has of reconcilement," argued his friend, " is 
 by distinguishing himself in the coming campaign. If he dies 
 they both go together. If he fails in distinction— what then? 
 He has some money from his mother, I have heard — enough 
 to purchase his majority — or he must sell out and go and dig 
 in Canada, or rough it in a cottage in the country." With 
 such a partner Dobbin thought he would not mind Siberia 
 — and, strange to say, this absurd and utterly imprudent 
 young fellow never for a moment considered that the want 
 of means to keep a nice carriage and horses, and of an income 
 which should enable its possessors to entertain their friends 
 genteelly, ought to operate as bars to the union of George and 
 Miss Sedley. 
 
 It was these weighty considerations which made him think 
 too that the marriage should take place as quickly as possible. 
 Was he anxious himself, I wonder, to have it over ? — as people, 
 when death has occurred, like to press forward the funeral, or 
 when a parting is resolved upon, hasten it. It is certain that 
 Mr. Dobbin, having taken the ma,tter in hand, v/as most extra- 
 ordinarily eager in the conduct of it. He urged on George the 
 necessity of immediate action: he showed the chances of recon- 
 ciliation with his father, which a fa\ ourable mention of his name 
 in the Gazette must bring about. If need were lie would go 
 himseK and. brave both - the fathers in -the- business. . At -all- 
 
Captain Dobbin as Messenger of Hymen 189 
 
 events, he besought George to go through with it before the 
 orders came, which everybody expected, for the departure of 
 the regiment from England on foreign service. 
 
 Bent upon these hymeneal projects, and with the applause 
 and consent of Mrs. Sedley, who did not care to break the matter 
 personally to her husband, Mr. Dobbin went to seek John 
 Sedley at his house of call in the City, the Tapioca Coffee- 
 House, where, since his own offices were shut up, and fate had 
 overtaken him., the poor broken-down old gentleman used to 
 betake himself daily, and write letters and receive them, and 
 tie them up into mysterious bundles, several of which he carried 
 in the flaps of his coat. I don't know anything more dismal 
 than that business and bustle and mystery of a ruined man: 
 those letters from the wealthy which he shows you : those worn 
 greasy documents promising support and offering condolence 
 which he places wistfully before you, and on which he builds 
 his hopes of restoration and future fortune. My beloved reader 
 has no doubt in the course of his experience been waylaid by 
 many such a luckless companion. He takes you into the corner; 
 he has his bundle of papers out of his gaping coat pocket; and 
 the taps off, and the string in his mouth, and the favourite letters 
 selected and laid before you; and who does not know the sad 
 eager half-crazy look which he fixes on you with his hopeless 
 eyes? 
 
 Changed into a man of this sort, Dobbin found the once florid, 
 jovial, and prosperous John Sedley. His coat, that used to be 
 so glossy and trim, was white at the seams, and the buttons 
 showed the copper. His face had fallen in, and was unshorn; 
 his frill and neckcloth hung limp under his bagging waistcoat. 
 When he used to treat the boys in old days at a coffee-house, he 
 would shout and laugh louder than anybody there, and have all 
 the waiters skipping round him; it was quite painful to see how 
 humble and civil he was to John of the Tapioca, a blear-eyed 
 old attendant in dingy stockings and cracked pumps, whose 
 business it was to serve glasses of wafers, and bumpers of ink in 
 pewter, and slices of paper to the frequenters of this dreary 
 house of entertainment, where nothing else seemed to be con- 
 sumed. As for William Dobbin, whom he had tipped repeatedly 
 in his youth, and who had been the old gentleman's butt on a 
 thousand occasions, old Sedley gave his hand to him in a very 
 hesitating humble manner now, and called him " Sir." A feel- 
 ing of shame and remorse took possession of William Dobbin as 
 the broken old man so received and addressed him, as if he him- 
 
190 Vanity Fair 
 
 self had been somehow guilty of the misfortunes which had 
 brought Sedley so low. 
 
 " I am very glad to see you, Captain Dobbin, sir," says he, 
 after a skulking look or two at his visitor (whose lanky figure 
 and military appearance caused some excitement likewise to 
 twinkle in the blear eyes of the waiter in the cracked dancing- 
 pumps, and awakened the old lady in black, who dozed among 
 the mouldy old coffee-cups in the bar). " How is the worthy 
 alderman, and my lady, your excellent mother, sir? " He 
 looked round at the waiter as he said, " My lady," as much as 
 to say, " Hark ye, John, I have friends still, and persons of rank 
 and reputation, too." " Are you come to do anything in my 
 way, sir? My young friends Dale & Spiggot do all my business 
 for me now, until my new offices are ready; for I'm only here 
 temporarily, you know. Captain. What can we do for you, sir ? 
 Will you like to take anytlung? " 
 
 Dobbin, with a great deal of hesitation and stuttering, pro- 
 tested that he was not in the least hungry or thirsty; that he 
 had no business to transact; that he only came to ask if Mr. 
 Sedley was well, and to shake hands with an old friend ; and, 
 he added, with a desperate perversion of truth, " My mother is 
 very well — that is, she's been very unwell, and is only waiting 
 for the first fine day to go out and call upon Mrs. Sedley. How 
 is Mrs. Sedley, sir? I hope she's quite well." And here he 
 paused, reflecting on his own consummate hypocrisy ; for the 
 day was as fine, and the sunshine as bright as it ever is in Coffin 
 Court, where the Tapioca Coffee-House is situated; and Mr. 
 Dobbin remembered that he had seen Mrs. Sedley himself only 
 an hour before, having driven Osborne down to Fulham in his 
 gig, and left him there ieie-a-iele with Miss Amelia. 
 
 " My wife will be very happy to see her ladyship," Sedley 
 replied, pulling out his papers. " I've a very kind letter here 
 from your father, sir, and beg my respectful compliments to him. 
 Lady D. will find us in rather a smaller house than we were 
 accustomed to receive our friends in; but it's snug, and the 
 change of air does good to my daughter, who was suffering in 
 town rather — you remember little Emmy, sir? — yes, suffering 
 a good deal." The old gentleman's e3i^es were wandering as he 
 spoke, and he was thinking of something else, as he sate thrum- 
 ming on his papers and fumbling at the worn red tape. 
 
 "You're a military man," he went on; "I ask you, Bill 
 Dobbin, could any man ever have speculated upon the return of 
 that Corsican scoundrel from Elba? When the allied sovereigns 
 
Captain Dobbin as Messenger of Hymen 191 
 
 were here last year^ and we gave 'em that dinner in the City, sir, 
 and we saw the Temple of Concord, and the fireworks, and the 
 Chinese bridge in St. James's Park, could any sensible man sup- 
 pose that peace wasn't really concluded, after we'd actually 
 sung Te Deum for it, sir? I ask you, William, could I suppose 
 that the Emperor of Austria was a damned traitor — a traitor, 
 and nothing more? I don't mince words — a double-faced in- 
 fernal traitor and schemer, who meant to have his son-in-law 
 back all along. And I say that the escape of Boney from Elba 
 was a damned imposition and plot, sir, in which half the powers 
 of Europe were concerned, to bring the funds down, and to ruin 
 this country. That's why I'm here, William. That's why my 
 name's in the Gazette. Why, sir? — because I trusted the 
 Emperor of Russia and the Prince Regent. Look here. Look 
 at my papers. Look what the funds were on the ist of March 
 — what the French fives were when I bought for the account. 
 And what they're at now. There was collusion, sir, or that 
 villain never would have escaped. Where was the English 
 Commissioner who allowed him to get away? He ought to 
 be shot, sir — brought to a court-martial and shot, by Jove." 
 
 " We're going to hunt Boney out, sir," Dobbin said, rather 
 alarmed at the fury of the old man, the veins of whose forehead 
 began to swell, and who sate drumming his papers with his 
 clenched fist. " We are going to hunt him out, sir — the Duke's 
 in Belgium already, and we expect marching orders every day." 
 
 " Give him no quarter. Bring back the villain's head, sir. 
 Shoot the coward down, sir," Sedley roared. " I'd enlist myself, 
 
 by ; but I'm a broken old man — ruined by that damned 
 
 scoundrel — and by a parcel of swindling thieves in this country 
 whom I made, sir, and who are rolling in their carriages now," 
 he added, with a break in his voice. 
 
 Dobbin was not a little affected by the sight of this once kind 
 old friend, crazed almost with misfortune and raving with senile 
 anger. Pity the fallen gentleman: you to whom money and* 
 fair repute are the chief est good; and so, surely, are they in 
 Vanity Fair. 
 
 " Yes," he continued, " there are some vipers that you warm, 
 and they sting you afterwards. There are some beggars that 
 you put on horseback, and they're the first to ride you down. 
 You know whom I mean, William Dobbin, my boy. I mean a 
 parse-proud villain in Russell Square, whom I knew without a 
 shilling, and whom I pray and hope to see a beggar as he was 
 when I befriended him." 
 
J 92 Vanity Fair 
 
 " I have heard something of this, sir, from my friend George," 
 Dobbin said, anxious to come to his point. "The quarrel 
 between you and his father has cut him up a great deal, sir. 
 Indeed, I'm the bearer of a message from him." 
 
 " Oh, that's your errand, is it? " cried the old man, jumping 
 up. " What ! perhaps he condoles with me, does he ? Very 
 kind of him, the stiff-backed prig, with his dandified airs and 
 West End swagger. He's hankering about my house, is he still ? 
 If my son had the courage of a man, he'd shoot him.. He's as 
 big a villain as his father. I won't have his name mentioned in 
 my house. I curse the day that ever I let him into it ; and I'd 
 rather see my daughter dead at my feet than married to him." 
 
 " His father's harshness is not George's fault, sir. Your 
 daughter's love for him is as much your doing as his. Who are 
 you, that you are to play with two young people's affections and 
 break their hearts at your will ? " 
 
 " Recollect it's not his father that breaks the match off," old 
 Sedley cried out. " It's I that forbid it. That family and mine 
 are separated for ever. I'm fallen low, but not so low as that: 
 no, no. And so you may tell the whole race — son, and father, 
 and sisters, and all." 
 
 " It's my belief, sir, that you have not the power or the right 
 to separate those two," Dobbin answered in a low voice; " and 
 that if you don't give your daughter your consent it will be her 
 duty to marry without it. There's no reason she should die or 
 live miserably because you are wrong-headed. To my think- 
 ing, she's just as much married as if the banns had been read 
 in all the churches in London. And what better answer can 
 there be to Osborne's charges against you, as charges there are, 
 than that his son claims to enter your family and marry your 
 daughter? " 
 
 A light of something like satisfaction seemed to break over 
 old Sedley as this point was put to him: but he still persisted 
 ' that with his consent the marriage between Amelia and George 
 should never take place. 
 
 " W^e must do it without," Dobbin said, smiling, and told Mr. 
 Sedley, as he had told Mrs. Sedley in the day, before, the story 
 of Rebecca's elopement with Captain Crawley. It evidently 
 amused the old gentleman. " You're terrible fellows, you Cap- 
 tains," said he, tying up his papers ; and his face wore something 
 like a smile upon it, to the astonishment of the blear-eyed waiter 
 who now entered, and had never seen such an expression upon 
 Sedley's countenance since he had used the dismal coffee-house. 
 
Captain Dobbin as Messenger of Hymen 193 
 
 . The idea of hitting his enemy Osborne such a blow soothed, 
 perhaps, the old gentleman : and, their colloquy presently end- 
 ing, he and Dobbin parted pretty good friends. 
 
 " My sisters say she has diamonds as big as pigeons' eggs," 
 George said, laughing. " How they must set off her com- 
 plexion ! A perfect illumination it must be when her jewels are 
 on her neck. Her jet-black hair is as curly as Sam.bo's. I dare- 
 say she wore a nose-ring when she went to court; and with a 
 plume of feathers in her top-knot she would look a perfect Belle 
 Sauvage." 
 
 George, in conversation with Amelia, was rallying the appear 
 ance of a young lady of whom his father and sisters had lately 
 made the acquaintance, and v/ho was an object of vast respect 
 to the Russell Square family. She was reported to have I 
 don't know how ma,ny pla.ntations in the V/est Indies ; a deal of 
 m.oney in the funds; and three stars to her name in the East 
 India stockholders' list. She had a mansion in Surrey, and a 
 house in Portland Place. The name of the rich West India 
 heiress had been mentioned with applause in the Morning Post. 
 Mrs. Haggistoun, Colonel Haggistoun's widow, her relative, 
 " chaperoned " her, paid kept her house. She was just from 
 school, where she had completed her education, and George and 
 his sisters had met her at an evening party at old Huiker's 
 house, Devonshire Place (Hulker, Bullock & Co. were long the 
 correspondents of her house in the West Indies), and the girls 
 had made the most cordial advances to her, which the heiress 
 had received with great good humour. An Oi*ph.an in her 
 position — with her money — so interesting! the i\Iisses Osborne 
 said. They were full of their new friend when they returned 
 from the Hulker ball to Miss Wirt, their companion; they had 
 made arrangements for continually meeting, and had the 
 carriage and drove to see her the very next day. Mrs. lie.ggis- 
 toun. Colonel Haggistoun's widow, a relation of Lord Binkie, 
 and always talking of him, struck the dear unsophisticated girls 
 as rather haughty, and too much inclined to talk about her 
 great relations: but Rhoda was everything they could wish — 
 the frankest, kindest, most agreeable creature — wanting a Uttle 
 polish, but so good-natured. The girls Christian-named each 
 other at once. 
 
 " You should have seen her dress for court, Emmy," Osborne 
 cried, laughing. " She came to my sisters to show it off, before 
 she was presented in state by my Lady Binkie, the Haggis- 
 
 G 298 
 
194 U Vanity Fair 
 
 toun's kinswoman. She's related to every one, that Haggis- 
 toun. Her diamonds blazed out like Vauxhall on the night we 
 were there. (Do you remember Vauxhall, Emmy, and Jos 
 singing to his dearest diddle-diddle-darling ?) Diamonds and 
 mahogany, my dear! think what an advantageous contrast — 
 and the white feathers in her hair — I mean in her wool. She 
 had earrings like chandeliers; you might have lighted 'em up, 
 by Jove — and a yellow satin train that streeled after her like the 
 tail of a comet." 
 
 " How old is she ? " asked Emmy, to whom George was rattling 
 away regarding this dark paragon, on the morning of their re- 
 union — rattling away as no other man in the world surely could. 
 
 " Why, th6 Black Princess, though she has only just left 
 school, must be two or three and twenty. And you should see 
 the hand she writes ! Mrs. Colonel Haggistoun usually writes 
 her letters, but in a moment of confidence she put pen to paper 
 for my sisters; she spelt satin satting, and Saint James's, Saint 
 Jams." 
 
 " Why, surely it must be Miss Swartz, the parlour-boarder," 
 Emmy said, remembering that good-natured young mulatto 
 girl, who had been so hysterically affected when Amelia left 
 Miss Pinkerton's academy. 
 
 " The very name," George said. " Her father was a German 
 Jew — -a slave-owner they say — connected with the Cannibal 
 Islands in some way or other. He died last year, and Miss 
 Pinkerton has finished her education. She can play two pieces 
 on the piano; she knows three songs; she can write when Mrs. 
 Haggistoun is by to spell for her; and Jane and Maria already 
 have got to love her as a sister." 
 
 " I wish they would have loved me," said Emmy, wistfully. 
 " They were always very cold to me." 
 
 irry[y (jgg^j. child, they would have loved you if you had had 
 two hundred thousand pounds," George replied. " That is the 
 wa}^ in which they have been brought up. Ours is a ready- 
 money society. We live among bankers and City big-wigs, and 
 be hanged to them, and every man, as he talks to you, is jingling 
 his guineas in his pocket. There is that jackass Fred Bullock 
 is going to marry Maria — there's Goldmore, the East India 
 Director, there's Dipley, in the tallow trade — our trade," 
 George said with an uneasy laugh and a blush. " Curse the 
 whole pack of money-grubbing vulgarians! X fall asleep at 
 their great heavy dinners. I feel ashamed in my father's great 
 jtupid parties. I've been accustomed to live with gentlemen. 
 
A Quarrel about an Heiress 195 
 
 and men of the world and fashion^ Emmy^ not with a parcel of 
 turtle-fed tradesmen. Dear little woman, you are the only 
 person of our set who ever looked, or thought, or spoke like a 
 lady: and you do it because you're an angel and can't help 
 its Don't remonstrate. You are the only lady. Didn't IVIiss 
 Crawley remark it, who has lived in the best company in Europe ? 
 And as for Crawley, of the Life Guards, hang it, he's a fine 
 fellow: and I like him for marrying the girl he has chosen." 
 
 Amelia admired Mr. Crawley very much, too, for this; and 
 trusted Rebecca would be happy with him, and hoped (with a 
 laugh) Jos would be consoled. And so the pair went on prattling, 
 as in quite early days; Amelia's confidence being perfectly 
 restored to her, though she expressed a great deal of pretty 
 jealousy about Mss Swartz, and professed to be dreadfully 
 frightened — ^like a hypocrite as she was — ^lest George should 
 forget her for the heiress and her money and her estates in Saint 
 Kitts's. But the fact is, she was a great deal too happy to have 
 fears or doubts or misgivings of any sort: and having George at 
 her side again, was not afraid of any heiress or beauty, or indeed 
 of any sort of dangers 
 
 "Wh.en Captain Dobbin came back in the afternoon to these 
 people — ^which he did with a great deal of sympathy for them — 
 it did his heart good to see how Amelia had grown young again 
 — ^hoY/ she laughed, and chirped, and sang familiar old songs at 
 the piano, which were only interrupted by the bell from without 
 proclaiming Mr. Sedley's return from the City, before whom 
 George received a signal to retreat. 
 
 Beyond the first smile of recognition — and even that x^zs an 
 hypocrisy, for she thought his arrival rather provoking — Mss 
 Sedley did not once notice Dobbin during his visit. But he was 
 content, so that he saw her happy; and thankful to have been 
 the means of making her so. 
 
 CHAPTER XXI 
 
 A QUARREL ABOUT AN HEIRESS 
 
 Love may be felt for any young lady endowed with such quali- 
 ties as Miss Swartz possessed; and a great dream of ambition 
 entered into old Mr. Osborne's soul, which she was to realise. 
 
196 Vanity Fair 
 
 He encouraged, with the utmost enthusiasm and friendUness, 
 his daughters' amiable attachment to the young heiress, and 
 protested that it gave him the sincerest pleasure as a father to 
 see the love of his girls so well disposed. 
 
 " You won't fiild;" he would say to Miss Rhoda, " that splen- 
 dour and rank to which you are accustomed at the West End, 
 my dear Miss, at our humble mansion in Russell Square. My 
 daughters are plain, disinterested girls, but their hearts are in 
 the right place, and they've conceived an attachment for you 
 which does them honour — I say, which does them honour. I'm 
 a plain, simple, humble British merchant — an honest one, as my 
 respected friends Hulker & Bullock will vouch, who were the 
 correspondents of your late lamented father. You'll find us a 
 united, simple, happy, and I think I may say respected, family 
 —a plain table, a plain people, but a warm welcome, my dear 
 Miss Rhoda — ^Rhoda, let me say, for my heart warms to you, it 
 does really. I'm a frank man, and I like you. A glass of cham- 
 pagne ! Hicks, champagne to Miss Swartz." 
 
 There is little doubt that old Osborne believed all he said, and 
 that the girls were quite earnest in their protestations of affection 
 for Miss Swartz. People in Vanity Fair fasten on to rich folks 
 quite naturally. If the simplest people are disposed to look not 
 a little kindly on great Prosperity (for I defy any member of the 
 British public to say that the notion of Wealth has not some- 
 thing awful and pleasing to him; and you, if you are told that 
 the man next you at dinner has got half a million, not to look 
 at him with a certain interest); — if the simple look benevolently 
 on mone)^, how much more do your old worldlings regard itl 
 Their affections rush out to meet and welcome money. Their 
 kind sentiments awaken spontaneously towards the interesting 
 possessors of it. I know some respectable people who don't 
 consider themselves at liberty to indulge in friendship for any 
 individual who has not a certain competency, or place in society. 
 They give a loose to their feelings on proper occasions. And the 
 proof is, that the major part of the Osborne family, who had not, 
 in fifteen years, been able to get up a hearty regard for Amelia 
 Sedley, became as fond of Miss Swartz in the course of a single 
 evening as the most romantic advocate of friendship at first sight 
 could desire. 
 
 What a match for George she'd be (the sisters and Miss Wirt 
 agreed), and how much better than that insignificant little 
 Amelia! Such a dashing young fellow as he is, with his good 
 looks, rank, and accomplishmxCnts, would be the very husband 
 
A viuarrel about an Heiress 1 97 
 
 for her. Visions of balls in Portland Place, presentations at 
 court, and introductions to half the peerage, filled the minds of 
 the young ladies; who talked of nothing but George and his 
 grand acquaintances to their beloved new friend. 
 
 Old Osborne thought she would be a great match, too, for his 
 son. He should leave the army; he should go into Parliament ; 
 he should cut a figure in the fashion and in the state. His blood 
 boiled with honest British exultation, as he saw the name of 
 Osborne ennobled in the person of his son, and thought that 
 he might be the progenitor of a glorious line of baronets. He 
 worked in the City and on 'Change, until he knew everything 
 relating to the fortune of the heiress, how her money was placed, 
 and where her estates lay. Young Fred Bullock, one of his 
 chief informants, would have liked to make a bid for her himself 
 (it was so the young banker expressed it), only he was booked 
 to Maria Osborne. But not being able to secure her as a wife, 
 the disinterested Fred quite approved of her as a sister-in-law. 
 " Let George cut in directly and win her," was his advice. 
 " Strike while the iron's hot, you know — while she's fresh to the 
 
 town : in a few weeks some d fellow from the West End will 
 
 come in with a title and a rotten rent-roll and cut all us City men 
 out, as Lord Fitzrufus did last year with Miss Grogram, who 
 was actually engaged to Podder^ of Podder & Brown's. The 
 sooner it is done the better, Mr. Osborne; them's my sentiments," 
 the wag said ; though, when Osborne had left the bank parlour, 
 Mr. Bullock remembered Amelia, and what a pretty girl she was, 
 and how attached to George Osborne; and he gave up at least 
 ten seconds of his valuable time to regretting the misfortune 
 which had befallen that unlucky young woman. 
 
 While thus George Osborne's good feelings, and his good 
 friend and genius, Dobbin, were carrying back the truant to 
 Amelia's feet, George's parent and sisters were arranging this 
 splendid match for him, which they never dreamed he would 
 resist. 
 
 When the elder Osborne gave what he called " a hint," there 
 was no possibihty for the most obtuse to mistake his meaning. 
 He called kicking a footman downstairs, a hint to the latter to 
 leave his service. With his usual frankness and deHcacy he 
 told Mrs. Haggistoun that he would give her a cheque for five 
 thousand pounds on the day his son was married to her ward; 
 and called that proposal a hint, and considered it a very dex- 
 terous piece of diplomacy. He gave George finally such another 
 hint regarding the heiress; and ordered him to marry her out 
 
198 Vanity Fair 
 
 of hand, as he would have ordered his butler to draw a cork, or 
 his clerk to write a letter. 
 
 This imperative hint disturbed George a good deal. He was 
 in the very first enthusiasm and delight of his second courtship 
 of Amelia, which was inexpressibly sweet to him. The contrast 
 of her manners and appearance with those of the heiress, made 
 the idea of the union with the latter appear doubly ludicrous and 
 odious. Carriages and opera-boxes, thought he; fancy being 
 seen in them by the side of such a mahogany charmer as that! 
 Add to all, that the junior Osborne was quite as obstinate as the 
 senior: when he wanted a thing, quite as firm in his resolution 
 to get it ; and quite as violent when angered, as his father in his 
 most stern moments. 
 
 On the first day when his father formally gave him the hint 
 that he was to place his affections at Miss Swartz's feet, George 
 temporised with the old gentleman. " You should have thought 
 of the matter sooner, sir," he said. " It can't be done now, 
 when we're expecting every day to go on foreign service. Wait 
 till my return, if I do return; " and then he represented, that 
 the time when the regiment was daily expecting to quit England, 
 was exceedingly ill-^osen: that the few days or weeks during 
 which they were still to remain at home, must be devoted to 
 business and not to love-making : time enough for that when he 
 came home with his majority; " for, I promise you," said he, 
 with a satisfied air, " that one way or other you shall read the 
 name of George Osborne in the Gazette." 
 
 The father's reply to this was founded upon the information 
 which he had got in the City; that the West End chaps would 
 infallibly catch hold of the heiress if any delay took place : that 
 if he didn't marry Miss S., he might at least have an engagement 
 in writing, to come into effect when he returned to England ; and 
 that a man who could get ten thousand a year by staying at 
 home, was a fool to risk his life abroad. 
 
 " So that you would have me shown up as a coward, sir, and 
 our name dishonoured for the sake of Miss Swartz's money," 
 George interposed. 
 
 This remark staggered the old gentleman; but as he had to 
 reply to it, and as his mind was nevertheless made up, he said, 
 " You will dine here to-morrow, sir, and every day Miss Swartz 
 comes, you will be here to pay your respects to her. If you want 
 for money, call upon Mr. Chopper." Thus a new obstacle was 
 in George's way, to interfere with his plans regarding Amelia; 
 and about which he and Dobbin had more than one confi- 
 
A Quarrel about an Heiress 199 
 
 dential consultation. His friend's opinion respecting the line 
 of conduct which he ought to pursue, we know already. And 
 as for Osborne, when he was once bent on a thing, a fresh 
 obstacle or two only rendered him the more resolute. 
 
 The dark object of the conspiracy into which the chiefs of the 
 Osborne family had entered, was quite ignorant of all their plans 
 regarding her (which, strange to say, her friend and chaperon 
 did not divulge), and, taking all the young ladies' flattery for 
 genuine sentiment, and being, as we have before had occasion to 
 show, of a very warm and impetuous nature, responded to their 
 affection with quite a tropical ardour. And if the truth may be 
 told, I daresay that she too had some selfish attraction in the 
 Russel Square house; and in a word, thought George Osborne 
 a very nice young man. His whiskers had made an impression 
 upon her, on the very first night she beheld them at the ball at 
 Messrs. Hulkers'; and, as we know, she was not the first woman 
 who had been charmed by them. George had an air at once 
 swaggering and melancholy, languid and fierce. He looked Hke 
 a man who had passions, secrets, and private harrowing griefs 
 and adventures. His voice was rich and deep. He would say it 
 was a warm evening, or ask his partner to take an ice, with a tone 
 as sad and confidential as if he were breaking her mother's death 
 to her, or preluding a declaration of love. He trampled over all 
 the young bucks of his father's circle, and was the hero among 
 those third-rate men. Some few sneered at him and hated him. 
 Some, like Dobbin, fanatically admired him. And his whiskers 
 had begun to do their work, and to curl themselves round the 
 affections of Miss Swartz. 
 
 Whenever there was a chance of meeting him in Russell Square, 
 that simple and good-natured young woman was quite in a 
 flurry to see her dear Misses Osborne. She went to great ex- 
 penses in new gowns, and bracelets, and bonnets, and in pro- 
 digious feathers. She adorned her person with her utmost skill 
 to please the conqueror, and exhibited all her simple accomplish- 
 ments to win his favour. The girls would ask her, with the 
 greatest gravity, for a little music, and she would sing her three 
 songs and play her two little pieces as often as ever they asked, 
 and with an always increasing pleasure to herself. During these 
 delectable entertainments, Miss Wirt and the chaperon sate by, 
 and conned over the peerage, and talked about the nobility. 
 
 The day after George had his hint from his father, and a short 
 time before the hour of dinner, he was loIlin<2: uDon a sofa in the 
 
 ? Ox 
 
200 Vanity Fair 
 
 drawing-room in a very becoming and perfectly natural attitude 
 of melancholy. He had been, at his father's request, to Mr. 
 Chopper in the City (the old gentleman, though he gave great 
 sums to his son, would never specify any fixed allowance for him, 
 and rewarded him only as he was in the humour). He had then 
 been to pass three hours with Amelia, his dear little Amelia, at 
 Fulham; and he came home to find his sisters spread in starched 
 muslin in the drawing-room, the dowagers cackling in the back- 
 ground, and honest Swartz in her favourite amber-coloured satin 
 with turquoise bracelets, countless rings, flowers, feathers, and 
 all sorts of tags and gimcracks, about as elegantly decorated as 
 a she chimney-sweep on May-day. 
 
 The girls, after vain attempts to engage him in conversation, 
 talked about fashions and the last drawing-room until he was 
 perfectly sick of their chatter. He contrasted their behaviour 
 with little Emmy's — their shrill voices with her tender ringing 
 tones; their attitudes and their elbows and their starch, with 
 her humble soft movements and modest graces. Poor Swartz 
 was seated in a place where Emmy had been accustomed to sit. 
 Her bejewelled hands lay sprawling in her amber satin lap. Her 
 tags and earrings twinkled, and her big eyes rolled about. She 
 was doing nothing with perfect contentment, and thinking her- 
 self charming. Anything so becoming as the satin the sisters 
 had never seen. 
 
 " Dammy," George said to a confidential friend, " she looked 
 like a China doll, which has nothing to do all day but to grin 
 and wag its head. By Jove, Will, it was all I could do to prevent 
 myself from throwing the sofa-cushion at her." He restrained 
 that exliibition of sentiment, however. 
 
 The sisters began to play the Battle of Prague. " Stop that 
 
 d thing," George howled out in a fury from the sofa. " It 
 
 makes me mad. You play us something. Miss Swartz, do. 
 Sing something, anything but the Battle of Prague." 
 
 " Shall I sing Blue-Eyed Mary, or the air from the Cabinet? " 
 Miss Swartz asked. 
 
 " That sweet thing from the Cabinet," the sisters said. 
 
 " We've had that," replied the misanthrope on the sofa. 
 
 " I can sing Fluvy du Tajy," Swartz said, in a meek voice, 
 " if I had the words." It was the last of the worthy young 
 woman's collection. 
 
 "Oh, Fleuve du Tage," Miss Maria cried; "we have the 
 song," and went off to fetch the book in which it was. 
 
 Now it happened that this song, then in the height of the 
 
A Quarrel about an Heiress 201 
 
 fashion, had been given to the young ladies by a young friend 
 of theirs, whose name was on the title, and Miss Swartz, having 
 concluded the ditty with George's applause (for he remembered 
 that it was a favourite of Amelia's), was hoping for an encore 
 perhaps, and fiddling with the leaves of the music, when her 
 eye fell upon the title, and she saw " Amelia Sedley " written 
 in the corner. 
 
 " Lor ! " cried Miss Swartz, spinning swiftly round on the 
 music-stool, " is it my Amelia? Amelia that was at Miss P.'s 
 at Hammersmith ? I know it is. It's her, and — ^Tell me about 
 her — ^where is she ? " 
 
 " Don't mention her," Miss Maria Osborne said hastily. 
 " Her family has disgraced itself. Her father cheated papa, 
 and as for her, she is never to be mentioned here.'' This was 
 Miss Maria's return for George's rudeness about the Battle of 
 Prague. 
 
 " Are you a friend of Amelia's ? " George said, bouncing up. 
 " God bless you for it, Miss Swartz. Don't believe what the 
 girls say. She's not to blame at any rate. She's the best " 
 
 " You know you're not to speak about her, George," cried 
 Jane. " Papa forbids it." 
 
 " Who's to prevent me? " George cried out. " I will speak 
 of her. I say she's the best, the kindest, the gentlest, the 
 sweetest girl in England ; and that, bankrupt or no, m}'' sisters 
 are not fit to hold candles to her. If you like her, go and see 
 her. Miss Swartz; she wants friends now; and I say, God bless 
 everybody who befriends her. Anybody who speaks kindly of 
 her is my friend ; anybody who speaks against her is my enemy. 
 Thank you. Miss Swartz; " and he went up and wrung her 
 hand. 
 
 " George! George! " one of the sisters cried imploringly. 
 
 " I say," George said fiercely, " I thank everybody who 
 
 loves Amelia Sed " He stopped. Old Osborne was in the 
 
 room with a face livid with rage, and eyes like hot coals. 
 
 Though George had stopped in his sentence, yet, his blood 
 being up, he was not to be cowed by all the generations of 
 Osborne; rallying instantly, he rephed to the bullying look of 
 his father, with another so indicative of resolution and defiance, 
 that the elder m.an quailed in his turn, and looked away. He 
 felt that the tussle was coming. " Mrs. Haggistoun, let me 
 take you down to dinner," he said. " Give your arm to Miss 
 Swartz, George," and they marched. 
 
 " Miss Swartz, I love Amelia, and we've been engaged almost 
 *G 298 
 
202 Vanity Fair 
 
 all our lives/' Osborne said to his partner; and during all the 
 dinner, George rattled on with a volubility which surprised 
 himself, and made his father doubly nervous for the fight which 
 was to take place as soon as the ladies were gone. 
 
 The difference between the pair was, that while the father 
 was violent and a bully, the son had thrice the nerve and courage 
 of the parent, and could not merely make an attack, but resist 
 it; and finding that the m.oment was now come when the contest 
 between him and his father was to be decided, he took his dinner 
 with perfect coolness and appetite before the engagement began. 
 Old Osborne, on the contrary, was nervous, and drank much. 
 He floundered in his conversation with the ladies, his neigh- 
 bours: George's coolness only rendering him more angry. It 
 made him half mad to see the calm way in which George, flap- 
 ping his napkin, and with a swaggering bow, opened the door 
 for the ladies to leave the room; and filling himself a glass of 
 vnne, smacked it, and looked his father full in the face, as if to 
 say, " Gentlemen of the Guard, fire first." The old man also 
 took a supply of ammunition, but his decanter clinked against 
 the glass as he tried to fill it. 
 
 After giving a great heave, and with a purple choking face he 
 then began. " How dare you, sir, mention that person's name 
 before Miss Swartz to-day, in my drawing-room ? I ask you, 
 sir, how dare you do it? " 
 
 " Stop, sir," says George, " don^t say dare, sir. Dare isn't a 
 word to be used to a Captain in the British Army." 
 
 " I shall say what I like to my son, sir. I can cut him off 
 with a shilling if I like. I can make him a beggar if I like. I 
 will say what I like," the elder said. 
 
 " I'm a gentleman though I am your son, sir," George answered 
 haughtily. " Any communications which you have to make to 
 me, or any orders which you may please to give, I beg may be 
 couched in that kind of language which I am accustomed to 
 hear." 
 
 Whenever the lad assumed his haughty manner, it always 
 created great a,we or great irritation in the parent. Old Osborne 
 stood in secret terror of his son as a better gentleman than 
 himself; and perhaps my readers may have remarked in their 
 experience of this Vanity Fair of ours, that there is no character 
 which a low-minded man so much mistrusts, as that of a gentle- 
 man. 
 
 " My father didn't give me the education you have had, nor 
 the advantages you have had, nor the money you have had. 
 
A Quarrel about an Heiress 203 
 
 If I had kept the company some folks have had through my 
 means, perhaps my son wouldn't have any reason to brag, sir, 
 of his superiority ajid West End airs " (these words were uttered 
 in the elder Osborne's most sarcastic tones). *' But it wasn't 
 considered the part of a gentleman, in my time, for a man to 
 insult his father. If I'd done any such thing, mine would have 
 kicked me downstairs, sir." 
 
 " I never insulted you, sir. I said I begged you to remember 
 your son was a gentleman as well as yourself. I know very 
 well that you give me plenty of money," said George (fingering 
 a bundle of notes which he had got in the morning from Mr. 
 Chopper). '' You tell it me often enough, sir. There's no fear 
 of my forgetting it." 
 
 " I wish you'd remember other things as well, sir," the sire 
 answered. " I wish you'd remember that in this house — so 
 long as you choose to honour it with your company, Captain — 
 I'm the master, and that name, and that that — that you — 
 that I say " 
 
 "That what, sir?" George asked, with scarcely a sneer, 
 filling another glass of claret. 
 
 " !" burst out his father with a screaming oath — 
 
 " that the name of those Sedleys never be mentioned here, sir 
 — ^not one of the whole damned lot of 'em, sir." 
 
 "It wasn't I, sir, that introduced Miss. Sedley's name. It 
 was my sisters who spoke ill of her to Miss Swartz; and by 
 Jove I'll defend her wherever I go. Nobody shall speak lightly 
 of that name in my presence. Our family has done her quite 
 enough injury already, I think, and may leave off reviling her 
 now she's down, I'll shoot any man but you who bays a word 
 against her." 
 
 " Go on, sir, go on," the old gentleman said, his eyes starting 
 out of his head. 
 
 "Go on about what, sir? about the way in which we've 
 treated that angel of a girl ? Who told me to love her ? It was 
 your doing. I might have chosen elsewhere, and looked higher, 
 perhaps, than your society: but I obeyed you. And now that 
 her heart's mine you give me orders to fling it away, and punish 
 her, kill her perhaps — for the faults of other people. It's a 
 shame, by heavens," said George, working himself up into 
 passion and enthusiasm as he proceeded, " to play at fast and 
 loose with a young girl's affections — ^and with such an angel as 
 that — one so superior to the people amongst whom she lived, 
 that she might have excited eny>^, only she was so good and 
 
2 ©4 Vanity Fair 
 
 gentle, that it's a wonder anybody dared to hate her. If I 
 desert her^ sir, do you suppose she forgets me ? " 
 
 " I ain't going to have any of this dam sentimental nonsense 
 and humbug here, sir," the other cried out. " There shall be 
 no beggar-marriages in my family. If you choose to fling away 
 eight thousand a year, which you may have for the asking, you 
 may do it: but by Jove you take your pack and walk out of this 
 house, sir. Will you do as I tell you, once for all, sir, or will 
 you not? " 
 
 " Marry that mulatto woman ? " George said, pulling up his 
 shirt-collars. " I don't like the colour, sir. Ask the black that 
 sweeps opposite Fleet Market, sir. Fm not going to marry a 
 Hottentot Venus." 
 
 Mr. Osborne pulled frantically at the cord by which he was 
 accustomed to summon the butler when he wanted wine — and, 
 almost black in the face, ordered that functionary to call a coach 
 for Captain Osborne. 
 
 " I've done it," said George, coming into the Slaughters' an 
 hour afterwards, looking very pale. 
 
 " What, my boy? " says Dobbin. 
 
 George told what had passed between his father and himself. 
 
 "I'll marry her to-morrow," he said with an oath. " I love 
 her more every day, Dobbin." 
 
 CHAPTER XXII 
 
 A MARRIAGE AND PART OF A HONEYMOON 
 
 Enemies the most obstinate and courageous can't hold out 
 against starvation; so the elder Osborne felt himself pretty easy 
 about his adversary in the encounter we have just described; 
 and as soon as George's supplies fell short, confidently expected 
 his unconditional submission. It was unlucky, to be sure, that 
 the lad should have secured a stock of provisions on the very 
 day when the first encounter took place; but this relief was only 
 temporary, old Osborne thought, and would but delay George's 
 surrender. No communication passed between father and son 
 for some days. The former was sulky at this silence, but not 
 disquieted; for, as he said, Jie knew where he could put the 
 
A Marriage and Part of a Honeymoon 205 
 
 screw upon George, and only waited the result of that operation. 
 He told the sisters the upshot of the dispute between them, but 
 ordered them to take no notice of the matter, and welcome 
 George on his return as if nothing had happened. His cover 
 was laid as usual every day, and perhaps the old gentleman 
 rather anxiously expected him; but he never came. Some one 
 inquired at the Slaughters' regarding him, where it was said that 
 he and liis friend Captain Dobbin had left town. 
 
 One gusty, raw day at the end of April, — the rain whipping the 
 pavement of that ancient street where the old Slaughters' Coffee- 
 House was once situated, — George Osborne came into the coffee- 
 room, looking very haggard and pale; although dressed rather 
 smartly in a blue coat and brass buttons, and a neat buff waist- 
 coat of the fashion of those days. Here was his friend Captain 
 Dobbin in blue and brass too, having a.bandoned the military 
 frock and French-grey trousers, which were the usual coverings 
 of his lanky person. 
 
 Dobbin had been in the coffee-room for an hour or more. He 
 had tried all the papers, but could not read them. He had 
 looked at the clock many scores of times; and at the street, 
 where the rain was pattering down, and the people as they 
 clinked by in pattens, left long reflections on the shining stone : 
 he tattooed at the table: he bit his nails most completely, and 
 nearly to the quick (he was accustomed to ornament his great 
 big hands in this way): he balanced the tea-spoon dexterously 
 on the milk-jug: upset it, etc. etc.; and in fact showed those 
 signs of disquietude, and practised those desperate attempts at 
 amusement, which men are accustomed to empmy when very 
 anxious, and expectant, and perturbed in mind. 
 
 Some of his comrades, gentlemen who used the room, joked 
 him about the splendour of his costume and his agitation of 
 manner. One asked him if he was going to be married? 
 Dobbin laughed, and said he would send his acquaintance 
 (Major Wagstafi of the Engineers) a piece of cake when that 
 event took place. At length Captain Osborne made his appear- 
 ance, very smartly dressed, but very pale and agitated, as we 
 have said. He wiped his pale face with a large yellow bandanna 
 pocket-handkerchief that was prodigiously scented. He shook 
 hands with Dobbin, looked at the clock, and told John, the 
 waiter, to bring him some cura9oa. Of this cordial he swallowed 
 off a couple of glasses with nervous eagerness. His friend asked 
 with some interest about his health. 
 
 " Couldn't get a wink of sleep till daylight, Dob," said he. 
 
2o6 Vanity Fair 
 
 ** Infernal headache and fever. Got up at nine, and went down 
 to the Hummums for a bath. I say. Dob, I feel just as I did on 
 the morning I v/ent out with Rocket at Quebec." 
 
 " So do I," William responded. " I was a deuced deal more 
 nervous than you vv^ere that morning. You made a famous 
 breakfast, I remember. Eat something now." 
 
 " You're a good old fellow, Will, I'll drink your health, old 
 boy, and farewell to " 
 
 " No, no; two glasses are enough," Dobbin interrupted him. 
 " Here, take away the liqueurs, John. Have some cayenne- 
 pepper with your fowl. Make haste though, for it is time we 
 were there. 
 
 It was about half -an-hour from twelve when tliis brief meeting 
 and colloquy took place between the two Captains. A coach, 
 mto which Captain Osborne's servant put his master's desk and 
 dressing-case, had been in waiting for some time; and into this 
 the t-ivo gentlemen hurried under an umbrella, and the valet 
 mounted on the box, cursing the rain and the dampness of the 
 coachman who was steaming beside him. " We shall find a 
 better trap than this at the church door," says he; " that's a 
 comfort." And the carriage drove on, taking the road down 
 Piccadilly, where Apsley House and St. George's Hospital wore 
 red jackets still; where there were oil-lamps; where Achilles 
 was not yet born ; nor the Pimlico arch raised ; nor the hideous 
 equestrian monster wliich pervades it and the neighbourhood; 
 — and so they drove down by Brompton to a certain chaoel near 
 the Falham Road there. 
 
 A chariot was in waiting with four horses; likewise a coach of 
 the kind called glass coaches. Only a very few idlers were 
 collected on account of the dismal rain. 
 
 " Hang it ! " said George, " I said only a pair." 
 
 " My master would have four," said Mr. Joseph Sedley's 
 servant, who was in waiting; and he and Mr. Osborne's mam 
 agreed, as they followed George and William into the church, 
 that it was a " reg'lar shabby tum-hout; and with scarce so 
 much as a breakfast or a wedding favour." 
 
 *' Here you are," said our old friend, Jos Sedley, coming for- 
 ward. " You're five minutes late, George, my boy. What a 
 day, eh? Demmy, it's like the commencement of the rainy 
 season in Bengal. But you'll find my carriage is water-tight. 
 Come along, my mother and Emmy are in the vestry," 
 
 Jos Sedley was splendid. He .was fatter than ever. His 
 shirt-collars were higher; his face was redder; his shirt-frill 
 
A Marriage and Part of a Honeymoon 207 
 
 flaunted gorgeously out of his variegated waistcoat. Varnished 
 boots were not invented as yet; but the Hessians on his beauti- 
 ful legs shone sO; that they must have been the identical pair in 
 which the gentlemen in the old picture used to shave himself, 
 and on his light green coat there bloomed a fine wedding favour, 
 like a great white-spreading magnolia. 
 
 In a word, George had thrown the great cast. He was going 
 to be married. Hence his pallor and nen^ousness — his sleepless 
 night and agitation in the morning. I have heard people who 
 have gone through the same thing own to the same emotion. 
 After three or four ceremonies, you get accustomed to it, no 
 doubt; but the first dip, everybody allov/s, is awful. 
 
 The bride was dressed in a brown silk pelisse (as Captain 
 Dobbin has since informed me), and wore a straw bonnet with 
 a pink ribbon ; over the bonnet she had a veil of white Chantilly 
 lace, a gift from Mr. Joseph Sedley, her brother. Captain 
 Dobbin himself had asked leave to present her with a gold chain 
 and watch, which she sported on this occasion; and her mother 
 gave her her diamond brooch — almost the only trinket which 
 was left to the old lady. As the service went on, Mrs. Sedley 
 sat and whimpered a great deal in a pew, consoled by the Irish 
 maid-servant and Mrs. Clapp from the lodgings. Old Sedley 
 would not be present. Jos acted for his father, giving away the 
 bride, whilst Captain Dobbin stepped up as groomsman to his 
 friend George. 
 
 There was nobody in the church besides the officiating persons 
 and the small marriage party and their attendants. The two 
 valets sat aloof superciliously. The rain came rattling down 
 on the windows. In the intervals of the service you heard it, 
 and the sobbing of old Mrs. Sedley in the pew. The parson's 
 tones echoed sadly through the empty v/alls. Osborne's " I 
 will " was sounded in very deep bass. Emmy's response came 
 fluttering up to her lips from her heart, but was scarcely heard 
 by anybody except Captain Dobbin. 
 
 When the service was completed, Jos Sedley came forward 
 and kissed his sister, the bride, for the first time for many months 
 — George's look of gloom had gone, and he seemed quite proud 
 and radiant. " It's your turn, William," says he, putting his 
 hand fondly upon Dobbin's shoulder; and Dobbin went up and 
 touched Amelia on the cheek. 
 
 Then they went into the vestry and signed the register. 
 " God bless you, old Dobbin," George said, grasping him by the 
 hand, with sometiiing very like moisture glistening in his eyes. 
 
2o8 Vanity Fair 
 
 William replied only by nodding his head. His heart was too 
 full to say much. 
 
 " Write directly, and come down as soon as you can, you 
 know/' Osborne said. After Mrs. Sedley had taken an hysterical 
 adieu of her daughter, the pair went off to the carriage. " Get 
 out of the way, you little devils," George cried to a small crowd 
 of damp urchins, that were hanging about the chapel door. The 
 rain drove into the bride and bridegroom's faces, as they passed 
 to the chariot. The postilions' favours draggled on their drip- 
 ping jackets. The few children made a dismal cheer, as the 
 carriage, splashing m^ud, drove away. 
 
 William Dobbin stood in the church porch, looking at it, a 
 queer figure. The small crew of spectators jeered him. He was 
 not thinking about them or their laughter. 
 
 " Come home and have some tifhn, Dobbin," a voice cried 
 behind him ; as a pudgy hand was laid on his shoulder, and the 
 honest fellow's reverie was interrupted. But the Captain had 
 no heart to go a feasting with Jos Sedley. He put the weeping 
 old lady and her attendants into the carriage along with Jos, 
 and left them without any farther words passing. This carriage, 
 too, drove away, and the urchins gave another sarcastical cheer. 
 
 " Here, you little beggars," Dobbin said, giving some six- 
 pences amongst them, and then went off by himself through the 
 idln. It was all over. They were married, and happy, he 
 prayed God. Never since he was a boy had he felt so miserable 
 and so lonely. He longed with a heart-sick yearning for the 
 first few days to be over, that he might see her again. 
 
 Some ten days after the above ceremony, three young men of 
 our acquaintance were enjoying that beautiful prospect of bow 
 windows on the one side and blue sea on the other, which 
 Brighton affords to the traveller. Sometimes it is towards the 
 ocean — smiling with countless dimples, speckled with white 
 sails, with a hundred bathing-machines kissing the sldrt of his 
 blue garment — that the Londoner looks enraptured : sometimes, 
 on the contrary, a lover of human nature rather than of prospects 
 of any kind, it is towards the bow windows that he turns, and 
 that swarm of human life which they exhibit. From one issue 
 the notes of a piano, which a young lady in ringlets practises six 
 hours daily, to the delight of the fellow-lodgers: at another, 
 lovely Polly, the nurse-maid, may be Seen dandling Master 
 Omnium in her arms: whilst Jacob, his papa, is beheld eating 
 prp.v/ns, and devouring the Times for breakfast, at the window 
 
A Marriage and Part of a Honeymoon 209 
 
 below. Yonder are the Misses Leery, who are looking out for 
 the young officers of the Heavies, who are pretty sure to be 
 pacing the cliff; or again it is a City man, with a nautical turn, 
 and a telescope, the size of a six-pounder, who has his instru- 
 ment pointed seawards, so as to command every pleasure-boat, 
 herring-boat, or bathing-machine that comes to, or quits, the 
 shore, etc. etc. But have we any leisure for a description of 
 Brighton ? — for Brighton, a clean Naples with genteel lazzaroni 
 — for Brighton, that always looks brisk, gay, and gaudy, hke a 
 harlequin's jacket — for Brighton which used to be seven hours 
 distant from London at the time of our story; wliich is now 
 only a hundred minutes off; and v/hich may approach who 
 knows how much nearer, unless Joinville comes and untimely 
 bombards it. 
 
 " What a monstrous fine girl that is in the lodgings over the 
 milliner's," one of these three promenaders remarked to the 
 other; " Gad, Crawley, did you see what a wink she gave me 
 as I passed? " 
 
 " Don't break her heart, Jos, you rascal," said another. 
 '* Don't trifle with her aff'ections, you Don Juan ! " 
 
 *' Get away," said Jos Sedley, quite pleased, and leering up at 
 the maid-servant in question with a most killing ogle. Jos was 
 even more splendid at Brighton than he had been at his sister's 
 marriage. He had brilliant under-waistcoats, any one of which 
 would have set up a moderate buck. He sported a military 
 frockcoat, ornamented with frogs, knobs, black buttons, and 
 meandering embroidery. Lie had affected a military appear- 
 ance and habits of late; and he walked with his two friends, 
 who were of that profession, clinking his boot-spurs, swaggering 
 prodigiously, and shooting death-glances at all the servant-girls 
 who were worthy to be slain. 
 
 " What shall we do, boys, till the ladies return? " the buck 
 asked. The ladies were out to Rottingdean in his carriage on a 
 drive. 
 
 " Let's have a game at billiards," one of his friends said — the 
 tall one, with lacquered mustachios. 
 
 "No, dammy; no. Captain," Jos replied, rather alarmed. 
 " No billiards to-day, Crawley, my boy; yesterday was enough." 
 
 " You play very well," said Crawley, laughing. " Don't he, 
 Osborne? How well he made that five stroke, eh? " 
 . " Fam.ous," Osborne said. " Jos is a devil of a fellow at 
 billiards, and at everything else, too. I wish there were any 
 tiger-hunting about here I we might go and kill a few before 
 
2IO Vanity Fair 
 
 dinner. (There goes a fine girl ! what an ankle^ eh, Jos?) Tell 
 us t±iat story about the tiger-hunt^ and the way you did for him 
 in the jungle — it's a wonderful story that, Crawley." Here 
 George Osborne gave a yawn. " It's rather slow work," said 
 he, " down here; v/hat shall we do.^ " 
 
 " Shall we go and look at some horses that Snaffler's just 
 brought from Lewes Fair? " Crawley said. 
 
 " Suppose we go and have some jellies at Button's," said the 
 rogue Jos, willing to kill two birds with one stone. " Devilish 
 fine gal at Button's." 
 
 " Suppose we go and see the Lightning come in, it's just about 
 time? " George said. This advice prevailing over the stables 
 and the jelly, they turned towards the coach-office to witness the 
 Lightning's arrival. 
 
 As they passed, they met the carriage — Jos Sedley's open 
 carriage, with its magnificent armorial bearings — that splendid 
 conveyance in which he used to drive about at Cheltenham,' 
 majestic and solitary, with his arms folded, and his hat cocked; 
 or, more happy, with ladies by his side. 
 
 Two were in the carriage now; one a little person, with light 
 hair, and dressed in the height of the fashion ; the other in a 
 brown silk peHsse, and a straw bonnet with pink ribbons, with a 
 rosy, round, happy face, that did you good to behold. She 
 checked the carriage as it neared the three gentlemen, after 
 which exercise of authority she looked rather nervous, and then 
 began to blush most absurdly. " We have had a delightful 
 drive, George," she said, " and — and we're so glad to come back; 
 and, Joseph, don't let him be late." 
 
 " Don't be leading our husbands into mischief, Mr. Sedley, 
 you wicked, wicked man, you," Rebecca said, shaking at Jos a 
 pretty little finger covered with the neatest French kid glove, 
 " No billiards, no smoking, no naughtiness ! " 
 
 " My dear Mrs. Crawley — Ah now! upon my honour!" was 
 all Jos could ejaculate by way of reply; but he managed to fall 
 into a tolerable attitude, with his head lying on his shoulder, 
 grinning upwards at his victim, with one hand at his back, 
 which he supported on his cane, and the other hand (the one 
 with the diamond ring) fumbling in his shirt-frill and among 
 his under waistcoats. As the carriage drove off he kissed the 
 diamond hand to the fair ladies within. He wished all Chelten- 
 ham, all Chowringhee, all Calcutta, could see him in that position, 
 waving his hand to such a beauty, and in company with such a 
 famous buck as Rawdon Crawley of the Guards, 
 
A Marriage and Part of a Honeymoon 211 
 
 Our young bride and bridegroom had chosen Brighton as the 
 place where they would pass the first few days after their 
 marriage; and having engaged apartments at the Ship Inn, 
 enjoyed themselves there in great comfort and quietude, until 
 Jos presently joined them. Nor was he the only companion 
 they found there. As they were coming into the hotel from a 
 seaside walk one afternoon, on whom should they light but 
 Rebecca and her husband. The recognition was immediate. 
 Rebecca flew into the arms of her dearest friend. Crav/ley and 
 Osborne shook hands together cordially enough: and Becky, in 
 the course of a very few hours, found means to make the latter 
 forget that little unpleasant passage of v/ords which had hap- 
 pened between them. " Do you remember the last time we 
 met at Miss Crawley's, when I was so rude to you, dear Captain 
 Osborne? I thought you seemed careless about dear iVmelia. 
 It was that made me angry: and so pert: and so unkind: and 
 so ungrateful. Do forgive me!" Rebecca said, and she held 
 out her hand with so frank and winning a grace, that Osborne 
 could not but take it. By humbly and frankly acknowledging 
 yourself to be in the wrong, there is no knowing, my son, what 
 good you may do. I knew once a gentleman and very worthy 
 practitioner in Vanity Fair, v/ho used to do little wrongs to his 
 neighbours on purpose, and in order to apologise for them in an 
 open and manly way afterv/ards — and what ensued ? My friend 
 Crocky Doyle was liked everywhere, and deemed to be rather 
 impetuous — but the honestest fellow, Becky's humility passed 
 for sinceritv with Geor.G[e Osborne. 
 
 These two young couples had plenty of tales to relate to each 
 other. The marriages of either were discussed; and their 
 prospects in life canvassed vvdth the greatest frankness and in- 
 terest on both sides. George's marria.ge was to be made known 
 to his father by his friend Captain Dobbin ; and young Osborne 
 trembled rather for the result of that communication. Miss 
 Crawley, on whom all Rawdon's hopes depended, still held out. 
 Unable to make an entry into her house in Park Lane, her 
 affectionate nephew and niece had followed her to Brighton, 
 where they had emissaries continually planted at her door. 
 
 " I wish you could see some of Rawdon s friends who are 
 always about our door," Rebecca said, laughing. " Did you 
 ever see a dun, my dear ; or a bailiff and his man ? Two of the 
 abominable wretches watched ail last week at the greengrocer's 
 opposite, and we could not get away until Sunday, if aunty 
 does not relent, what shaU we do ? " 
 
2 12 Vanity Fair 
 
 Rawdon, with roars of laughter, related a dozen amusing 
 anecdotes of his duns, and Rebecca's adroit treatment of them. 
 He vowed with a great oath, that there was no woman in Europe 
 who could talk a creditor over as she could . Almost immediately 
 after their marriage, her practice had begun, and her husband 
 found the imm^ense value of such a wife. They had credit in 
 plenty, but they had bills also in abundance, and laboured under 
 a scarcity of ready-money. Did these debt-difhculties affect 
 Rawdon's good spirits ? No. Everybody in Vanity Fair must 
 have remarked how well those live who are comfortably and 
 thoroughly in debt: how they deny themselves nothing; how 
 jolly and easy they are in their minds. Rawdon and his wife 
 had the very best apartments at the inn at Brighton ; the land- 
 lord, as he brought in the first dish, bowed before them as to his 
 greatest customers; and Rawdon abused the dinners and wine 
 with an audacity which no grandee in the land could surpass. 
 Long custom, a manly appearance, faultless boots and clothes, 
 and a happy fierceness of manner, will often help a man as much 
 as a great balance at the banker's. 
 
 The two wedding parties met constantly in each other's apart- 
 ments. After two or three nights the gentlemen of an evening 
 had a little piquet, as their wives sate and chatted apart. This 
 pastime, and the arrival of Jos Sedley, who made nis appear- 
 ance in his grand open carriage, and who played a few games 
 at billiards with Captain Crawley, replenished Rawdon's purse 
 somewhat, and gave him the benefit of that ready-money for 
 which the greatest spirits are sometimes at a standstill. 
 
 So the three gentlemen walked down to see the Lightning 
 coach come in. Punctual to the minute, the coach crowded 
 inside and out, the guard blowing his accustomed tune on the 
 horn — the Lightning came tearing down the street, and pulled 
 up at the coach-ofhce. 
 
 " Hullo ! there's old Dobbin," George cried, quite delighted 
 to see his old friend perched on the roof; and whose promised 
 visit to Brighton had been delayed until now. " How are you, 
 old fellow? Glad you're come down. Emmy'll be delighted 
 to see you," Osborne said, shaking his comrade warmly by the 
 hand as soon as his descent from the vehicle was effected — and 
 then he added, in a lower and agitated voice, " What's the news ? 
 Have you been in Russell Square? What does the governor 
 say? Tell me everything." 
 
 Dobbin looked very pale and grave. " I've seen your father," 
 said he. " How's Amelia — Mrs. George? I'll tell you all the 
 
Captain Dobbin Proceeds on His Canvass 213 
 
 news presently: but I've brought the great news of all: and 
 that is " 
 
 " Out with it^ old fellow," George said. 
 
 " We're ordered to Belgium. All the army goes — Guards and 
 all. Heavytop's got the gout, and is mad at not being able 
 to move. O'Dowd goes in command, and we embark from 
 Chatham next week." This news of war could not but come 
 with a shock upon our lovers, and caused all these gentlemen 
 to look very serious. 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII 
 
 CAPTAIN DOBBIN PROCEEDS ON HIS CANVASS 
 
 JVVhat is the secret mesmerism whidi friendshiDpossesses,^and 
 undeF the 'opefatiori of whl^'E^^aT peFsoii orHiiiarrfy sluggish, or 
 cold, or tiimd,. beconies wise,""acti\^J^23^soJSe2^ 
 behaJi? As Alexis, after a few passes from Dr. EUiotson, 
 despises pain, reads with the back of his head, sees miles off, 
 looks into next week, and performs other wonders, of which, in 
 his own private normal condition, he is quite incapable ; so you 
 see, in the affairs, of the world and under the magnetism of 
 friendship, the modest man becomes bold, the shy confident, 
 the lazy active,~br the impetuous prudent and peaceful. What 
 is it, on the other hand, that makes the lawyer eschew his own 
 cause, and call in his learned brother as an adviser? And what 
 causes the doctor, v/hen ailing, to send for his rival, and not sit 
 down and examine his own tongue in the chimney-glass, or 
 write his o-wn prescription at his study-table? I throw out 
 these queries for intelligent readers to answer, who know, at 
 once, how credulous we are and how sceptical, how soft and how 
 obstinate, how firm for others and how diffident about our- 
 selves : meanwhile it is certain that our friend William Dobbin, 
 who was personally of so complying a disposition, that if his 
 parents had pressed him much, it is probable he would have 
 stepped down into the kitchen and married the cook, and who, 
 to further his own interests, would have found the most insuper- 
 able difficulty in walking across the street, found himself as bus}'- 
 and eager in the conduct of George Osborne's affairs, as the most 
 selfish tactician could be in the pursuit of his own. 
 
214 Vanity Fair 
 
 Whilst our friend George and his young wife were enjoying 
 the first blushing days of the honeymoon at Brighton, honest 
 V/illiam was left as George's plenipotentiary in London, to 
 transact all the business part of the marriage. His duty it was 
 to call upon old Sedley and his wife, and to keep the former in 
 good humour: to draw Jos and his brother-in-law nearer 
 together, so that Jos's position and dignity, as Collector of 
 Boggley Wollah, might compensate for his father's loss of 
 station, and tend to reconcile old Osborne to the alliance: and 
 finally, to communicate it to the latter in such a way as should 
 least irritate the old gentleman. 
 
 Now, before he faced the head of the Osborne house with the 
 news which it was his duty to tell, Dobbin bethought him that 
 it would be politic to make friends of the rest of the family, and, 
 if possible, have the ladies on his side. They can't be angry in 
 their hearts, thought he. No woman ever was really angry at 
 a romantic marriage. A little crying out, and thej^ must come 
 round, to their brother; when the three of us will lay siege to 
 old Mr. Osborne. So this Machiavellian captain of infantry cast 
 about him for some happy means or stratagem by which he 
 could gently and gradually bring the Misses Osborne to a know- 
 ledge of their brother's secret. 
 
 By a little inquiry regarding his mother's engagements, he 
 was pretty soon able to find out by whom of her ladyship's friends 
 parties were given at that season; where he would be likely to 
 meet Osborne's sisters; and, though he had that abhorrence 
 of routs and evening parties, which many sensible men, alas I 
 entertain, he soon found one where the Misses Osborne were to 
 be present. Making his appearance at the ball, where he danced 
 a couple of sets with both of them, and was prodigiously polite, 
 he actually had the courage to ask Miss Osborne for a few 
 minutes' conversation at an early hour the next day, when he 
 had, he said, to communicate to her news of the very greatest 
 interest. 
 
 What was it that made her start back, and gaze upon him for 
 a moment, and then on the ground at her feet, and make as if 
 she would faint on his arm, had he not by opportunely treading 
 on her toes, brought the young lady back to self-control ? W^hy 
 wa.s she so violently agitated at Dobbin's request? This can 
 never be known. But when he came the next day, Ivlaria was 
 not in the drawing-room with her sister, and Miss Wirt went off 
 for the purpose of fetching the latter, and the Captain and Miss 
 Osborne were left together. They were both so silent that the 
 
Captain Dobbin Proceeds on His Canvass 2 1 5 
 
 tick-tock of the Sacrifice of Iphigenia clock on the mantelpiece 
 became quite rudely audible. 
 
 " What a nice party it was last night/' Miss Osborne at length 
 began, encouragingly; "and — how you're improved in your 
 dancing, Captain Dobbin. Surely somebody has taught you," 
 she added, with amiable archness. 
 
 "You should see me dance a reel with Mrs. Major O'Dowd 
 of ours; and a jig — did you ever see a jig? But I think any- 
 body could dance with you, Miss Osborne, who dance so well." 
 
 "Is the Major's lady young and beautiful, Captain? " the 
 fair questioner continued. " Ah, what a terrible thing it must 
 be to be a soldier's wife! I wonder they have any spirits to 
 dance, and in these dreadful times of war, too! O Captain 
 Dobbin, I tremble sometimes when I think of our dearest George, 
 and the dangers of the poor soldier. Are there many married 
 officers of the — th. Captain Dobbin ? " 
 
 " Upon my word, she's playing her hand rather too openly," 
 Miss Wirt thought; but this observation is merely parenthetic, 
 and was. not heard through the crevice of the door at which the 
 governess uttered it. 
 
 " One of our young men is just married," Dobbin said, fiow 
 coming to the point. " It was a very old attachment, and the 
 young couple are as poor as church mice." 
 
 "Oh, how delightful! Oh, how rom.antic!" Miss Osborne 
 cried, as the Captain said " old attachment " and " poor." Her 
 sympathy encouraged him.. 
 
 " The finest young fellow in the regiment," he continued. 
 " Not a braver or handsomer officer in the army ; and such a 
 charming wife ! How you would like her ! how you will like her 
 when you know her. Miss Osborne." The young lady thought 
 the actual moment had arrived, and that Dobbin's nervous- 
 ness, 'which now came on and was visible in many twitchings. of 
 his face, in his manner of beating the ground with his great feet, 
 in the rapid buttoning and unbuttoning of his frock-coat, etc. — 
 Miss Osborne, I say, thought that when he had given himself a 
 little air, he would unbosom himself entirely, and prepared 
 eagerly to listen. And the clock, in the altar on which Iphigenia 
 was situated, beginning, after a preparatory convulsion, to toll 
 twelve, the mere tolling seemed as if it would last until one — so 
 prolonged was the knell to the anxious spinster. 
 
 " But it's not about marriage that I came to speak — that is, 
 that marriage — that is — ^no, I mean — my dear Miss Osborne, 
 it's about our dear friend George," Dobbin said. 
 
2i6 Vanity Fair 
 
 "About George?" she said in a tone so discomfited that 
 Maria and Miss Wirt laughed at the other side of the door, and 
 even that abandoned wietch of a Dobbin felt inclined to smile 
 himself; for he was not altogether unconscious of the state of 
 affairs; George having often bantered him gracefully and said, 
 " Hang it, Will, why don't you take old Jane? She'll have you 
 if you ask her. I'll bet you five to two she will." 
 
 " Yes, about George, then," he continued. " There has been 
 a difference between him and Mr. Osborne. And I regard him 
 so much — for you know we have been like brothers — that I hope 
 and pray the quarrel may be settled. We must go abroad. Miss 
 Osborne. We may be ordered off at a day's warning. Who 
 knows what may happen in the campaign ? Don't be agitated, 
 dear Miss Osborne; and those two at least should part friends." 
 
 " There has been no quarrel, Captain Dobbin, except a little 
 usual scene with papa," the lady said. " We are expecting George 
 back daily. What papa wanted was only for his good. He has 
 but to come back, and I'm sure all will be well ; and dear Rhoda, 
 who went away from here in sad sad anger, I know will forgive 
 him. Woman forgives but too readily. Captain." 
 
 " Such an angel as you I am sure would," Mr. Dobbin said, 
 with atrocious astuteness. " And no man can pardon himself 
 for giving a woman pain. What would you feel, if a man were 
 faithless to you ? " 
 
 " I should perish — I should throw myself out of window — I 
 should take poison — I should pine and die. I know I should," 
 Miss cried, who had nevertheless gone through one or two affairs 
 of the heart without any idea of suicide. 
 
 " And there are others," Dobbin continued, " as true and as 
 kind-hearted as yourself. I'm not speaking about the West 
 Indian heiress. Miss Osborne, but about a poor girl whom George 
 once loved, and who was bred from her childhood to think of 
 nobody but him. I've seen her in her poverty uncomplaining, 
 broken-hearted, without a fault. It is of Miss Sedley I speak. 
 Dear Miss Osborne, can your generous heart quarrel with your 
 brother for being faithful to her? Could his own conscience 
 ever forgive him if he deserted her ? Be her friend — she always 
 loved you — and — and I am come here charged by George to tell 
 3''0u that he holds his engagement to her as the most sacred duty 
 he has; and to entreat you, at least, to be on his side." 
 
 When any strong emotion took possession of Mr. Dobbin, an^' 
 after the first word or two of hesitation, he could speak wi^ 
 perfect fluency, and it was evident that his eloquence on tl^ 
 
Captain Dobbin Proceeds on His Canvass 2 1 7 
 
 occasion made some impression upon the lady whom he ad- 
 dressed. 
 
 " "Well/' said she, " this is — most surprising — ^most painful — 
 most extraordinary — what will papa say? — that George should 
 jfling away such a superb establishment as was offered to him, — 
 but at any rate he has found a very brave champion in you, 
 Captain Dobbin. It is of no use, however," she continued, 
 after a pause; " I feel for poor Miss Sedley, most certainly — 
 most sincerely, you know. We never thought the match a good 
 one, though we were always very kind to her here — ^very. But 
 papa will never consent, I am sure. And a well-brought-up 
 young woman, you know, — with a well-regulated mind, must — 
 George must give her up, dear Captain Dobbin indeed he must." 
 
 " Ought a man to give up the woman he loved, just when mis- 
 fortune befell her.? " Dobbin said, holding out his hand. " Dear 
 Miss Osborne, is this the counsel I hear from you ? My dear 
 young lady ! you must befriend her. He can't give her up. He 
 must not give her up. Would a man, think you, give you up if 
 you were poor ? " 
 
 This adroit question touched the heart of Miss Jane Osborne 
 not a little. " I don't know whether we poor girls ought to 
 believe what you men say. Captain," she said. " There is that 
 in woman's tenderness which induces her to believe too easily. 
 I'm afraid you are cruel, cruel deceivers," — and Dobbin certainly 
 thought he felt a pressure of the hand which Miss Osborne had 
 extended to him. 
 
 He dropped it in some alarm. " Deceivers ! " said he. " No, 
 dear Miss Osborne, all men are not; your brother is not; George 
 has loved Amelia Sedley ever since they were children; no 
 wealth would make him marry any but her. Ought he to for- 
 sake her.? Would you counsel him to do so? " 
 
 What could Miss Jane say to such a question, and with her 
 own peculiar views ? She could not answer it, so she parried it 
 by saying, " Well, if you are not a deceiver, at least you are very 
 romantic; " and Captain William let this observation pass with- 
 out challenge. 
 
 At length when, by the help of farther polite speeches, he 
 deemed that Miss Osborne wa-s sufficiently prepared to receive 
 the whole news, he poured it into her ear. *' George could not 
 give up Amelia — George was married to her " — and then he 
 related the circumstances of the marriage as we know them 
 tllready : how the poor girl would have died had not her lover 
 it'ept his faith; how old Sedley had refused all consent to the 
 
21 8 Vanity Fair 
 
 match, and a licence had been got: and Jos Sedley had come 
 from Cheltenham to give away the bride: how they had gone 
 to Brighton in Jos's chariot-and-four to pass the honeymoon: 
 and how George counted on his dear kind sisters to befriend 
 him with their father, as women — so true and tender as they 
 were — assuredly would do. And so, asking permission (readily 
 granted) to see her again, and rightly conjecturing that the 
 nev/s he had brought would be told in the next five minutes to 
 the other ladies, Captain Dobbin made his bow and took his 
 leave. 
 
 He was scarcely out of the house, when Miss Maria and Miss 
 Wirt rushed into Miss Osborne, and the whole wonderful secret 
 was imparted to them by that lady. To do them justice, 
 neither of the sisters was very much displeased. There is 
 something about a runaway match with which few ladies can 
 be seriously angry, and Amelia rather rose in their estimation, 
 from the spirit which she had displayed in consenting to the 
 union. As they debated the story, and prattled about it, and 
 wondered what papa would do and say, came a loud knock, as 
 of an avenging thunder-clap, at the door, which made these 
 conspirators start. It must be papa, they thought. But it 
 was not he. It was only Mr. Frederick Bullock, who had come 
 from the City according to appointment, to conduct the ladies 
 to a flower-show. 
 
 This gentleman, as may be imagined, was not kept long in 
 ignorance of the secret. But his face, when he heard it, showed 
 an amazement which was very different to that look of senti- 
 mental wonder which the countenances of the sisters wore. 
 Mr. Bullock was a man of the world, and a junior partner of a 
 wealthy firm. He knew what money was, and the value of it: 
 and a delightful throb of expectation lighted up his little eyes, 
 and caused him to smile on his Maria, as he thought that by 
 this piece of folly of Mr. George's she might be worth thirty 
 thousand pounds more than he had ever hoped to get with her. 
 
 " Gad ! Jane," said he, surveying even the elder sister with 
 some interest, " Eels will be sorry he cried of?. You may be 
 a fifty thousand pounder yet." 
 
 The sisters had never thought of the money question up to 
 that moment, but Fred Bullock bantered them with graceful 
 gaiety about it during their forenoon's excursion; and they had 
 risen not a little in their own esteem by the time when, the 
 morning amusement over, they drove back to dinner. And do 
 not let my respected reader exclaim against this selfishness as 
 
The Family Bible 219 
 
 unnatural. It was but this present morning, as he rode on the 
 omnibus from Richmond; while it changed horses, this present 
 chronicler, being on the roof, marked three little children play- 
 ing in a puddle below, very dirty, and friendly, and happy. 
 To these three presently came another little one. " Polly y^ 
 says she, " your sister's got a penny. '^ At which the children 
 got up from the puddle instantly, and ran off to pay their court 
 to Peggy. And as the omnibus drove off I saw Peggy with the 
 infantine procession at her tail, marching with great dignity 
 towards the stall of a neighbouring lollipop-woman. 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV 
 
 IN WHICH MR. OSBORNE TAKES DOWN THE FAMILY 
 
 BIBLE 
 
 So having prepared his sisters, Dobbin hastened away to the 
 City to perform the rest and more difficult part of the task 
 which he had undertaken. The idea of facing old Osborne 
 rendered him not a little nervous, and more than once he thought 
 of leaving the young ladies to communicate the secret, which, 
 as he was aware, they could not long retain. But he had 
 promised to report to George upon the manner in which the 
 elder Osborne bore the intelligence; so going into the City to 
 the paternal counting-house in Thames Street, he despatched 
 thence a note to Mr. Osborne begging for a half-hour's con- 
 versation relative to the affairs of his son George. Dobbin's 
 messenger returned from Mr. Osborne's house of business, with 
 the compliments of the latter, who would be very happy to see 
 the Captain immediately, and away accordingly Dobbin w^ent 
 to confront him. 
 
 The Captain, with a half-guilty secret to confess, and with 
 the prospect of a painful and stormy interview before him, 
 entered Mr. Osborne's offices with a most dismal countenance 
 and abashed gait, and, passing through the outer room where 
 Mr. Chopper presided, was greeted by that functionary from 
 his desk with a waggish air which farther discomfited him. 
 Mr. Chopper winked and nodded and pointed his pen towards 
 his patron's door, and said, " You'll find the governor all right/' 
 with the most provoking good humour. 
 
2 20 Vanity Fair 
 
 Osborne rose too^ and shook him heartily by the hand, and 
 said^ " How do, my dear boy? " with a cordiality that made 
 poor George's ambassador feel doubly guilty. His hand lay as 
 if dead in the old gentleman's grasp. He felt that he, Dobbin, 
 was more or less the cause of all that had happened. It was he 
 had brought back George to Amelia: it was he had applauded, 
 encouraged, transacted almost the marriage which he was come 
 to reveal to George's father: and the latter was receiving him 
 with smiles of welcome ; patting him on the shoulder, and call- 
 ing him " Dobbin, my dear boy." The envoy had indeed good 
 reason to hang his head. 
 
 Osborne fully believed that Dobbin had come to announce 
 his son's surrender. Mr. Chopper and his principal were talk- 
 ing over the matter between George and his father, at the very 
 moment when Dobbin's messenger arrived. Both agreed that 
 George was sending in his submission. Both had been expect- 
 ing it for some days — and " Lord ! Chopper, what a marriage 
 we'll have ! " Mr. Osborne said to his clerk, snapping his big 
 fingers, and jingling all the guineas and shillings in his great 
 pockets as he eyed his subordinate with a look of triumph. 
 
 With similar operations conducted in both pockets, and a 
 knowing jolly air, Osborne from his chair regarded Dobbin 
 seated blank and silent opposite to him. " What a bumpkin 
 he is for a Captain in the army," old Osborne thought. " I 
 wonder George hasn't taught him better manners." 
 
 At last Dobbin summoned courage to begin. " Sir," said he, 
 " I've brought you some very grave news. I have been at the 
 Horse Guards this morning, and there's no doubt that our regi- 
 ment will be ordered abroad, and on its way to Belgium before 
 the week is over. And you know, sir, that we shan't be home 
 again before a tussle which may be fatal to many of us." 
 
 Osborne looked grave. " My s , the regiment will do 
 
 its duty, sir, I daresay," he said. 
 
 " The French are very strong, sir," Dobbin went on. " The 
 Russians and Austrians will be a long time before they can 
 bring their troops down. We shall have the first of the fight, 
 sir; and depend on it Boney will take care that it shall be a 
 hard one." 
 
 " What are you driving at, Dobbin? " his interlocutor said, 
 uneasy and with a scowl. " I suppose no Briton's afraid of any 
 d Frenchman, hey ? " 
 
 " I only mean, that before we go, and considering the great 
 and certain risk that hangs over every one of us — if there are 
 
The Family Bible 221 
 
 any differences between you and George — it would be as well, 
 sir, that — that you should shake hands: wouldn't it? Should 
 anything happen to him, I tliink you would never forgive your- 
 self if you hadn't parted in charity." 
 
 As he said this^ poor William Dobbin blushed crimson, and 
 felt and owned that he himself was a traitor. But for him, 
 perhaps, this severance need never have taken place. Why 
 had not George's marriage been delayed ? What call was there 
 to press it on so eagerly? He felt that George would have 
 parted from Amelia at any rate without a mortal pang. Amelia, 
 too, might have recovered the shock of losing him. It was his 
 counsel had brought about this marriage, and all that was to 
 ensue from it. And why was it? Because he loved her so 
 much that he could not bear to see her unhappy: or because 
 his own sufferings of suspense were so unendurable that he was 
 glad to crush them at once — as we hasten a funeral after a 
 death, or, when a separation from those we love is imminent, 
 cannot rest until the parting be over. 
 
 " You are a good fellow, William," said Mr. Osborne in a 
 softened voice; *' and me and George shouldn't part in anger, 
 that is true. Look here. I've done for him as much as any 
 father ever did. He's had three times as much money from 
 me, as I warrant your father ever gave you. But I don't brag 
 about that. How I've toiled for him, and worked and em- 
 ployed my talents and energy, / won't say. Ask Chopper. 
 Ask himself. Ask the city of London. Well, I propose to him 
 such a marriage a.s any nobleman in the land might be proud 
 of — the only thing in life I ever asked him — and he refuses me. 
 Am I wrong ? Is the quarrel of my making ? What do I seek 
 but his good, for which I've been toiling like a convict ever 
 since he was born? Nobody can say there's anything selfish 
 in me. Let him come back. I say, here's my hand. I say, 
 forget and forgive. As for marrying now, it's out of the ques- 
 tion. Let hirri and Miss S. make it up, and make out the 
 marriage afterwards, when he comes back a Colonel; for he 
 
 shall be a Colonel, by G he shall, if money can do it. I'm 
 
 glad you've brought him round. I know it's you, Dobbin. 
 You've took him out of many a scrape before. Let him come. 
 I shan't be hard. Come along, and dine in Russell Square 
 to-day: both of you. The old shop, the old hour. You'll find 
 a neck of venison, and no questions asked." 
 
 This praise and confidence smote Dobbin's heart very keenly. 
 Every moment the colloquy continued in this tone, he felt more 
 
222 Vanity Fair 
 
 and more guilty. " Sir/' said he, " I fear you deceive yourself. 
 I am sure 3^ou do. George is much too high-minded a man ever 
 to marry for money. A threat on your part that you would 
 disinherit him in case of disobedience would only be followed by 
 resistance on his," 
 
 " Why, hang it, man, you don't call offering him eight or ten 
 thousand a year threatening him ? " Mr. Osborne said, with 
 still provoking good humour. " Gad, if Miss S. will have me, 
 I'm her man. I ain't particular about a shade or so of tawny." 
 And the old gentleihan gave his knowing grin and coarse laugh. 
 
 " You forget, sir, previous engagements into which Captain 
 Osborne had entered," the ambassador said gravely. 
 
 " What engagements? What the devil do you mean? You 
 don't mean," Mr. Osborne continued, gathering wrath and 
 astonishment as the thought now first came upon him : " you 
 
 don't mean that he's such a d fool as to be still hankering 
 
 after that swindling old bankrupt's daughter? You've not 
 come here for to make me suppose that he wants to marry her ? 
 Marry her, that is a good one. My son and heir marry a beggar's 
 
 girl out of a gutter. D him, if he does, let him buy a broom 
 
 and sweep a crossing. She was always dangling and ogling after 
 him, I recollect now ; and I've no doubt she was put on by her 
 old sharper of a father." 
 
 " Mr. Sedley was your very good friend, sir," Dobbin inter- 
 posed, almost pleased at finding himself growing angry. " Time 
 was you called him better names than rogue and swindler. The 
 match was of your making. George had no right to play fast 
 and loose " 
 
 " Fast and loose ! " howled out old Osborne. '' Fast and loose ! 
 Why, hang me, those are the very words my gentleman used him- 
 self when he gave him.self airs, last Thursday was a fortnight, 
 and talked about the British arrny to liis father who made him. 
 What, it's you who have been a setting of him up — ^is it? and 
 my service to you, Captain. It's you who want to introduce 
 beggars into my family. Thank you for nothing. Captain. 
 Marry her indeed — ^he, he! why should he? I warrant you 
 she'd go to him fast enough without." 
 
 *' Sir," said Dobbin, starting up in undisguised anger; " no 
 man shall abuse that lady in my hearing, and you least of ail." 
 
 " Oh, you're a going to call me out, are you? Stop, let me 
 ring the bell for pistols for two. Mr. George sent you here to 
 insult his father, did he? " Osborne said, pulling at the beli- 
 cords 
 
The Family Bible 223 
 
 " Mr. Osborne/' said Dobbin, with a faltering voice, *' it's 
 you who are insulting the best creature in the world. You had 
 best spare her, sir, for she's your son's wife." 
 
 And with this, feeling that he could say no more, Dobbin went 
 away, Osborne sinking back in his chair, and looking wildly 
 after him. A clerk came in, obedient to the bell; and the Cap- 
 tain was scarcely out of the court where Mr. Osborne's offices 
 were, when Mr. Chopper the chief clerk came rushing hatless 
 after him. 
 
 "For God's sake, what is it? " Mr. Chopper said, catching 
 the Captain by the skirt. " The governor's in a fit. What has 
 Mr. George been doing ? " 
 
 " He married Miss Sedley five days ago," Dobbin replied. 
 " I was his groomsman, Mr. Chopper, and you must stand his 
 friend." 
 
 The old clerk shook his head. " If that's your news. Captain, 
 it's bad. The governor will never forgive him." 
 
 Dobbin begged Chopper to report progress to him at the hotel 
 where he was stopping, and walked off moodily westwards, 
 greatly perturbed as to the past and the future. 
 
 When the Russell Square family came to dinner that evening, 
 they found the father of the house seated in his usual place, but 
 with that air of gloom on his face, which, whenever it appeared 
 there, kept the whole circle silent. The ladies, and Mr. Bullock 
 who dined with them, felt that the news had been communi- 
 cated to Mr. Osborne. His dark looks affected Mr. Bullock so 
 far as to render him still and quiet : but he was unusually bland 
 and attentive to Miss Maria, by whom he sat, and to her sister 
 presiding at the head of the table. 
 
 Miss Wirt, by consequence, was alone on her side of the board, 
 a gap being left between her and Miss Jane Osborne. Now this 
 was George's place when he dined at home; and his cover, as 
 we said, was laid for him in expectation of that truant's return. 
 Nothing occurred during dinner - time except smiling Mr. 
 Frederick's flagging confidential whispers, and the clinking of 
 plate and clxina, to intermpt the silence of the repast. The 
 servants went about stealthily doing their duty. Mutes at 
 funerals could not look more glum than the domestics of Mr. 
 Osborne. The neck of venison of which he had invited Dobbin 
 to partake, was carved by him in perfect silence ; but his own 
 share Vv^ent away almost untasted, though he drank much, and 
 the butler assiduously filled his glass. 
 
 At last, just at the end of the dinner, his eyes, which had been 
 
2 24 Vanity Fair 
 
 staring at everybody in tum^ fixed themselves for a while upon 
 the plate laid for George. He pointed to it presently with his 
 left hand. His daughters looked at him and did not compre- 
 hend, or choose to comprehend, the signal ; nor did the servants 
 at first understand it. 
 
 " Take that plate away/' at last he said, getting up with an 
 oath — and with this pushing his chair back, he walked into his 
 own room. 
 
 Behind Mr. Osborne's dining-room was the usual apartment 
 which went in his house by the name of the study; and was 
 sacred to the master of the house. Hither Mr. Osborne would 
 retire of a Sunday forenoon when not minded to go to church; 
 and here pass the morning in his crimson leather chair, reading 
 the paper. A couple of glazed book-cases were here, containing 
 standard works in stout gilt bindings. The " Annual Register," 
 the " Gentleman's Magazine," " Blair's Sermons," and " Hume 
 and Smollett." From year's end to year's end he never took 
 one of these volumes from the shelf ; but there was no member 
 of the family that would dare for his life to touch one of the 
 books, except upon those rare Sunday evenings when there was 
 no dinner-party, and when the great scarlet Bible and Prayer- 
 book were taken out from the comer where they stood beside 
 his copy of the Peerage, and the servants being rung up to the 
 dining-parlour, Osborne read the evening service to his family 
 in a loud grating pompous voice. No member of the household, 
 child or domestic, ever entered that room without a certain 
 terror. Here he checked the housekeeper's accounts, and over- 
 hauled the butler's cellar-book. Hence he could command, 
 across the clean gravel courtyard, the back entrance of the 
 stables, with which one of his bells communicated, and into this 
 yard the coachman issued from his premises as into, a dock, 
 and Osborne swore at him from the study window. Four times 
 a year Miss Wirt entered this apartment to get her salary ; and 
 liis daughters to receive their quarterly allowance. George as 
 a boy hs.d been horsewhipped in this room many times; his 
 mother sitting sick on the stair listening to the cuts of the whip. 
 The boy was scarcely ever known to cry under the punishment; 
 the poor woman used to fondle and kiss him secretly, and give 
 him money to soothe him when he came out. 
 
 There was a picture of the family over the mantelpiece, 
 removed thither from the front room after Mrs. Osborne's death 
 — George was on a pony, the elder sister holding him up a bunch 
 of flowers; the younger led by her mother's hand; all with red 
 
The Family Bible 225 
 
 cheeks and large red mouths, simpering on each other in the 
 approved family-portrait manner. The mother lay under- 
 ground now, long since forgotten — ^the sisters and brother had 
 a hundred different interests of their own, and familiar still, 
 were utterly estranged from each other. Some few score of 
 years aftenvards, when all the parties represented are grown 
 old, what bitter satire there is in those flaunting childish family 
 portraits, with their farce of sentiment and smiling lies, and 
 innocence so self-conscious and self-satisfied. Osborne's own 
 state portrait, with that of his great silver inkstand and arm- 
 chair, had taken the place of honour in the dining-room, vacated 
 by the family piece. 
 
 To this study old Osborne retired then, greatly to the relief 
 of the small party whom he left. When the servants had with- 
 drawn, they began to talk for a while volubly but very low; 
 then they went upstairs quietly, Mr. Bullock accompanying 
 them stealthily on his creaking shoes. He had no heart to sit 
 alone drinlcing wine, and so close to the terrible old gentleman 
 in the study hard at hand. 
 
 An hour at least after dark, the butler, not having received 
 any summons, ventured to tap at his door and take him in wax 
 candles and tea. The master of the house sate in his chair, pre- 
 tending to read the paper, and when the servant, placing the 
 lights and refreshment on the table by him, retired, Mr. Osborne 
 got up and locked the door after him. This time there was no 
 mistaking the matter; all the household knew that some great 
 catastrophe was going to happen which was likely direiy to 
 affect Master George. 
 
 In the large shining mahogany escritoire Mr. Osborne had a 
 drawer especially devoted to his son's affairs and papers. Here 
 he kept all the documents relating to him ever since he had been 
 a boy: here were his prize copy-books and drawing-books, all 
 bearing George's hand, and that of the master: here were his 
 first letters in large round-hand sending his love to papa and 
 mamma, and conveying his petitions for a cake. His dear god- 
 papa Sedley was more than once mentioned in them. Curses 
 quivered on old Osborne's Uvid lips, and horrid hatred and dis- 
 appointment writhed in his heart, as looking through some ol 
 these papers he came on tl.it name. They were all marked 
 and docketed and tied with red tape. It was — " From Georgy, 
 requesting 5s., April 23, 18 — ; answered, April 25," — or " Georgy 
 about a pony, October 13," — and so forth. In another packet 
 were " Dr. S.'s accounts " — G.'s tailor's bills and outfits, " drafts 
 n^9^ 
 
226 Vanity Fair 
 
 on me by G. Osborne^ jun.," etc.,— his letters from the West 
 Indies — his agent's letters, and the newspapers containing his 
 commissions: here was a whip he had when a boy, and in a 
 paper a locket containing his hair, which his mother used to 
 wear. 
 
 Turning one over after another, and musing over these 
 memorials, the unhappy man passed many hours. His dearest 
 vanities, ambitious hopes, had all been here. What pride he 
 had in his boy ! He was the handsomest child ever seen. 
 Everybody said he was like a nobleman's son. A royal princess 
 had remarked him, and kissed him, and asked his name in Kew 
 Gardens. What City man could show such another? Could a 
 prince have been better cared for.? Anything that money 
 could buy had been his son's. He used to go down on speech- 
 days with four horses and new liveries, and scatter new shillings 
 among the boys at the school where George was : when he went 
 with George to the depot of his regiment, before the boy em- 
 barked for Canada, he gave the officers such a dinner as the 
 Duke of York might have sat down to. Had he ever refused a 
 bill when George drew one ? There they were — paid without a 
 word. Many a general in the army couldn't ride the horses he 
 had ! He had the child before his eyes, on a hundred different 
 days when he remembered George — after dinner, when he used 
 to come in as bold as a lord and drink off his glass by his father's 
 side, at the head of the table — on the pony at Brighton, when he 
 cleared the hedge and kept up with the huntsman — on the day 
 when he was presented to the Prince Regent at the levee, when 
 all Saint James's couldn't produce a finer young fellow. And 
 this, this was the end of all! — to ma,rry a bankrupt and fiy in 
 the face of duty and fortune! What humiliation and fury; 
 what pangs of sickening rage, baulked ambition and love ; what 
 wounds of outraged vanity, tenderness even, had this old world- 
 ling now to suffer under. 
 
 Having examined these papers, and pondered over this one 
 and the other, in that bitterest of all helpless woe, with which 
 miserable men think of happy past times — George's father took 
 the whole of the documents out of the drawer in which he had 
 kept them so long, and locked them into a writing-box, which 
 he tied, and sealed with his seal. Then he opened the book- 
 case, and took down the great red Bible we have spoken of — a 
 pompous book, seldom looked at, and shining all over with gold. 
 There was a frontispiece to the volume, representing Abraham 
 sacrificing Isaac. Here, according to custom, Osborne had re- 
 
The Family Bible 227 
 
 corded on the fly-leaf, and in his large clerk-like hand, the dates 
 of his marriage and his wife's death, and the births and Christian 
 names of his children. Jane came first, then George Sedley 
 Osborne, then Maria Frances, and the days of the christening 
 of each. Taking a pen, he carefully obliterated George's name 
 from the page; and when the leaf was quite dry, restored the 
 volume to the place from which he had moved it. Then he took 
 a document out of another drawer, where his own private 
 papers were kept; and having read it, crumpled it up and 
 lighted it at one of the candles, and saw it burn entirely away 
 in the grate; it was his will; which being burned, he sate down 
 and wrote off a letter, and rang for his servant, whom he charged 
 to deliver it in the morning. It was morning already: as he 
 went up to bed, the whole house v/as alight with the sunshine; 
 and the birds were singing among the fresh green leaves in 
 Russell Square. 
 
 Anxious to keep all Mr. Osborne's family and dependants in 
 good humour, and to make as many friends as possible for 
 George in his hour of adversity, William Dobbin, who knew the 
 effect which good dinners and good wines have upon the soul of 
 man, WTote off immediately on his return to his inn the most 
 hospitable of invitations to Thomas Chopper, Esquire, begging 
 that gentleman to dine with him at the Slaughters' next day. 
 The note reached Mr. Chopper before he left the City, and the 
 instant reply was, that " Mr. Chopper presents his respectful 
 compliments, and will have the honour and pleasure of waiting 
 on Captain D." The invitation and the rough draft of the 
 answer were shown to Mrs. Chopper and his daughters on his 
 return to Somers Town that evening, and they talked about 
 military gents and West End men with great exultation as the 
 family sate and partook of tea. When the girls had gone to 
 rest, Mr. and Mrs. C. discoursed upon the strange events which 
 were occurring in the governor's family. Never had the clerk 
 seen his principal so moved. When he went in to Mr. Osborne, 
 after Captain Dobbin's departure, Mr. Chopper found his chief 
 black in the face, and all but in a fit : some dreadful quarrel, he 
 was certain, had occurred between Mr. 0. and the young Cap- 
 tain. Chopper had been instructed to make out an account of 
 all sums paid to Captain Osborne within the last three years. 
 " And a precious lot of money he has had too," the chief clerk 
 said, and respected his old and young master the more, for the 
 liberal way in which the guineas had been flung about. The 
 dispute was something about Miss Sedley. Mrs. Chopper vowed 
 
228 Vanity Fair 
 
 and declared she pitied that poor young lady to lose such a 
 handsome young fellow as the Capting. As the daughter of an 
 unlucky speculator, who had paid a very shabby dividend, Mr. 
 Chopper had no great regard for Miss Sedley. He respected 
 the house of Osborne before all others in the city of London: 
 and his hope and wish was that Captain George should marry 
 a nobleman's daughter. The clerk slept a great deal sounder 
 than his principal that night: and cuddling his children after 
 breakfast (of which he partook with a very hearty appetite, 
 though his modest cup of life was only sweetened with brown 
 sugar), he set off in his best Sunday suit and frilled shirt for 
 business, promising his admiring wife not to punish Captain 
 D.'s port too severely that evening. 
 
 Mr. Osborne's countenance, when he aiTived in the City at his 
 usual time, struck those dependants who were accustomed, for 
 good reasons, to watch its expression, as peculiarly ghastly and 
 worn. At twelve o'clock Mr. Higgs (of the firm of Higgs & 
 Blatherwick, solicitors, Bedford Row), called by appointment, 
 and was ushered into the governor's private room, and closeted 
 there for more than an hour. At about one Mr. Chopper re- 
 ceived a note brought by Captain Dobbin's man, and containing 
 an inclosure for Mr. Osborne, which the clerk went in and de- 
 livered. A short time afterwards Mr. Chopper and Mr. Birch, 
 the next clerk, were summoned, and requested to witness a 
 paper. " I've been making a new will," Mr. Osborne said, to 
 which these gentlemen appended their names accordingly. No 
 conversation passed. Mr. Higgs looked exceedingly grave as 
 he came into the outer rooms, and very hard in Mr. Chopper's 
 face; but there were not any explanations. It was remarked 
 that Mr. Osborne was particularly quiet and gentle all day, to 
 the surprise of those who had augured ill from his darkling 
 demeanour. He called no man names that day, and was not 
 heard to swear once. He left business early, and before going 
 away, summoned his chief clerk once more, and having given 
 him general instructions, asked him, after some seeming hesita- 
 tion and reluctance to speak, if he knew whether Captain Dobbin 
 was in town.^* 
 
 Chopper said he believed he was. Indeed, both of them knew 
 the fact perfectly. 
 
 Osborne took a letter directed to that officer, and giving it to 
 the clerk, requested the latter to deliver it into Dobbin's own 
 hands immediately. 
 
 " And now, Chopper," says he, taking his hat, and with a 
 
The Family Bible 229 
 
 strange look, " my mind will be easy." Exactly as the clock 
 struck two (there was no doubt an appointment between the 
 pair)^ Mr. Frederick Bullock called, and he and Mr. Osborne 
 walked away together. 
 
 The Colonel of the — th regiment, in which Messieurs Dobbin 
 and Osborne had companies^ was an old General who had made 
 his first campaign under Wolfe at Quebec, and was long since 
 quite too old and feeble for command ; but he took some interest 
 in the regiment of which he was the nominal head, and made 
 certain of his young officers welcome at his table, a kind of 
 hospitality which I believe is not now common amongst his 
 brethren. Captain Dobbin was an especial favourite of this old 
 General. Dobbin was versed in the literature of his profession, 
 and could talk about the great Frederick, and the Empress 
 Queen, and their wars, almost as well as the General himself, 
 who was indifferent to the triumphs of the present day, and 
 whose heart was with the tacticians of fifty years back. This 
 officer sent a summons to Dobbin to come and breakfast with 
 him, on the morning when Mr. Osborne altered his will and Mr. 
 Chopper put on his best shirt-frill, and then informed his young 
 favourite, a couple of days in advance, of that which they were 
 all expecting — a marching order to go to Belgium. The order 
 for the regiment to hold itself in readiness would leave the Horse 
 Guards in a day or two ; and as transports were in plenty, they 
 would get their route before the week was over. Recruits had 
 come in during the stay of the regiment at Chatham; and the 
 old General hoped that the regiment which had helped to beat 
 Montcalm in Canada, and to rout Mr. Washington on Long 
 Island, would prove itself worthy of its historical reputation on 
 the oft- trodden battle-grounds of the Low Countries. " And 
 so, my good friend, if you have any a^aire Id,'' said the old 
 General, taking a pinch of snuff with liis trembling white old 
 hand, and then pointing to the spot of his robe de chambre under 
 which his heart was still feebly beating, " if you have any Philiis 
 to console, or to bid farewell to papa and mamma, or any will 
 to make, I recommend you to set about your business without 
 delay." With which the General gave his young friend a finger 
 to shake, and a good-natured nod of his powdered and pig-tailed 
 head ; and the door being closed upon Dobbin, sate down to pen 
 a poulet (he was exceedingly vain of his French) to Mademois^le 
 Amenaide of His Majesty's Theatre. 
 
 This news made Dobbin grave, and he thought of our friends 
 
230 Vanity Fair 
 
 at Brighton, and then he was ashamed of himself that Amelia 
 was always the first thing in his thoughts (always before any- 
 body — before father and mother, sisters and duty — always at 
 waking and sleeping indeed, and all day long), and returning to 
 his hotel, he sent off a brief note to Mr. Osborne acquainting him 
 with the information which he had received, and which might tend 
 farther, he hoped, to bring about a reconciliation with George. 
 
 This note, dispatched by the same messenger who had carried 
 the invitation to Chopper on the previous day, alarmed the 
 worthy clerk not a little. It was inclosed to him, and as he 
 opened the letter he trembled lest the dinner should be put off 
 on which he was calculating. His mind was inexpressibly re- 
 lieved when he found that the envelope was only a reminder for 
 himself. ("I shall expect you at half -past five," Captain 
 Dobbin wrote.) He was very much interested about his 
 employer's family ; but, que voulez-vous f a grand dinner was of 
 more concern to him than the affairs of any other mortal. 
 
 Dobbin was quite justified in repeating the General's informa- 
 tion to any officers of the regiment whom he should see in the 
 course of his peregrinations; accordingly he imparted it to 
 Ensign Stubble, whom he met at the agent's, and who — such 
 was his military ardour — ^went off instantly to purchase a new 
 sword at the accoutrement-maker's. Here this young fellow, 
 — ^who, though only seventeen years of age, and about sixty-five 
 inches high, with a constitution naturally rickety and much 
 impaired by premature brandy-and-water, had an undoubted 
 courage and a lion's heart, poised, tried, bent, and balanced a 
 weapon such as he thought would do execution amongst French- 
 men. Shouting " Ha, ha! " and stamping his little feet with 
 tremendous energy, he delivered the point twice or thrice at 
 Captain Dobbin, who parried the thrust laughingly with his 
 bamboo walking-stick. 
 
 Mr. Stubble, as may be supposed from his size and slenderness, 
 was of the Light Bobs. Ensign Spooney, on the contrary, was 
 a tall youth, and belonged to (Captain Dobbin's) the Grenadier 
 Company, and he tried on a new bearskin cap, under which he 
 looked savage beyond his years. Then these two lads went off 
 to the Slaughters', and having ordered a famous dinner, sate 
 down and wrote off letters to the kind anxious parents at home 
 — letters full of love and heartiness, and pluck and bad spelling. 
 AhT there were many anxious hearts beating through England 
 at that time; and mothers' prayers and tears flowing in many 
 homesteads* 
 
The Family Bible 231 
 
 Seeing young Stubble engaged in composition at one of the 
 coffee-room tables at the Slaughters', and the tears trickling 
 down his nose on to the paper (for the youngster was thinking 
 of his mam^ma, and that he might never see her again), Dobbin, 
 who was going to write off a letter to George Osborne, relented, 
 and locked up his desk. "Why should I?" said he. "Let 
 her have this night happy. I'll go and see my parents early in 
 the morning, and go down to Brighton myself to-morrow." 
 
 So he went up and laid his big hand on young Stubble's 
 shoulder, and backed up that young champion, and told him 
 if he would leave off brandy-and-water he would be a good 
 soldier, as he always was a gentlemanly good-hearted fellow* 
 Young Stubble's eyes brightened up at this, for Dobbin was 
 greatly respected in the regiment, as the best officer and the 
 cleverest man in it. 
 
 " Thank you, Dobbin," he said, rubbing his eyes with his 
 knuckles, " I was just — ^just telling her I would. And, sir, 
 she's so dam kind to me." The water-pumps were at work 
 again, and I am not sure that the soft-hearted Captain's eyes 
 did not also twinkle. 
 
 The two ensigns, the Captain, and Mr. Chopper, dined together 
 in the same box. Chopper brought the letter from Mr. Osborne, 
 in which the latter briefly presented his compliments to Captain 
 Dobbin, and requested him to forward the inclosed to Captain 
 George Osborne. Chopper knew nothing further; he described 
 Mr. Osborne's appearance, it is true, and his interview with his. 
 lawyer, wondered how the governor had sworn at nobody, and 
 — especially as the wine circled round — abounded in specula- 
 tions and conjectures. But these grew more vague with every 
 glass, and at length became perfectly unintelligible. At a late 
 hour Captain Dobbin put his guest into a hackney-coach, in a 
 hiccupping state, and swearing that he would be the kick — the 
 kick — Captain's friend for ever and ever. 
 
 When Captain Dobbin took leave of Miss Osborne we have 
 said that he asked leave to come and pay her another visit, and 
 the spinster expected him for some hours the next day, when, 
 perhaps, had he come, and had he asked her that question which 
 she was prepared to answer, she would have declared herself 
 as her brother's friend, and a reconciliation might have been 
 effected between George and his angry father. But though^ she 
 waited at home the Captain never came. He had his own 
 affairs to pursue; his own parents to visit and console; and at 
 an early hour of the day to take his place on the Lightning coach 
 
232 Vanity Fair 
 
 and go down to his friends at Brighton. In the course of the day- 
 Miss Osborne heard her father give orders that that meddling 
 scoundrel Captain Dobbin should never be admitted within his 
 doors again, and any hopes in which she may have indulged 
 privately were thus abruptly brought to an end. Mr. Frederick 
 Bullock came, and was particularly affectionate to Maria, and 
 attentive to the broken-spirited old gentleman. For though 
 he said his mind would be easy, the means which he had taken 
 to secure quiet did not seem to have succeeded as yet, and the 
 events of the past two days had visibly shattered him. 
 
 CHAPTER XXV 
 
 IN WHICH ALL THE PRINCIPAL PERSONAGES THINK FIT 
 TO LEAVE BRIGHTON 
 
 Conducted to the ladies, at the Ship Inn, Dobbin assumed a 
 jovial and rattling manner, which proved that this young officer 
 was becoming a more consummate hypocrite every day of his 
 life. He was trying to hide his own private feelings, first upon 
 seeing Mrs. George Osborjie in her new condition, and secondly 
 to mask the apprehensions he entertained as to the effect which 
 the dismal news brought down by him would certainly have 
 upon her. 
 
 "It is my opinion, George," he said, " that the French 
 Emperor will be upon us, horse and foot, before three weeks are 
 over, and will give the Duke such a dance as shall make the 
 Peninsula appear mere child's play. But you need not say that 
 to Mrs. Osborne, you know. There mayn't be any fighting on 
 our side after all, and our business in Belgium may turn out to 
 be a mere military occupation. Many persons think so; and 
 Brussels is full of fine people and ladies of fashion." So it was 
 agreed to represent the duty of the British army in Belgium in 
 this harmless light to Amelia. 
 
 This plot being arranged, the hypocritical Dobbin saluted 
 Mrs. George Osborne quite gaily, tried to pay her one or two 
 compliments relative to her new position as a bride (which com- 
 pliments, it must be confessed, were exceedingly clumsy and 
 hung fire woefully), and then fell to talking about Brighton, and 
 the sea air, and the gaieties of the place, and the beauties of the 
 
The Principal Personages at Brighton 233 
 
 road and the merits of the Lightning coach and horses^ — all in 
 a manner quite incomprehensible to Amelia, and very amusing 
 to Rebecca, who was watching the Captain, as indeed she watched 
 every one near whom she came. 
 
 Little Amelia, it must be owned, had rather a mean opinion 
 of her husband's friend, Captain Dobbin. He lisped — he was 
 ver}' plain and homely-looking: and exceedingly awkward and 
 ungainly. She liked him for his attachment to her husband (to 
 be sure there was very little merit in that), and she thought 
 George was most generous and kind in extending his friendship 
 to his brother officer. George had mimicked Dobbin's lisp and 
 queer manners many times to her, though, to do him justice, he 
 always spoke most highly of his friend's good quahties. In her 
 little day of triumph, and not knowing him intimately a,s yet, 
 she made light of honest William— and he knew her opinions of 
 him quite well, and acquiesced in them very humbly. A time 
 came when she knew him better, and changed her notions re- 
 garding him ; but that was distant as yet. 
 
 As for Rebecca, Captain Dobbin had not been two hours in 
 the ladies' company before she understood his secret perfectly. 
 She did not like him and feared him privately ; nor was he very 
 much prepossessed in her favour. He was so honest, that her 
 arts and cajoleries did not affect him, and he shrank from her 
 with instinctive repulsion. And, as she was by no means so far 
 superior to her sex as to be above jealousy, she disliked him the 
 more for his adoration of Amelia. Nevertheless, she was very 
 respectful and cordial in her manner towards him. A friend to 
 theOsbomes! a friend to her dearest_benef(?,.r;t.ors t She vowed 
 she should always" lovehim sincerely: she remembered him 
 quite well on the Vauxhall night, as she told Amelia archly, and 
 she made a little fun of him when the two ladies went to dress 
 for dinner. Rawdon Crawley paid scarcely any attention to 
 Dobbin, looking upon him as a good-natured nincompoop and 
 underbred City man. Jos patronised him with much dignity. 
 
 When George and Dobbin were alone in the latter's room, to 
 which George had followed him, Dobbin took from his desk the 
 letter which he had been charged by Mr. Osborne to deliver to 
 his son. ' It's not in my father's handwriting," said George, 
 looking rather alarmed; nor was it: the letter was from Mr. 
 Osborne's lawyer, and to the following effect: — 
 
 ^H2S 
 
2 34 Vanity Fair 
 
 "Bedford Row, May 7, 1815. 
 
 " Sir, — I am commissioned by Mr. Osborne to inform you, that 
 he abides by the determination which he before expressed to you, 
 and that in consequence of the marriage which you have been 
 pleased to contract, he ceases to consider you henceforth as a 
 member of his family. This determination is final and irrevocable. 
 
 " Although the moneys expended upon you in your minority, 
 and the bills which you have drawn upon him so unsparingly of 
 late years, far exceed in amount the sum to which you are entitled 
 In your own right (being the third part of the fortune of your mother, 
 the late Mrs. Osborne, and which reverted to you at her decease, 
 and to Miss Jane Osborne and Miss Maria Frances Osborne) ; yet 
 1 am instructed by Mr. Osborne to say, that he waives all claim 
 upon your estate, and that the sum of ;£2ooo, 4 per cent, annuities, 
 at the value of the day (being your one-third share of the sum of 
 ;^6ooo), shall be paid over to yourself or your agents upon your 
 receipt for the same by, 
 
 " Your obedient Servt., 
 
 " S. HiGGS. 
 
 " P.S. — Mr. Osborne desires me to say, once for all, that he 
 declines to receive any messages, letters, or communications from 
 you on this or any other subject." 
 
 " A pretty way you have managed the affair/' said George, 
 looking savagely at William Dobbin. '^ Look there, Dobbin," 
 and he flung over to the latter his parent's letter. " A beggar, 
 
 by Jove, and all in consequence of my d d sentimentality. 
 
 Why couldn't we have waited ? A ball might have done for me 
 in the course of the war, and may still, and how will Emmy be 
 bettered by being left a beggar's widow? It was al! your doing. 
 You were never easy until you had got me married and ruined. 
 What the deuce am I to do with two thousand pounds ? Such a 
 sum won't last two years. I've lost a hundred and forty to 
 Crawley at cards and billiards since I've been down here. A 
 pretty manager of a man's matters you sue, forsooth." 
 
 " There's no denying that the position is a hard one," Dobbin 
 replied, after reading over the letter with a blank countenance; 
 " and, as you say, it is partly of my making. There are some 
 men who wouldn't mind changing with you," he added, with a 
 bitter smile. " How many captains in the regiment have two 
 thousand pounds to the fore, think you? You must live on 
 your pay till your father relents, and if you die, you leave your 
 wife a hundred a year." 
 
 " Do you suppose a man of my habits can live on his pay and 
 a hundred a year? " George cried out in great anger. " You 
 
The Principal Personages at Brighton 235 
 
 must be a fool to talk so, Dobbin. How the deuce am I to keep 
 up my position in the world upon such a pitiful pittance? I 
 can't change my habits. I must have my comforts.,, / wasn't 
 brought up on porridge, like MacWhirter, or on potatoes, like 
 old O'Dowd. Do you expect my wife to take in soldiers' wash- 
 ing, or ride after the regiment in a baggage waggon? " 
 
 " Well, well," said Dobbin, still good-naturedly, '' we'll get 
 her a better conveyance. But try and remember that you are 
 only a dethroned prince now, George, my boy; and be quiet 
 whilst the tempest lasts. It won't be for long. Let your name 
 be mentioned in the Gazette, and I'll engage the old father 
 relents towards you." 
 
 "Mentioned in the Gazette!" George answered. "And in 
 what part of it? Among the killed and wounded returns, and 
 at the top of the list, very likely." 
 
 " Psha I It will be time enough to cry out when we are hurt," 
 Dobbin said. " And if anything happens, you know, George, 
 I have got a little, and I am not a marrying man, and I shall not 
 forget my godson in my will," he added, with a smile. Where- 
 upon the dispute ended — as many scores of such conversations 
 between Osborne and his friend had concluded previously — by 
 the former declaring there was no possibility of being angry with 
 Dobbin long, and forgiving him very generously after abusing 
 him without cause. 
 
 " I say, Becky," cried Rawdon Crawley out of his dressing- 
 room, to his lady, who was attiring herseK for dinner in her 
 own chamber. 
 
 ""VVTiat?" said Becky's shrill voice. She was looking over 
 her shoulder in the glass. She had put on the neatest and 
 freshest white frock imaginable, and with bare shoulders and a 
 little necklace, and a light blue sash, she looked the image of 
 youthful innocence and girlish happiness. 
 
 " I say, what '11 Mrs. 0. do, when O. goes out with the regi- 
 ment? " Crawley said, coming into the room, performing a 
 duet on his head with two huge hair brushes, and looking out 
 from under his hair with admiration on his pretty httle wife. 
 
 " I suppose she'll cry her eyes out," Becky answered. " She 
 has been whimpering half-a-dozen times, at the very notion of 
 it already to me." 
 
 " You don't care, I suppose? " Rawdon said, half angry at 
 his wife's want of feelingi 
 
 " You wretch ! don't you know that I intend to go with you," 
 Becky replied. " Besides, you're different. You go as General 
 
236 Vanity Fair 
 
 Tufto's aide-de-camp. We don't belong to the line/' Mrs. 
 Crawley said, throwing up her head with an air that so enchanted 
 her husband that he stooped down and kissed it. 
 
 " Rawdon dear — don't you think — you'd better get that — 
 money from Cupid, before he goes? " Becky continued, fixing 
 on a killing bow. She called George Osborne, Cupid. She had 
 flattered him about his good looks a score of times already. 
 She watched over him kindly at ecarfe of a night when he would 
 drop into Rawdon's quarters for a half -hour before bedtime. 
 
 She had often called him a' horrid dissipated wretch, and 
 threatened to tell Emmy of his wicked ways and naughty ex- 
 travagant habits. She brought his cigar and hghted it for him; 
 she knew the effect of that manoeuvre, having practised it in 
 former days upon Rawdon Crawley. He thought her gay, 
 brisk, arch, distinguee, delightful. In their little drives and 
 dinners, Becky, of course, quite outshone poor Emmy, who 
 remained very mute and timid while Mrs. Crawley and her hus- 
 band rattled away together, and Captain Crawley (and Jos after 
 he joined the young married people) gobbled in silence. 
 
 Einm3^'s mind somehow misgave her about her friend. 
 Rebecca's wit, spirits and accomplishments troubled her with 
 a rueful disquiet. They were only a week married, and here was 
 George already suffering eiinui, and eager for others' society! 
 She trembled for the future. How shall I be a companion for 
 him, she thought — so clever and so brilliant, and I such a humble 
 foolish creature? How noble it was of him to marry me — to 
 give up everything and stoop down to me! I ought to have 
 refused him, only I had not the heart. I ought to have stopped 
 at home and taken care of poor papa. And her neglect of her 
 parents (and indeed there was some foundation for this charge 
 which the poor child's uneasy conscience brought against her) 
 was now remembered for the first time, and caused her to blush 
 with humiliation. Oh! thought she, I have been very wicked 
 and selfish — selfish in forgetting them in their sorrows — 
 selfish in forcing George to marry me. I know I'm not 
 worthy of him — I know he would have been happy without 
 me — and yet — I tried, I tried to give him up. 
 
 It is hard when, before seven days of marriage are over, such 
 thoughts and confessions as these force themselves on a little 
 bride's mind. But so it was, and the night before Dobbin 
 came to join these young people — on a fine brilliant moonlight 
 night of May — so warm and balmy that the windows were flung 
 open to the balcony, from which George and Mrs. Crawley were 
 
The Principal Personages at Brighton 237 
 
 gazing upon the calm ocean spread shining before them, while 
 Rawdon and Jos were engaged at backgammon within — ^Amelia 
 crouched in a great chair quite neglected, and watching both 
 these parties, felt a despair and remorse such as were bitter com- 
 panions for that tender lonely soul. Scarce a week was past, 
 and it was come to this! The future, had she regarded it, 
 offered a dismal prospect; but Emmy was too shy, so to speak, 
 to look to that, and embark alone on that wide sea, and unfit 
 to navigate it without a guide and protector. I know Miss 
 Smith has a mean opinion of her. But how many, my dear 
 Madam, are endowed with your prodigious strength of mind ? 
 
 " Gad, what a fine night, and how bright the moon is ! " 
 George said, with a puff of his cigar, which went soaring up 
 sk5rwards. 
 
 " How delicious they smell in the open air! I adore them.- 
 Who'd think the moon was two hundred and thirty-six thousand 
 eight hundred and forty -seven miles off? " Becky added, gaz- 
 ing at that orb with a smile. " Isn't it clever of me to remember 
 that? Pooh! we learned it all at Miss Pinkerton's! How 
 calm the sea is, and how clear everything. I declare I can 
 almost see the coast of France ! " and her bright green eyes 
 streamed out, and shot into the night as if they could see through 
 it. 
 
 " Do you know what I intend to do one morning? " she said; 
 " I find I can swim beautifully, and some day, when my Aunt 
 Crawley's companion — old Briggs, you know — you remember 
 her — that hook-nosed woman, with the long wisps of hair — 
 when Briggs goes out to bathe, I intend to dive under her awn- 
 ing, and insist on a reconciliation in the water. Isn't that a 
 stratagem? " 
 
 George burst out laughing at the idea of this aquatic meetings 
 " What's the row there, you two ? " Rawdon shouted out, 
 rattling the box. Amelia was making a fool of herself in an 
 absurd hysterical manner, and retired to her own room to 
 whimper in private. 
 
 Our history is destined in this chapter to go backv\^ards and 
 forwards in a very irresolute manner seemingly, and having con- 
 ducted our story to to-morrow presently, we shall immediately 
 again have occasion to step back to yesterday, so that the whole 
 of the tale may get a hearing. As you behold in Her Majesty's 
 drawing-room, the ambassadors' and high dignitaries' carriages 
 whisk off from a private door, while Captain Jones's ladies are 
 waiting for their fly : as you see in the Secretary of the Treasury's 
 
238 Vanity Fair 
 
 antechamber, a half-dozen of petitioners waiting patiently for 
 their audience, and called out one by one, when suddenly an 
 Irish member or some eminent personage enters the apartment, 
 and instantly walks in to Mr. Under-Secretary over the heads 
 of all the people present: so, in the conduct of a tale, the 
 romancer is obliged to exercise this most partial sort of justice. 
 Although all the little incidents must be heard, yet they must be 
 put off when the great events make their appearance; and 
 surely such a circumstance as that which brought Dobbin to 
 Brighton, viz., the ordering out of the Guards and the line to 
 Belgium, and the mustering of the allied armies in that country 
 under the command of his Grace the Duke of Wellington — such 
 a dignified circumstance as that, I say, was entitled to the pas 
 over all minor occurrences whereof this history is composed 
 mainly, and hence a little trifling disarrangement and disorder 
 was excusable and becoming. We have only now advanced in 
 time so far beyond Chapter XXII as to have got our various 
 characters up into their dressing-rooms before the dinner, which 
 took place as usual on the day of Dobbin's arrival. 
 
 George was too humane or too much occupied with the tie of 
 his neckcloth to convey at once all the news to Amelia which his 
 comrade had brought with him from London. He came into 
 her room however, holding the attorney's letter in his hand, and 
 with so solemn and important an air that his wife, always 
 ingeniously on the watch for calamity, thought the worst was 
 about to befall, and running up to her husband, besought her 
 dearest George to tell her everything — ^he was ordered abroad; 
 there would be a battle next week — she knew there would. 
 
 Dearest George parried the question about foreign service, 
 and with a melancholy shake of the head said, " No, Emmy; 
 it isn't that: it's not myself I care about: it's you. I have had 
 bad news from my father. He refuses any communication with 
 me; he has flung us off; and leaves us to povert}^ / can rough 
 it well enough ; but you, my dear, how will you bear it ? read 
 here." And he handed her over the letter. 
 
 Amelia, with a look of tender alarm in her eyes, listened to 
 her noble hero as he uttered the above generous sentiments, and 
 sitting down on the bed, read the letter which George gave her 
 with such a pompous martyr-like air. Her face cleared up as 
 she read the document, however. The idea of sharing poverty 
 and privation in company with the beloved object is, as v^e have 
 before said, far from being disagreeable to a warm-hearted 
 woman,. The notion M^as actually pleasant to little Amelia. 
 
The Principal Personages at Brighton 239 
 
 Then, as usual, she was ashamed of herself for feeling happy at 
 such an indecorous moment, and checked her pleasure, saying 
 demurely, " George, how your poor heart must bleed at the 
 idea of being separated from your papa 1 " 
 
 " It does," said George, with an agonised countenance.- 
 
 " But he can't be angry with you long," she continued. 
 " Nobody could, I'm sure. He must forgive you, my dearest, 
 kindest husband. Oh, I shall never forgive myself if he does 
 not." 
 
 " What vexes me, my poor Emmy, is not my misfortune, but 
 yours," George said. " I don't care for a httle poverty; and I 
 think, without vanity, I've talents enough to make my own 
 way." 
 
 " That you have," interposed his wife, who thought that 
 war should cease, and her husband should be made a general 
 instantly. 
 
 " Yes, I shall make my way as well as another," Osborne 
 went on; " but you, my dear girl, how can I bear your being 
 deprived of the comforts and station in society which my wife 
 had a right to expect ? My dearest girl in barracks; the wife of 
 a soldier in a marching regiment; subject to all sorts of annoy- 
 ance and privation ! It makes me miserable." 
 
 Emmy, quite at ease, as this was her husband's only cause of 
 disquiet, took his hand, and with a radiant face and smile began 
 to warble that stanza from the favourite song of " Wapping Old 
 Stairs," in which the heroine, after rebuking her Tom for in- 
 attention, promises " his trousers to mend, and his grog too to 
 make," if he v/ill be constant and kind, and not forsake her. 
 " Besides," she said, after a pause, during which she looked as 
 pretty and happy as any young woman need, " isn't two 
 thousand pounds an immense deal of money, George? " 
 
 George laughed at her naivete ; and finally they went down 
 to dinner, Amelia clinging to George's arm, still warbling the 
 tune of *' Wapping Old Stairs," and more pleased and light of 
 mind than she had been for some days past. 
 
 Thus the repast, which at length came off, instead of being 
 dismal, was an exceedingly brisk and merry one. The excite- 
 ment of the campaign counteracted in George's mind the 
 depression occasioned by the disinheriting letter. Dobbin still 
 kept up his character of rattle. He amused the company with 
 accounts of the army in Belgium, where nothing but fetes and 
 gaiety and fashion were going on. Then, having a particular 
 end in view, this dexterous Captain proceeded to describe Mrs, 
 
240 Vanity Fair 
 
 Major O'Dowd packing her own and her Major's wardrobe, and 
 how his best epaulets had been stowed into a tea canister, whilst 
 her own famous yellow turban, with the bird of paradise wrapped 
 in brov/n paper, was locked up in the Major's tin cocked-hat 
 case, and wondered what effect it would have at the French 
 king's court at Ghent, or the great military balls at Brussels. 
 
 " Ghent! Brussels! " cried out Amelia with a sudden shock 
 and start. '' Is the regiment ordered away, George, — is it 
 ordered away? " A look of terror cam^e over the sweet smiling 
 face, and she clung to George, as by an instinct. 
 
 " Don't be afraid, dear," he said good-naturedly; " it is but a 
 twelve hours' passage. It won't hurt you. You shall go too, 
 Emmy." 
 
 " / intend to go," said Becky. " I'm on the staff. General 
 Tufto is a great flirt of mine. Isn't he, Rawdon ? " 
 
 Rawdon laughed out with his usual roar. William Dobbin 
 flushed up quite red. " She can't go," he said; " think of the 
 — of the danger," he was going to add; but had not a,ll his con- 
 versation during dinner-time tended to prove there was none? 
 He became very confused and silent. 
 
 " I must and will go," Amelia cried with the greatest spirit; and 
 George, appending her resolution, patted her under the chin and 
 asked all the persons present if they ever saw such a termagant 
 of a wife, and agreed that the lady should bear him company. 
 " We'll have Mrs. O'Dowd to chaperon you," he said. What 
 cared she so long as her husband was near her? Thus somehow 
 the bitterness of a parting was juggled away. Though war and 
 danger were in store, war and danger might not befall for months 
 to come. There was a respite at any rate, which made the timid 
 little Amelia almost as happy as a full reprieve would have 
 done, and which even Dobbin owned in his own heart was very 
 welcome. For, to be permitted to see her was now the greatest 
 privilege and hope of his life, and he thought with himself 
 secretly how he would watch and protect her. I wouldn't have 
 let her go if I had been married to her, he thought. But George 
 was the master, and his friend did not think fit to remonstrate. 
 
 Putting her arm round her friend's waist, Rebecca at length 
 carried Amelia off from the dinner-table, where so much busi- 
 ness of importance had been discussed, and left the gentlemen 
 in a highly exhilarated state, drinking and talking very gaily. 
 
 In the course of the evening Rawdon got a little family note 
 from his wife, wdiich, although he crumpled it up and burnt it 
 instantly in the candle, we had the good luck to read over 
 
The Principal Personages at Brighton 241 
 
 Rebecca's shoulder. " Great news/' she wrote. " Mrs. Bute 
 is gone. Get the money from Cupid to-night, as he'll be off 
 to-morrow most ' " ely. Mind this. — R." So when the little com- 
 pany was about adjourning to coffee in the women's apartment, 
 Rawdon touched Osborne on the elbow, and said gracefully, " I 
 say, Osborne, ray boy, if quite convenient, I'll trouble you for 
 that 'ere small trifle." It was not quite convenient, but never- 
 theless George gave him a considerable present instalment in 
 bank-notes from his pocket-book, and a bill on his agents at a 
 week's date for the remaining sum. 
 
 This matter arranged, George, and Jos, and Dobbin held a 
 council of war over their cigars, and agreed that a general move 
 should be made for London in Jos's open carriage the next day. 
 Jos, I think, would have preferred staying until Rawdon Crawley 
 quitted Brighton, but Dobbin and George overmled him, and he 
 agreed to carry the party to town, and ordered four horses, as 
 became his dignity. With these they set off in state, after break- 
 fast, the next day. Amelia had risen very early in the morning, 
 and packed her little trunks with the greatest alacrity, while 
 Osborne lay in bed deploring that she had not a maid to help 
 her. She was only too glad, however, to perform this office for 
 herself. A dim uneasy sentiment about Rebecca filled her mind 
 already; and although they kissed each other most tenderly at 
 parting, yet we know what jealousy is; and Mrs. Amelia pos- 
 sessed that among other virtues of her sex. 
 
 Besides these characters who are coming and going away, we 
 must remember that there were some other old friends of ours 
 at Brighton ; Miss Crawley, namely, and the suite in attendance 
 upon her. Now, although Rebecca and her husband were but 
 at a few stones' throw of the lodgings which the invalid Miss 
 Crawley occupied, the old lady's door remained as pitilessly 
 closed to them as it had been heretofore in London. As long as 
 she remained by the side of her sister-in-law, Mrs. Bute Crawley 
 took care that her beloved Matilda should not be agitated 
 by a meeting with her nephew. When the spinster took her 
 drive, the faithful Mrs. Bute sate beside her in the carriage. 
 Wlien Miss Crawley took the air in a chair, Mrs. Bute marched 
 on one side of the vehicle, while honest Briggs occupied the 
 other wing. And if they met Rawdon and his wife by chance — 
 although the former constantly and obsequiously took off his 
 hat, the Mlss-Crawley party passed him by with such a frigid 
 and killing indifference, that Rawdon began to despair. 
 
242 Vanity Fair 
 
 " We might as well be in London as here/' Captain Rawdon 
 often said, with a downcast air, 
 
 " A comfortable inn in Brighton is better than a spunging 
 house in Chancery Lane/' his wife answered, who was of a more 
 cheerful temperament. " Think of those two aides-de-camp 
 of Mr. Moses, the sheriff's-officer, who watched our lodgings for 
 a week. Our friends here are very stupid, but Mr. Jos and 
 Captain Cupid are better companions than Mr. Moses's men, 
 Rawdon, my love." 
 
 " I wonder the writs haven't followed me down here," Rawdon 
 continued, still desponding. 
 
 " When they do, we'll find means to give them the slip," said 
 dauntless little Becky, and further pointed out to her husband 
 the great comfort and advantage of meeting Jos and Osborne, 
 whose acquaintance had brought to Rawdon Crawley a most 
 timely little supply of ready-money. 
 
 " It will hardly be enough to pay the mn bill," grumbled the 
 Guardsman. 
 
 " \Vhy need we pay it? " said the lady, who had an answer for 
 everything. 
 
 Through Rawdon's valet, who still kept up a trifling acquain- 
 tance with the male inhabitants of Miss Crawley's servants' 
 hall, and was instructed to treat the coachman to drink when- 
 ever they met, old Miss Crawley's movements were pretty well 
 known by our young couple; and Rebecca luckily bethought 
 herself of being unwell, and of calling in the same apothecary 
 who was in attendance upon the spinster, so that their informa- 
 tion was on the whole tolerably complete. Nor was Miss Briggs, 
 although forced to adopt , a hostile attitude, secretly inimical 
 to Rawdon and his wife. She was naturally of a kindly and 
 forgiving disposition. Now that the cause of jealousy was 
 removed, her dislike for Rebecca disappeared also, and she 
 remembered the latter's invariable good words and good humour. 
 And, indeed, she and Mrs. Firkin, the lady's-maid, and the 
 whole of Miss Crawley's household^ groaned under the tyranny 
 of the triumphant Mrs. Bute. 
 
 As often will be the case, that good but imperious woman 
 pushed her advantages too far, and her successes quite unmerci- 
 fully. She had in the course of a few weeks brought the 
 invalid to such a state of helpless docility, that the poor soul 
 yielded herself entirely to her sister's orders, and did not even 
 dare to complain of her slavery to Briggs or Firkin. Mrs. Bute 
 measured out the glasses of wine which Miss Crawley was daily 
 
The Principal Personages at Brighton 243 
 
 allowed to take, with irresistible accuracy, greatly to the annoy- 
 ance of Firkin and the butler, who found themselves deprived 
 of control over even the sherry-bottle. She apportioned the 
 sweetbreads, jellies, chickens; their quantity and order. Night 
 and noon and morning she brought the abominable drinks 
 ordained by the Doctor, and made her patient swallow them 
 with so affecting an obedience, that Firkin said, " My poor 
 Missus du take her physic like a lamb." She prescribed the 
 drive in the carriage or the ride in the chair, and, in a word, 
 ground down the old lady in her convalescence in such a way as 
 only belongs to your proper-managing, motherly, moral woman. 
 If ever the patient faintly resisted, and pleaded for a little bit 
 more dinner or a little drop less medicine, the nurse threatened 
 her with instantaneous death, when Miss Crawley instantly gave 
 in. " She's no spirit left in her," Firkin remarked to Briggs; 
 " she ain't 'ave called me a fool these three weeks." Finally, 
 Mrs. Bute had made up her mind to dismiss the aforesaid honest 
 lady's-maid, Mr. Bowls the large confidential man, and Briggs 
 herself, and to send for her daughters from the Rectory, previous 
 to removing the dear invalid bodily to Queen's Crawley, when 
 an odious accident happened which called her away from duties 
 so pleasing. The Reverend Bute Crawley, her husband, riding 
 home one night, fell from his horse and broke his collar-bone. 
 Fever and inflammatory symptoms set in, and Mrs. Bute was 
 forced to leave Sussex for Hampshire. As soon as ever Bute 
 was restored, she promised to return to her dearest friend, and 
 departed, leaving the strongest injunctions with the household 
 regarding their behaviour to their mistress; and as soon as she 
 got into the Southampton coach, there was such a jubilee and 
 sense of relief in all Miss Crawley's house, as the company of 
 persons assembled there had not experienced for many a week 
 before. That very day Miss Crawley left off her afternoon dose 
 of medicine: that afternoon Bowls opened an independent 
 bottle of sherry for himself and Mrs. Firkin: that night Miss 
 Crawley and Miss Briggs indulged in a game of piquet instead 
 of one of Porteus's sermons. It was as in the old nursery-story, 
 when the stick forgot to beat the dog, and the whole course of 
 events underwent a peaceful and happy revolution. 
 
 At a very early hour in the morning, twice or thrice a week. 
 Miss Briggs used to betake herself in a bathing-machine, and 
 disport in the water in a flannel gown and an oilskin cap. 
 Rebecca, as we have seen, was aware of this circumstance, and 
 though she did not attempt to storm Briggs as she had threatened^ 
 
244 Vanity Fair 
 
 and actually dive into that lady's presence and surprise her 
 under the sacredness of the awning, Mrs. Rawdon determined 
 to attack Briggs as she came away from her bath, refreshed and 
 invigorated by her dip, and likely to be in good humour. 
 
 So getting up very early the next morning, Becky brought 
 the telescope in their sitting-room, which faced the sea, to bear 
 upon the bathing-machmes on the beach; saw Briggs arrive, 
 enter her box, and put out to sea; and was on the shore just as 
 the nymph of whom she came in quest stepped out of the little 
 caravan on to the shingles. It was a pretty picture : the beach; 
 the bathing- women's faces; the long line of rocks and building 
 were blushing and bright in the sunshine. Rebecca wore a 
 kind, tender smile on her face, and was holding out her pretty- 
 white hand as Briggs emerged from the box. What could 
 Briggs do but accept the salutation? 
 
 " Miss Sh , Mrs. Crawley," she said. 
 
 Mrs. Crawley seized her hand, pressed it to her heart, and with 
 a sudden impulse, flinging her arms round Briggs, kissed her 
 affectionately. " Dear, dear friend ! " she said, with a touch of 
 such natural feeling, that Miss Briggs of course at once began 
 to melt, and even the bathing-woman was mollified. 
 
 Rebecca found no difficulty in engaging Briggs in a long, 
 intimate, and delightful conversation. Everything that had 
 passed since the morning of Becky's sudden departure from 
 Miss Crawley's house in Park Lane up to the present day, and 
 Mrs. Bute's happy retreat, was discussed and described by 
 Briggs. All Miss Crawley's symptoms, and the particulars of her 
 illness and medical treatment, were narrated by the confidante 
 v/ith that fulness and accuracy which women delight in. About 
 their complaints and their doctors do ladies ever tire of talking 
 to each other? Briggs did not on this occasion; nor did 
 Rebecca weary of listening. She was thankful, truly thankful, 
 that the dear kind Briggs, that the faithful, the invaluable 
 Firkin, had been permitted to remain with their benefactress 
 through her illness. Heaven bless her! though she, Rebecca, 
 had seemed to act undutifully towards Miss Crawley, yet was 
 not her fault a natural and excusable one? Could she help 
 giving her hand to the man who had won her heart? Briggs, 
 the sentimental, could only turn up her eyes to heaven at this 
 appeal, and heave a sympathetic sigh, and think that she, too, 
 had given away her affections long years ago, and own that 
 Rebecca was no very great criminal. 
 
 '* Can I ever forget her who so befriended the friendless 
 
The Principal Personages at Brighton 245 
 
 orphan? No, though she has cast me off/' the latter said, " I 
 shalljiever cease to love her, and I would devote my life to her 
 service. As my own benefactress, as my beloved Rawdon's 
 adored relative, I love and admire Miss Crawley, dear Miss 
 Briggs, beyond any woman in the world, and next to her I love 
 all those who are faithful to her. / would never have treated 
 Miss Crawley's faithful friends as that odious designing Mrs. 
 Bute has done. Rawdon, who was all heart," Rebecca con- 
 tinued, " although his outward manners might seem rough and 
 careless, had said a hundred times, with tears in his eyes, that 
 he blessed Heaven for sending his dearest Aunty two such ad- 
 mirable nurses as her attached Firkin and her admirable Miss 
 Briggs." Should the machinations of the horrible Mrs. Bute 
 end, as she too much fea.red they would, in banishing everybody 
 that Miss Crawley loved from her side, and leaving that poor 
 lady a victim of those harpies at the Rectory, Rebecca besought 
 her (Miss Briggs) to remember that her own home, humble as it 
 was, was always open to receive Briggs. " Dear friend," she 
 exclaimed, in a transport of enthusiasm, " some hearts can never 
 forget benefits ; all women are not Bute Crawleys ! Though why 
 should I complain of her," Rebecca added; " though I have been 
 her tool and the victim to her arts, do I not owe my dearest 
 Rawdon to her.^ " And Rebecca unfolded to Briggs all Mrs. 
 Bute's conduct at Queen's Crawley, which, though unintelligible 
 to her then, was clearly enough explained by the events now, — 
 now that the attachm.ent had sprung up which Mrs. Bute had 
 encouraged by a thousand artifices, — now that two innocent 
 people had fallen into the snares which she had laid for them, 
 and loved and married and been ruined through her schemes. 
 
 It was all very true. Briggs saw the stratagems as clearly 
 as possible. Mrs. Bute had made the match between Rawdon 
 and Rebecca. Yet, though the latter was a perfectly innocent 
 victim, Miss Briggs could not disguise from her friend her fear 
 that Miss Crawley's affections were hopelessly estranged from 
 Rebecca, and that the old lady would never forgive her nephew 
 for making so imprudent a ma,rriage. 
 
 On this point Rebecca had her own opinion, and still kept up 
 a good heart. If Miss Crawley did not forgive them at present, 
 she might at least relent on a future day. Even now there was 
 only that puling, sickly Pitt Crawley between Rawdon and a 
 baronetcy ; and should anything happen to the former all would 
 be well. At all events, to have Mrs. Bute's designs exposed, and 
 herself well abused, was a satisfaction, and might be advan- 
 
246 Vanity Fair 
 
 tageous to Rawdon's interest; and Rebecca, after an hour's chat 
 with her recovered friend, left her with the most tender demon- 
 strations of regard, and quite assured that the conversation they 
 had had together would be reported to Miss Crawley before 
 many hours were over. 
 
 This, interview ended, it became full time for Rebecca to re- 
 turn to her inn, where all the party of the previous day were 
 assembled at a farewell breakfast. Rebecca took such a tender 
 leave of Amelia as became two women who loved each other as 
 sisters ; and having used her handkerchief plentifully, and hung 
 on her friend's neck as if they were parting for ever, and waved 
 the handkerchief (which was quite dry, by the way) out of 
 window, as the carriage drove off, she came back to the break- 
 fast table and ate some prawns, with a good deal of appetite, 
 considering her emotion; and while she was munching these 
 delicacies, explained to Rawdon what had occurred in her morn- 
 ing walk between herself and Briggs. Her hopes were very 
 high: she made her husband share them. She generally suc- 
 ceeded in making her husband share all her opinions, whether., 
 melancholy or cheerful. 
 
 " You will now, if you please, my dear, sit down at the writing- 
 table and pen me a pretty little letter to Miss Crawley, in which 
 you'll say that you are a good boy, and that sort of thing." So 
 Rawdon sate down, and wrote off, " Brighton, Thursday," and 
 " My dear Aunt," with great rapidity : but there the gallant 
 officer's imagination failed him. He mumbled the end of his 
 pen, and looked up in his wife's face. She could not help laugh- 
 ing at his rueful countenance, and marching up and down the 
 room with her hands behind her, the little woman began to 
 dictate a letter, which he took down. 
 
 " Before quitting the country and commencing a campaign, 
 which very possibly may be fatal " 
 
 " What ? " said Rawdon, rather surprised, but took the 
 humour of the phrase, and presently wi'ote it down with a grin. 
 
 " Which very possibly may be fatal, I have come hither " 
 
 " Why not say come here, Becky ? come here's grammar," 
 the dragoon interposed. 
 
 " I have come hither," Rebecca insisted, with a stamp of 
 her foot, " to say farewell to my dearest and earliest friend. I 
 beseech you before I go, not perhaps to return, once more to 
 let me press the hand from which I have received nothing but 
 kindnesses all my life." 
 
 " Kindnesses all my life," echoed Rawdon, scratching down 
 
The Principal Personages at Brighton 247 
 
 the words, and quite amazed at his own facility of composition. 
 
 " I ask nothing from you but that we should part not in 
 anger. I have the pride of rny family on some points, though 
 not on all. I married a painter's daughter, and am not ashamed 
 of the union." 
 
 " No, run me through the body if I am ! " Rav/don ejaculated. 
 
 "You old booby," Rebecca said, pinching his ear and look- 
 ing over to see that he made no mistakes in spelling — " beseech 
 is not spelt with an a, and earliest is." So he altered these 
 words, bowing to the superior knowledge of his little Missis. 
 
 " I thought that you were aware of the progress of my attach- 
 ment," Rebecca continued: " I knew that Mrs. Bute Crawley 
 confirmed and encouraged it. But I make no reproaches. I 
 married a poor woman, and am content to abide by what I 
 have done. Leave your property, dear Aunt, as you will. / 
 shall never complain of the way in which you dispose of it. I 
 would have you believe that I love you for yourself, and not for 
 money's sake. I want to be reconciled to you ere I leave Eng- 
 '^^d. ~L'et me, let me see you before I go. A few weeks or 
 months hence it may be too late, and I cannot bear the notion 
 of quitting the country without a kind word of farewell from 
 you." 
 
 " She won't recognise my style in ihat'^ said Becky. " I 
 made the sentences short and brisk on purpose." And this 
 authentic missive was despatched under cover to Miss Briggs. 
 
 Old Miss Crawley laughed when Briggs, with great mystery, 
 handed her over this candid and simple statement. " We may 
 read it now Mrs. Bute is away," she said. " Read it to me, 
 Briggs." 
 
 When Briggs had read the epistle out, her patroness laughed 
 more. " Don't you see, you goose," she said to Briggs, who 
 professed to be much touched by the honest affection which 
 pervaded the composition, " Don't you see that Rawdon never 
 wrote a word of it? He never wrote to me without asking for 
 money in his life, and all his letters are full of bad spelling, and 
 dashes, and bad grammar. It is that little serpent of a gover- 
 ness who rules him." They are ail alike. Miss Crawley thought 
 in her heart. They all want me dead, and are hankering for 
 my money. 
 
 " I don't mind seeing Rawdon," she added, after a pause, and 
 in a tone of perfect indifference. " I had just as soon shake 
 hands with him as not. Provided there is no scene, why 
 shouldn't we meet? I don't mind. But human patience has 
 
248 Vanity Fair 
 
 its limits ; and mind, my dear, I respectfully decline to receive 
 Mrs. Rawdon — I can't support that quite " — and Miss Briggs 
 was fain to be content with this half-message of conciliation; 
 and thought that the best method of bringing the old lady and 
 her nephew together, was to warn Rawdon to be in waiting on 
 the Cliff, when Miss Crawley went out for her air in her chair. 
 
 There they met. I don't know whether Miss Crawhy had 
 any private feeling of regard or emotion upon seeing her old 
 favourite; but she held out a couple of fingers to him with as 
 smiling and good-humoured an air, as if they had met only the 
 day before. And as for Rawdon, he turned as red as scarlet, 
 and wrung off Briggs's hand, so great was his rapture and his 
 confusion at the meeting. Perhaps it was interest that moved 
 him: or perhaps affection: perhaps he was touched by the 
 change which the illness of the last weeks had wrought in his 
 aunt. 
 
 '* The old girl has always acted like a trump to me," he said 
 to his wife, as he narrated the interview, " and I felt, you know, 
 rather queer, and that sort of thing. I walked by the side of 
 the what-dy'e-call-'em, you know, and to her own door, where 
 Bowls came to help her in. And I wanted to go in very much, 
 only " 
 
 " You didfiH go in, Rawdon? " screamed his wife. 
 
 " No, my dear; I'm hanged if I wasn't afraid when it came 
 to the point." 
 
 " You fool ! you ought to have gone in and never come out 
 again," Rebecca said. 
 
 " Don't call me names," said the big Guardsman sulkily. 
 " Perhaps I was a fool, Becky, but you shouldn't say so ; " 
 and he gave his wife a look, such as his countenance could wear 
 when angered, and such as was not pleasant to face. 
 
 " Well, dearest, to-morrow you must be on the look-out, and 
 go and see her, mind, whether she asks you or no," Rebecca 
 said, trying to soothe her angry yoke-mate. On which he 
 replied, that he would do exactly as he liked, and would just 
 thank her to keep a civil tongue in her head — and the wounded 
 husband went away, and passed the forenoon at the billiard- 
 room, sulky, silent, and suspicious. 
 
 But before the night was over he was compelled to give in, 
 and own, as usual, to his wife's superior prudence and foresight, 
 by the most melancholy confirmation of the presentiments 
 which she had regarding the consequences of the mistake which 
 
The Principal Personages at Brighton 249 
 
 he had made. Miss Crawley must have had some emotion upon 
 seeing him and shaking hands with him after so long a rupture. 
 She mused upon the meeting a considerable time. " Rawdon 
 is getting very fat and old, Briggs," she said to her companion. 
 " His nose has become red, and he is exceedingly coarse in 
 appearance. His marriage to that woman has hopelessly vul- 
 garised him. Mrs. Bute always said they drank together; and 
 I have no doubt they do. Yes: he smelt of gin abominably. 
 I remarked it. Didn't you.^ " 
 
 In vain Briggs interposed that Mrs. Bute spoke ill of every- 
 body: and, as far as a person in her humble position could 
 judge, was an 
 
 " An artful designing woman? Yes, so she is, and she does 
 speak ill of every one, — but I am certain that woman has made 
 Rawdon drink. All those low people do " 
 
 " He was very much affected at seeing you, ma'am," the com- 
 panion said; ** and I am sure, when you remember that he is 
 going to the field of danger " 
 
 " How much money has he promised you, Briggs? " the old 
 spinster cried out, working herself into a nervous rage — " there 
 now, of course you begin to cry. I hate scenes. Why am I 
 always to be worried? Go and cry up in your own room, and 
 send Firkin to me, — no, stop, sit down and blow your nose, and 
 leave off crying, and wTite a letter to Captain Crawley." Poor 
 Briggs went and placed herself obediently at the writing-book. 
 Its leaves were blotted all over with relics of the firm, strong, 
 rapid handwriting of the spinster's late amanuensis, Mrs. Bute 
 Crawley. 
 
 " Begin ' My dear Sir,' or * Dear Sir,' that will be better, and 
 say you are desired by Miss Crawley — no, by Miss Crawley's 
 medical man, by Mr. Cremer, to state, that my health is such 
 that all strong emotions would be dangerous in my present deli- 
 cate condition — and that I must decline any family discussions 
 or interviews whatever. And thank him for coming to Brighton, 
 and so forth, and beg him not to stay any longer on my account. 
 And, Miss Briggs, you may add that I wish him a bon voyage, 
 and that if he will take the trouble to call upon my lawyers in 
 Gray's Inn Square, he will find there a communication for him. 
 Yes, that will do; and that will make him leave Brighton." 
 The benevolent Briggs penned this sentence with the utmost 
 satisfaction. 
 
 " To seize upon me the very day after Mrs. Bute was gone/' 
 the old lady prattled on; "it was too indecent. Briggs, my 
 
250 Vanity Fair 
 
 dear, write to Mrs. Crawley, and say she needn't Come back. 
 No — she needn't — and she shan't — and I won't be a slave in my 
 own house — and I won't be starved and choked with poison. 
 They all want to kill me — all — all " — and with this the lonely old 
 woman burst into a scream of hysterical tears. 
 
 The last scene of her dismal Vanity Fair comedy was fast 
 approaching; the tawdry lamps were going out one by one; and 
 the dark curtain was almost ready to descend. 
 
 That final paragraph which referred Rawdon to Miss Crawley's 
 solicitor in London, and wliich Briggs had written so good- 
 naturedly, consoled the dragoon and his wife somewhat, after 
 their first blank disappointment, on reading the spinster's 
 refusal of a reconciliation. And it effected the purpose for 
 which the old lady had caused it to be written, by making 
 Rawdon very eager to get to London. 
 
 Out of Jos's losings and George Osborne's bank-notes, he paid 
 his bill at the inn, the landlord whereof does not probably kiiow 
 to this day how doubtfully his account once stood. For, as a 
 general sends his baggage to the rear before an action, Rebecca 
 had wisely packed up all their chief valuables and sent them off 
 under care of George's servant, who went in charge of the trunks 
 on the coach back to London. Rawdon and his wife returned 
 by the same conveyance next day. 
 
 " I should have liked to see the old girl before we went," 
 Rawdon said. " She looks so cut up and altered that I'm sure 
 she can't last long. I wonder what sort of a check I shall have 
 at Waxy's. Two hundred — it can't be less than two hundred, 
 —hey, Becky.?" 
 
 In consequence of the repeated visits of the aides-de-camp of 
 the Sheriff of Middlesex, Rawdon and his wife did not go back 
 to their lodgings at Brompton, but put up at an inn. Early the 
 next morning, Rebecca had. an opportunity of seeing them as 
 she skirted that suburb on her road to old Mrs. Sedley's house 
 at Fulham, whither she went to look for her dear Amelia and 
 her Brighton friends. They were all off to Chatham, thence to 
 Harwich, to take shipping for Belgium with the regiment — kind 
 old Mrs. Sedley very much depressed and tearful, solitary. Re- 
 turning from this visit, Rebecca found her husband, who had been 
 off to Gray's Inn, and learnt his fate. He came back furious. 
 
 " By Jove, Becky," says he, " she's only given me twenty 
 pound ! " 
 
 Though it told against themselves, the joke was too good, and 
 Becky burst out laughing at Rawdon's discomfiture. 
 
Between London and Chatham 251 
 
 CHAPTER XXVI 
 
 BETWEEN LONDON AND CHATHAM 
 
 On quitting Brighton, our friend George, as became a person of 
 rank and fashion travelling in a barouche with four horses, drove 
 in state to a line hotel in Cavendish Square, where a suite of 
 splendid rooms and a table magnificently furnished with plate 
 and surrounded by a half-dozen of black and silent waiters, was 
 ready to receive the young gentleman and his bride. George 
 did the honours of the place with a princely air to Jos and 
 Dobbin ; and Amelia, for the first time, and with exceeding shy- 
 ness and timidity, presided at what George called her own table. 
 
 George pooh-poohed the wine and bullied the waiters royally, 
 and Jos gobbled the turtle with immense satisfaction. Dobbin 
 helped him to it; for the lady of the house, before whom the 
 tureen was placed, was so ignorant of the contents, that she was 
 going to help Mr. Sedley without bestowing upon him either 
 calipash or calipee. 
 
 The splendour of the entertainment, and the apartments in 
 which it was given, alarmed Mr. Dobbin, who remonstrated after 
 dinner, when Jos was asleep in the great chair. But in vain he 
 cried out against the enormity of turtle and champagne that was 
 fit for an archbishop. " I've always been accustomed to travel 
 like a gentleman," George said, " and, damme, my wife shall 
 travel like a lady. As long as there's a shot in the locker, she 
 shall want for nothing," said the generous fellow, quite pleased 
 with himself for his magnificence of spirit. Nor did Dobbin try 
 and convince him that Amelia's happiness was not centred in 
 turtle-soup. 
 
 A while after dinner, Amelia timidly expressed a wish to go 
 and see her mamma, at Fulham: which permission George 
 granted her with some grumbling. And she tripped away to 
 her enormous bedroom, in the centre of which stood the 
 enormous funereal bed, " that the Emperor Halixander's sister 
 slep in when the allied sufferings was here," and put on her Uttle 
 bonnet and shawl with the utmost eagerness and pleasure. 
 George was still drinking claret when she returned to the dining- 
 room, and made no signs of moving. " Ar'n't you coming with 
 mCj dearest? " she asked him. No; the " dearest " had " busi- 
 ness " that night. His man should get her a coach and go with 
 
252 Vanity Fair 
 
 her. And the coach being at the door of the hotel, Amelia made 
 George a little disappointed curtsey after looking vainly into his 
 face once or twice, and went sadly down the great staircase, 
 Captain Dobbin after, who handed her into the vehicle, and saw 
 it drive away to its destination. The very valet was ashamed 
 of mentioning the address to the hackney-coachman before the 
 hotel waiters, and promised to instruct him when they got 
 further on. 
 
 Dobbin walked home to his old quarters at the Slaughters', 
 thinking very likely that it would be delightful to be in that 
 hackney-coach, along v/ith Mrs. Osborne. George was evidently 
 of quite a different taste ; for when he had taken wine enough, he 
 went off to half-price at the play, to see Mr. Kean perform in 
 Shylock. Captain Osborne was a great lover of the drama, and 
 had himself performed high-comedy characters with great dis- 
 tinction in several garrison theatrical entertainments. Jos 
 slept on until long after dark, when he woke up with a start at 
 the motions of his servant, who was removing and emptying the 
 decanters on the table ; and the hackney-coach stand was again 
 put into requisition for a carriage to convey this stout hero to 
 his lodgings and bed. 
 
 Mrs. Sedley, you may be sure, clasped her daughter to her 
 heart with all maternal eagerness and affection, nmning out of 
 the door as the carriage drew up before the little garden-gate, 
 to welcome the weeping, trembling young bride. Old Mr. 
 Clapp, who was in his sliirt-sleeves, trimming the garden-plot, 
 shrank back alarmed. The Irish servant-lass rushed up from 
 the kitchen and smiled a " God bless you," Amelia could 
 Imrdiy walk along the flags and up the steps into the parlour. 
 
 How the floodgates were opened, and mother and daughter 
 wept, when they were together embracing each other in this 
 sanctuary, may readily be imagined by every reader who pos- 
 sesses the least sentimental turn. When don't ladies weep.^ 
 At what occasion of joy, sorrow, or other business of life ? and, 
 after such an event as a marriage, mother and daughter were 
 surely at liberty to give way to a sensibility which is as tender 
 as it is refreshing. About a question of marriage I have seen 
 women who hate each other, kiss and cry together quite fondly, 
 liow much more do they feel when they love! Good mothers 
 are married over again at their daughters' weddings: and as 
 for subsequent events, who does not know how ultra-maternal 
 grandmothers are ? — in fact a woman, until she is a grandmother. 
 
Between London and Chatham 253 
 
 does not often really know what to be a mother is. Let us 
 respect Amelia and her mamma whispering and whimpering 
 and laugliing and cr}dng in the parlour and the twilight. Old 
 Mr. Sedley did. He had not divined who was in the carriage 
 when it drove up. He had not flown out to meet his daughter, 
 though he kissed her very warmly when she entered the room 
 (where he was occupied, as usual, with his papers and tapes and 
 statements of accounts), and after sitting with the mother and 
 daughter for a short time, he very wisely left the little apart- 
 ment in their possession. 
 
 George's vaJet was looking on in a very supercilious manner 
 at Mr. Clapp in his shirt-sleeves, watering his rosebushes. He 
 took off his hat, however, with much condescension to Mr. 
 Sedley, who asked news about his son-in-law, and about Jos's 
 carriage, and v/hether his horses had been down to Brighton, 
 and about that infernal traitor Bonaparty, and the war; until 
 the Irish maid-servant came with a plate and a bottle of wine, 
 from which the old gentleman insisted upon helping the valet. 
 He gave him a half-guinea, too, which the servant pocketed 
 with a mixture of wonder and contempt. " To the health of 
 your master and mistress, Trotter," Mr. Sedley said, " and 
 here's something to drink your health when you get home, 
 Trotter." 
 
 There were but nine days past since Amelia had left that little 
 cottage and home — and yet how far off the time seemed since 
 she had bidden it farewell. What a gulf lay between her and 
 that past life. She could look back to it from her present 
 standing-place, and contemplate, almost as another being, the 
 young unmarried girl absorbed in her love, having no eyes but 
 for one special object, receiving parental affection if not ungrate- 
 fully, at least indifferently, and as if it were her due — ^her whole 
 heart and thoughts bent on the accomplishment of one desire. 
 The review of those days, so lately gone yet so far away, touched 
 her with shame; and the aspect of the kind parents filled her 
 with tender remorse. Was the prize gained — the heaven of life 
 — and the winner still doubtful and unsatisfied? As his hero 
 and heroine pass the matrimonial barrier, the novelist generally 
 drops the curtain, as if the drama were over then: the doubts 
 and struggles of life ended: as if, once landed in the marriage 
 country, all were green and pleasant there: and wife and 
 husband had nothing to do but to link each other's arms to- 
 gether, and wander gently downwards towards old age in happy 
 and perfect fruition. But our Httle Amelia was just on the 
 
254 Vanity Fair 
 
 bank of her new country, and was already looking anxiously 
 back towards the sad friendly figures waving farewell to her 
 across the stream, from the other distant shore. 
 
 In honour of the young bride's arrival, her mother thought 
 it necessary to prepare I don't know what festive entertainment, 
 and after the first ebulUtion of talk, took leave of Mrs. George 
 Osborne for a while, and dived down to the lower regions of the 
 house to a sort of kitchen parlour (occupied by Mr. and Mrs. 
 Clapp, and in the evening, when her dishes were washed and 
 her curl-papers removed, by Miss Flannigan, the Irish servant), 
 there to take measures for the preparing of a magnificent orna- 
 mented tea. All people have their ways of expressing kindness, 
 and it seemed to Mrs. Sedley that a muffin and a quantity of 
 orange marmalade spread out in a little cut-glass saucer would 
 be peculiarly agreeable refreshments to Amelia in her most 
 interesting situation. 
 
 While these delicacies were being transacted below, Amelia, 
 leaving the drawing-room, walked upstairs and found herself, 
 she scarce knew how, in the little room which she had occupied 
 before her marriage, and in that very chair in which she had 
 passed so many bitter hours. She sank back in its arms as if it 
 were an old friend; and fell to thinking over the passed week, 
 and the life beyond it. Already to be looking sadly and vaguely 
 back : always to be pining for something which, when obtained, 
 brought doubt and sadness rather than pleasure; here was the 
 lot of our poor little creatur6y<and harmless lost wanderer in the 
 great struggling crowds of Vanity Fair. 
 
 Here she sate, and recalled to herself fondly that image of 
 George to which she had knelt before marriage. Did she own 
 to herself how different the real man was from that superb young 
 hero whom she had worshipped ? It requires many, many years 
 — and a man must be very bad indeed — before a woman's pride 
 and vanity will let her ov/n to such a confession. Then Rebecca's 
 twinkling green eyes and baneful smile lighted upon her, and 
 filled her vvith dismay. And so she sate for a while indulging in 
 her usual mood of selfish brooding, in that very listless melan- 
 choly attitude in which the honest maid-servant had found her, 
 on the day when she brought up the letter in which George 
 renewed his offer of marriage. 
 
 She looked at the little white bed, which had been hers a few 
 days before, and thought she would like to sleep in it that night, 
 and wake, as formerly, with her mother smiling over her in the 
 morning. Then she thought with terror of the great funereal 
 
Between London and Chatham 255 
 
 damask pavilion in the vast and dingy state bedroom, which was 
 awaiting her at the grand hotel in Cavendish Square. Dear 
 little white bed ! how many a long night had she wept on its 
 pillow! How had she despaired and hoped to die there; and 
 now were not all her wishes accomplished, and the lover of 
 whom she had despaired her own for ever ? Kind mother ! how 
 patiently and tenderly had she watched round that bed ! She 
 went and knelt down by the bedside; and there this wounded 
 and timorous, but gentle and loving soul, sought for consolation, 
 where as yet, it must be owned, our little girl had but seldom 
 looked for it. Love had been her faith hitherto; and the sad, 
 bleeding, disappointed heart began to feel the want of another 
 consoler. 
 
 Have we a right to repeat or to overhear her prayers ? These, 
 brother, are secrets, and out of the domain of Vanity Fair, in 
 which our story lies. 
 
 But tliis may be said, that when the tea was finally announced, 
 our young lady came dow^nstairs a great deal more cheerful; 
 that she did not despond, or deplore her fate, or think about 
 George's coldness, or Rebecca's eyes, as she had been wont to 
 do of late. She went downstairs, and kissed her father and 
 mother, and talked to the old gentleman, and made him more 
 merry than he had been for many a day. She sate down at the 
 piano which Dobbin had bought for her, and sang over all her 
 father's favourite old songs. She pronounced the tea to be ex- 
 cellent, and praised the exquisite taste in which the marmalade 
 was arranged in the saucers. And in determining to make 
 everybody else happy, she found herself so; and was sound 
 asleep in the great funereal pavilion, and only woke up with a 
 smile when George arrived from the theatre. 
 
 For the next day, George had more important " business " to 
 transact than that which took him to see Mr. Kean in Shylock. 
 Immediately on his arrival in London he had written off to his 
 father's solicitors, signifying his royal pleasure that an interview 
 should take place between them on the morrow. His hotel bill, 
 losses at billiards and cards to Captain Crawley, had almost 
 drained the young man's purse, which wanted replenishing 
 before he set out on his travels, and he had no resource but to 
 infringe upon the two thousand pounds which the attorneys 
 were commissioned to pay over to fiim. He had a perfect belief 
 in his own mind that his father would relent before very long. 
 How could any parent be obdurate for a length of time against 
 such a paragon as he was? If his mere past and personal 
 
256 Vanity Fair 
 
 merits did not succeed in mollifying his father, George deter- 
 mined that he would distinguish himself so prodigiously in the 
 ensuing campaign that the old gentleman must give in to him. 
 And if not ? Bah ! the world was before him. His luck might 
 change at cards, and there was a deal of spending in two 
 thousand pounds. 
 
 So he sent off Amelia once more in a carriage to her mamma_, 
 with strict orders and carte blanche to the two ladies to purchase 
 everything requisite for a lady of Mrs. George Osborne's fashion, 
 who was going on a foreign tour. They had but one day to 
 complete the outfit, and it may be imagined that their business 
 therefore occupied them pretty fully. In a carriage once more, 
 bustling about from milliner to linendraper, escorted back to the 
 carriage by obsequious shopmen or polite owners, Mrs. Sedley 
 was herself again almost, and sincerely happy for the first time 
 since their misfortunes. Nor was Mrs. Amelia at all above the 
 pleasure of shopping, and bargaining, and seeing and buying 
 pretty things. (Would any man, the most philosophic, give 
 twopence for a woman who was?) She gave herself a little 
 treat, obedient to her husband's orders, and purchased a quan- 
 tity of lady's gear, showing a great deal of taste and elegant 
 discernment, as all the shopfolks said. 
 
 And about the war that was ensuing, Mrs. Osborne was not 
 much alarmed ; Bonaparty was to be crushed almost without a 
 struggle. Margate packets were sailing every day, filled with 
 men of fashion and ladies of note, on their way to Brussels and 
 Ghent. People were going not so much to a war as to a fashion- 
 able tour. The newspapers laughed the wretched upstart and 
 swindler to scorn. Such a Corsican wretch as that withstand 
 the armies of Europe and the genius of the immortal Wellington 1 
 Amelia held him in utter contempt ; for it needs not to be said 
 that this soft and gentle creature took her opinions from those 
 people who surrounded her, such fidelity being much too humble- 
 minded to think for itself. Well, in a word, she and her mother 
 performed a great day's shopping, and she acquitted herself with 
 considerable liveliness and credit on this her first appearance in 
 the genteel world of London. 
 
 George meanwhile, with his hat on one side, his elbows 
 squared, and his swaggering martial air, made for Bedford Row, 
 and stalked into the attorney's offices as if he was lord of every 
 pale-faced clerk who was scribbling there. He ordered some- 
 body to inform Mr. Higgs that Captain Osborne was waiting, in 
 a fierce and patronising way, as if the pekin of an attorney, who 
 
Between London and Chatham 257 
 
 had thrice his brains^ fifty times his moneys and a thousand 
 times his experience^ was a wretched underHng who should in- 
 stantly leave all his business in life to attend on the Captain's 
 pleasure. He did not see the sneer of contempt which passed 
 all round the room, from the first clerk to the articled gents, 
 from the articled gents to the ragged writers and white-faced 
 runners, in clothes too tight for them, as he sate there tapping 
 his boot with his cane, and thinking what a parcel of miserable 
 poor devils these were. The miserable poor devils knew all 
 about his affairs. They talked about them over their pints of 
 beer at their public-house clubs to other clerks of a night. Ye 
 Gods, what do not attorneys and attorneys' clerks know in 
 London! Nothing is hidden from their inquisition, and their 
 familiars mutely rule our city. 
 
 Perhaps George expected, when he entered Mr. Higgs's 
 apartment, to find that gentleman commissioned to give 
 him some message of compromise or conciliation from his 
 father; perhaps his haughty and cold demeanour was adopted 
 as a sign of his spirit and resolution: but if so, his fierce- 
 ness was met by a chilling coolness and indifference on the 
 attorney's part, that rendered swaggering absurd. He pre- 
 tended to be writing at a paper, when the Captain entered. 
 " Pray sit down, sir," said he, " and I will attend to your little 
 afEair in a moment. Mr. Poe, get the release papers, if you 
 please; " and then he fell to writing again. 
 
 Poe having produced those papers, his chief calculated the 
 amount of two thousand pounds stock at the rate of the day; 
 and asked Captain Osborne whether he would take the sum in a 
 cheque upon the bankers, or whether he should direct the latter 
 to purchase stock to that amount. " One of the late Mrs. 
 Osborne's trustees is out of town," he said indifferently, " but 
 my client wishes to meet your wishes, and have done with the 
 business as quick as possible.'^ 
 
 " Give me a cheque, sir," said the Captain very surlily. 
 " Damn the shillings and halfpence, sir," he added, as the lawyer 
 was making out the amount of the draft; and, flattering himself 
 that by this stroke of magnanimity he had put the old quiz to 
 the blush, he stalked out of the office with the paper in his 
 pocket. 
 
 " That chap will be in gaol in two years," Mr. Higgs said to 
 Mr. Poe. 
 
 " Won't 0. come round, sir, don't you think? " 
 
 "Won't the monument come round? " Mr. Higgs replied. 
 1*98 
 
258 Vanity Fair 
 
 " He's going it pretty fast/' said the clerk. " He's only 
 married a week^ and I saw him and some other military chaps 
 handing Mrs. Highflyer to her carriage after the play." And 
 then another case was called, and Mr. George Osborne thence- 
 forth dismissed from these worthy gentlemen's memory. 
 
 The draft was upon our friends Hulker & Bullock, of Lombard 
 Street, to whose house, still thinking he was doing business, 
 George bent his way, and from whom he received his money. 
 Frederick Bullock, Esq., whose yellow face was over a ledger, 
 at which sate a demure clerk, happened to be in the banking- 
 room when George entered. His yellow face turned to a more 
 deadly colour when he saw the Captain, and he slunk back 
 guiltily into the inmbst parlour. George was too busy gloating 
 over the money (for he had never had such a sum before), to 
 mark the countenance or flight of the cadaverous suitor of his 
 sister. 
 
 Fred Bullock told old Osborne of his son's appearance and 
 conduct; " He came in as bold as brass," said Frederick. "He 
 has drawn out every shilling. How long will a few hundred 
 pounds last such a chap as that? " Osborne swore with a great 
 oath that he little cared when or how soon he spent it. Fred 
 dined every day in Russell Square now. But altogether, 
 George was highly pleased with his day's business. All his own 
 baggage and outfit was put into a state of speedy preparation, 
 and he paid Amelia's purchases with cheques on his agents, and 
 with the splendour of a lord. 
 
 CHAPTER XXVII 
 
 IN WHICH AMELIA JOINS HER REGIMENT 
 
 When Jos's fine carriage drove up to the inn door at Chatham, 
 the first face which Amelia recognised was the friendly coun- 
 tenance of Captain Dobbin, who had been pacing the street for 
 an hour past in expectation of his friends' arrival. The Captain, 
 with shells on his frock-coat, and a crimson sash and sabre, pre- 
 sented a military appearance, which made Jos quite proud to be 
 able to claim such an acquaintance, and the stout ci\nlian hailed 
 him with a cordiality very different from the reception which 
 Jos vouchsafed to his friend in Brighton and Bond Street. 
 
In Which AmeHa Joins Her Regiment 259 
 
 Along with the Captain was Ensign Stubble; who^ as the 
 barouche neared the inn^ burst out with an exclamation of " By 
 Jove ! what a pretty girl ! " highly applauding Osborne's choice. 
 Indeed^ AmeHa dressed in her wedding-pelisse and pink ribbons, 
 with a flush in her face, occasioned by rapid travel through the 
 open air, looked so fresh and pretty, as fully to justify the 
 Ensign's compliment. Dobbin liked him for making it. As 
 he stepped forward to help the lady out of the carriage, Stubble 
 saw what a pretty little hand she gave him, and what a sweet 
 pretty Httle foot came tripping down the step. He blushed 
 profusely, and made the very best bow of which he was capable ; 
 to which Amelia, seeing the number of the — th regiment em- 
 broidered on the Ensign's cap, replied with a blushing smile, 
 and a curtsey on her part; which finished the young Ensign on 
 the spot. Dobbin took most kindly to Mr. Stubble from that 
 day, and encouraged him to talk about Amelia in their private 
 walks, and at each other's quarters. It became the fashion, 
 indeed, among all the honest young fellows of the — th, to adore 
 and admire Mrs. Osborne. nHer simple, artless behaviour, and 
 modest kindness of demeanour, won all their unsophisticated 
 hearts ; all which simplicity and sweetness are quite impossible 
 to describe in print. " But v/ho has not beheld these among 
 women, and recognised the presence of all sorts of qualities in 
 them, even though they say no more to you than that they are 
 engaged to dance the next quadrille, or that it is very hot 
 weather? George, always the champion of his regiment, rose 
 immensely in the opinion of the youth of the corps, by his gal- 
 lantry in marrying this portionless young creature, and by his 
 choice of such a pretty kind partner. 
 
 In the sitting-room which was av/aiting the travellers, Amelia, 
 to her surprise, found a letter addressed to Mrs. Captain Osborne. 
 It ^vas a triangular billet, on pink paper, and sealed with a dove 
 and an olive branch, and a profusion of light blue sealing-wax, 
 and it was written in a very large, though undecided female 
 hand. 
 
 *' It's Peggy O'Dowd's fist," said George, laughing. " I 
 know it by the kisses on the seal." And, in fact, it was a note 
 from Mrs. Major O'Dowd, requesting the pleasure of Mrs. 
 Osborne's company that very evening to a small friendly party. 
 '' You must go," George said. " You will make acquaintance 
 with the regiment there. O'Dowd goes in command of the regi- 
 ment, and Peggy goes in command of O'Dowd." 
 
 But they had not been for many minutes in the enjoyment 
 
26o Vanity Fair 
 
 of Mrs. O'Dowd's letter, when the door was flung open, and a 
 stout jolly lady, in a riding-habit, followed by a couple of officers 
 of Ours, entered the room. 
 
 " Sure, I couldn't stop till tay-time. Present me, Garge, 
 my dear fellow, to your lady. Madam, I'm deloighted to see ye; 
 and to present to you me husband, Meejor O'DovM; " and v/ith 
 this, the jolly lady in the riding-habit grasped Amelia's hand very 
 warmly, and the latter loiew at once that the lady was before 
 her whom her husband had so often laughed at. " You've 
 often heard of me from that husband of yours," said the lady, 
 with great vivacity. 
 
 " You've often heard of her," echoed her husband, the Major. 
 
 Amelia answered, smiling, " that she had." 
 
 " And sm.all good he's told you of me," Mrs. O'Dowd replied; 
 adding that " George was a wicked divvie." 
 
 " That I'll go bail for," said the Major, trying to look know- 
 ing, at which George laughed; and Mrs. O'Dowd, with a tap 
 of her whip, told the Major to be quiet; and then requested to 
 be presented in form to Mrs. Captain Osborne. 
 
 " This, my dear," said George with great gravity, " is m}^ 
 very good, kind, and excellent friend, Auralia Margaretta, other- 
 wise called Peggy." 
 
 " Faith, you're right," interposed the Major. 
 
 '' Otherwise called Peggy, lady of Major Michael O'Dowd, of 
 our regiment, and daughter of Fitzjurld Ber'sford de Burgo 
 Malony of Glenmalony, County Kildare." 
 
 " And Muryan Squeer, Doblin," said the lady with calm 
 superiority. 
 
 " And Muryan Square, sure enough," the Major whispered. 
 
 " 'Twas there ye coorted me, Meejor dear," the lady said; 
 and the Major assented to this as to every other proposition 
 which was made generally in company. 
 
 Major O'Dowd, who had served his sovereign in every quarter 
 of the world, and had paid for every step in his profession by 
 some more than equivalent act of daring and gallantry, was the 
 most modest, silent, sheepfaced and meek of Httle men, and as 
 obedient to his wife as if he had been her tay-boy. At the 
 mess-table he sat silently, and drank a great deal. When full 
 of liquor, he reeled silently home. When he spoke, it was to 
 agree with everybody on every conceivable point; and he 
 passed through life in perfect ease and good humour. The 
 hottest suns of India never heated his temper; and the Wal- 
 cheren ague never shook it. He walked up to a battery with 
 
In Which Amelia Joins Her Regiment 261 
 
 just as much indifference as to a dinner- table ; had dined on 
 horse-flesh and turtle with equal relish and appetite; and had 
 an old mother, Mrs. O'Dowd of O'Dowdstown indeed, whom 
 he had never disobeyed but when he ran away and enlisted, 
 and when he persisted in marrying that odious Peggy Malony. 
 
 Peggy was one of five sisters, and eleven children of the noble 
 house of Glenmalony; but her husband, though her own cousin, 
 was of the mother's side, and so had not the inestimable advan- 
 tage of being allied to the Malonys, whom she believed to be the 
 most famous family in the world. Having tried nine seasons 
 at Dublin and two at Bath and Cheltenham, and not finding a 
 partner for life, Miss Malony ordered her cousin Mick to marry 
 her when she was about thirty- three years of age; and the 
 honest fellow obeying, carried her off to the West Indies, to 
 preside over the ladies of the — th regiment^ into which he had 
 just exchanged. 
 
 Before Mrs. O'Dowd was half-an-hour in Amelia's (or indeed 
 in anybody else's) company, this amiable lady told all her birth 
 and pedigree to her new friend. *' My dear," said she good- 
 naturedly, " it was my intention that Garge should be a brother 
 of my own, and my sister Glorvina would have suited him 
 entirely. But as bygones are bygones, and he was engaged to 
 yourself, why, I'm determined to take you as a sister instead, 
 and to look upon you as such, and to love you as one of the 
 family. Faith, you've got such a nice good-natured face and 
 way widg you, that I'm sure we'll agree; and that you'll be an 
 addition to our family anyway." 
 
 " 'Deed and she will," said O'Dowd, with an approving air, 
 and Amelia felt herself not a little amused and grateful to be 
 thus suddenly introduced to so large a party of relations, 
 
 " We're ail good fellows here," the Major's lady continued. 
 " There's not a regiment in the service where you'll find a more 
 united society nor a more agreeable mess-room. There's no 
 quarrelling, bickering, slandthering, nor small talk amongst us. 
 We all love each other." 
 
 " Especially Mrs. Magenis," said George, laughing. 
 
 " Mrs. Captain Magenis and me has made up, though her 
 treatment of me would bring me grey hairs with sorrow to the 
 grave." 
 
 " And you with such a beautiful front of black, Peggy, my 
 dear," the Major cried. 
 
 " Hould your tongue, Mick, you booby. Them husbands 
 are always in the way, Mrs. Osborne, my dear; and as for my 
 
262 Vanity Fair 
 
 Mick, I often tell him he should never open his mouth but to 
 give the word of command, or to put meat and drink into it. 
 I'll tell you about the regiment, and warn you when we're 
 alone. Introduce me to your brother now; sure he's a mighty 
 fine man, and reminds me of me cousin, Dan Malony (Maiony 
 of Ballymalony, my dear, you know, who mar'ied Ophaiia 
 Scully, of Oystherstown, own cousin to Lord Poldoody). Mr. 
 Sedley, sir, I'm deloighted to be known te ye. I suppose you'll 
 dine at the mess to-day. (Mind that divvle of a docther, Mick, 
 and whatever ye du, keep yourself sober for me party this 
 evening)." 
 
 " It's the 150th gives us a farewell dinner, my love," inter- 
 posed the Major, " but we'll easy get a card for Mr. Sedley." 
 
 " Run Simple (Ensign Simple, of Ours, my dear Amelia. I 
 forgot to introjuice him to ye). Run in a hurry, with Mrs. 
 Major O'Dowd's compHments to Colonel Tavish, and Captain 
 Osborne has brought his brothemlaw down, and will bring him 
 to the 150th mess at five o'clock sharp — when you and I, my 
 dear, will take a snack here, if you like." Before Mrs. O'Dowd's 
 speech was concluded, the young Ensign was trotting down- 
 stairs on his commission. 
 
 *' Obedience is the soul of the army. We will go to our duty 
 while Mrs. O'Dowd will stay and enHghten you, Emmy," Cap- 
 tain Osborne said ; and the two gentlemen, taking each a wing 
 of the Major, walked out with that officer, grinning at each 
 other over his head. 
 
 And now, having her new friend to herself, the impetuous Mrs. 
 O'Dowd proceeded to pour out such a quantity of information as 
 no poor little woman's memory could ever tax itself to bear. 
 She told Amelia a thousand particulars relative to the very 
 numerous family of which the amazed young lady found her- 
 self a member. " Mrs. Heavytop, the Colonel's wife, died in 
 Jamaica of the yellow faver and a broken heart comboined, for 
 the horrud old Colonel, with a head as bald as a cannon-ball, was 
 making sheep's eyes at a half-caste girl there. Mrs. Magenis, 
 though without education, was a good woman, but she had the 
 divvle's tongue, and would cheat her own mother at whist. 
 Mrs. Captain Kirk must turn up her lobster eyes forsooth at the 
 idea of an honest round game (wherein me fawther, as pious a 
 man as ever went to church, me uncle Dane Malony, and our 
 cousin the Bishop, took a hand at loo, or whist, every night of 
 their fives). Nayther of 'em's goin' with the regiment this 
 time," Mrs. O'Dowd added, " Fanny Magenis stops with her 
 
In Which AmeHa Joins Her Regiment 263 
 
 mother, who sells small coal and potatoes, most likely, in Isling- 
 ton-town, hard by London, though she's always bragging of her 
 father's ships, and pointing them out to us as they go up the 
 river; and Mrs. Kirk and her children will stop here in Bethesda 
 Place, to be nigh to her favourite preacher. Dr. Ramshom. 
 Mrs. Bunny's in an interesting situation — faith, and she always 
 is, then — and has given the Lieutenant seven already. And 
 Ensign Posky's wife, who joined two months before you, my 
 dear, has quarl'd with Tom Posky a score of times, till you can 
 hear 'm all over the bar'ck (they say they're come to broken 
 pleets, and Tom never accounted for his black oi), and she'll go 
 back to her mother, who keeps a ladies' siminary at Richmond, — 
 bad luck to her for running away from it! Where did ye get 
 your finishing, my dear? I had moin, and no expince spared, 
 at Madame Flanahan's, at Ilyssus Grove, Booterstown, near 
 Dublin, wid a Marchioness to teach us the true Parisian pro- 
 nunciation, and a retired Mejor-General of the French service to 
 put us through the exercise." 
 
 Of this incongruous family our astonished Amelia found her- 
 self all of a sudden a member: with Mrs. O'Dowd as an elder 
 sister. She was presented to her other female relations at tea- 
 time, on whom, as she was quiet, good-natured, and not too 
 handsome, she made rather an agreeable impression until the 
 arrival of the gentlemen from the mess of the 150th, who all 
 admired her so, that her sisters began, of course, to find fault 
 with her. 
 
 " I hope Osborne has sown his wild oats," said Mrs. Magenis 
 to Mrs. Bunny. " If a reformed rake makes a good husband, 
 sure it's she will have the fine chance with Garge," Mrs. 
 O'Dowd remarked to Posky, who had lost her position as bride 
 in the regiment, and was quite angry with the usurper. And as 
 for Mrs. Kirk: that disciple of Dr. Ramshom put one or two 
 leading professional questions to Amelia, to see whether she was 
 awakened, whether she was a professing Christian and so forth, 
 and finding from the simplicity of Mrs. Osborne's replies that 
 she was yet in utter darkness, put into her hands three little 
 penny books with pictures, viz., the " Howling Wilderness," the 
 " Washerwoman of Wandsworth Common," and the " British 
 Soldier's Best Bayonet," which, bent upon awakening her before 
 she slept, Mrs. Kirk begged Amelia to read that night ere she 
 went to bed. 
 
 But all the men, like good fellows as they were, rallied round 
 their comrade's pretty wife, and paid her their court with 
 
264 Vanity Fair 
 
 soldierly gallantry. She had a little triumph, which flushed her 
 spirits and made her eyes sparkle. George was proud of her 
 popularity, and pleased with the manner (which was very gay 
 and graceful, though naive and a little timid) with which she 
 received the gentlemen's attentions, and answered their com- 
 pliments. And he in his uniform — how much handsomer he was 
 than any man in the room ! She felt that he was affectionately 
 watching her, and glowed with pleasure at his kindness. " I 
 will make all his friends welcome," she resolved in her heart. " I 
 will love all as I love him. I will always try and be gay and 
 good-humoured and make his home happy." 
 
 The regiment indeed adopted her with acclamation. The 
 Captains approved, >the Lieutenants applauded, the Ensigns 
 admired. Old Cutler, the Doctor, made one or two jokes, 
 which, being professional, need not be repeated ; and Cackle, the 
 Assistant M.D. of Edinburgh, condescended to examine her upon 
 leeterature, and tried her with his three best French quotations. 
 Young Stubble went about from man to man whispering, " Jove, 
 isn't she a pretty gal? " and never took his eyes off her except 
 when the negus came in. 
 
 As for Captain Dobbin, he never so much as spoke to her 
 during the whole evening. But he and Captain Porter of the 
 150th took home Jos to the hotel, who was in a very maudlin 
 state, and had told his tiger-hunt story with great effect, both 
 at the mess- table and at the soiree, to Mrs. O'Dov/d in her turban 
 and bird of paradise. Having put the Collector into th-e hands 
 of his servant, Dobbin loitered about, smoking his cigar before 
 the inn door. George had meanwhile very carefully shawled 
 his wife, and brought her away from Mrs. O'Dowd's after a 
 general handshaking from the young officers, who accompanied 
 her to the fly, and cheered that vehicle as it drove off. So 
 Amelia gave Dobbin her little hand as she got out of the 
 carriage, and rebuked him smilingly for not having taken any 
 notice of her all night. 
 
 The Captain continued that deleterious amusement of smok- 
 ing, long after the inn and the street were gone to bed. He 
 w^atched the lights vanish from George's sitting-room windows, 
 and shine out in the bedroom close at hand. It was almost 
 morning when he returned to his own quarters. He could hear 
 the cheering from the ships in the river, where the transports 
 were already taking in their cargoes preparatory to dropping 
 down the Thames. 
 
Amelia Invades the Low Countries 265 
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII 
 
 IN WHICH AMELIA INVADES THE LOW COUNTRIES 
 
 The regiment with its officers was to be transported in ships 
 provided by His Majesty's Government for the occasion: and 
 in two days after the festive assembly at Mrs. O'Dowd's apart- 
 ments, in the midst of cheering from all the East India ships in 
 the river, and the military on shore, the band playing '* God 
 save the King," the officers waving their hats, and the crews 
 hurrahing gallantly, the transports went down the river and 
 proceeded under convoy to Ostend. Meanwhile the gallant Jos 
 had agreed to escort his sister and the Major's wife, the bulk 
 of whose goods and chattels, including the famous bird of 
 paradise and turban, were with the regimental baggage : so that 
 our two heroines drove pretty much unencumbered to Rams- 
 gate, where there were plenty of packets plying, in one of which 
 they ha,d a speedy passage to Ostend. 
 
 That period of Jos's life which now ensued was so full of inci- 
 dent, that it served him for conversation for many years after, 
 and even the tiger-hunt story was put aside for more stirring 
 narratives which he had to tell about the great campaign of 
 Vv^aterloo. As soon as he had agreed to escort his sister abroad, 
 it was remarked that he ceased shaving his upper lip. At 
 Chatham he followed the parades and drills with great assiduity. 
 He listened with the utmost attention to the conversation of 
 his brother officers (as he called them in after days sometimes), 
 and learned as many military names as he could. In these 
 studies the excellent Mrs. O'Dowd was of great assistance to 
 him; and on the day finally when they embarked on board the 
 Lovely Rose, which was to carry them to their destination, he 
 made his appearance in a braided frock-coat and duck trousers, 
 with a foraging cap ornamented with a smart gold band. Hav- 
 ing his carriage with him, and informing everybody on board 
 confidentially that he was going to join the Duke of Wellington's 
 army, folks mistook him for a great personage, a commissary- 
 general, or a government courier at the very least. 
 
 He suffered hugely on the voyage, during which the ladies 
 were likewise prostrate; but Amelia was brought to life again 
 *i 298 
 
266 Vanity Fair 
 
 as the packet made Ostend, by the sight of the transports con- 
 veying her regiment^ which entered the harbour almost at the 
 same time with the Lovely Rose. Jos went in a collapsed state 
 to an inn^ while Captain Dobbin escorted the ladies, and then 
 busied himself in freeing Jos's carriage and luggage from the 
 ship and the custom-house, for Mr. Jos was at present without 
 a servant, Osborne's man and his own pampered menial having 
 conspired together at Chatham, and refused point-blank to cross 
 the water. This revolt, which came very suddenly, and on the 
 last day, so alarmed Mr. Sedley, junior, that he was on the point 
 of giving up the expedition, but Captain Dobbin (who made 
 himself immensely officious in the business, Jos said) rated him 
 and laughed at him soundly: the mustachios were grown in 
 advance, and Jos finally was persuaded to embark. In place of 
 the well-bred and well-fed London domestics, who could only 
 speak English, Dobbin procured for Jos's party a swarthy Httle 
 Belgian servant who could speak no language at all; but who, 
 by his bustling behaviour, and by invariably addressing Mr. 
 Sedley as *' My lord," speedily acquired that gentleman's favour. 
 Times are altered at Ostend now; of the Britons who go thither, 
 very few look like lords, or act like those members of our here- 
 ditary aristocracy. They seem for the most part shabby in 
 attire, dingy of linen, lovers of billiards and brandy, and cigars 
 and greasy ordinaries. 
 
 But it may be said, as a rule, that every Englishman in the 
 Duke of Wellington's army paid his way. The remembrance 
 of such a fact surely becomes a nation of shopkeepers. It was 
 a blessing for a commerce-loving country to be overrun by such 
 an army of customers: and to have such creditable warriors to 
 feed. And the country which they came to protect is not mili- 
 tary. For a long period of history they have let other people 
 fight there. When the present writer went to survey with eagle 
 glance the field of Waterloo, we asked the conductor of the 
 diligence, a portly warlike-looking veteran, whether he had 
 been at the battle. " Pas si bete " — such an answer and senti- 
 ment as no Frenchman would own to — was his reply. But, on 
 the other hand, the postillion who drove us was a Viscount, a 
 son of some bankrupt Imperial General, who accepted a penny- 
 worth of beer on the road. The moral is surely a good one. 
 
 This fiat, flourishing, easy country never could have looked 
 more rich and prosperous than in that opening summer of 1815, 
 v/hen its green fields and quiet cities were enlivened by multi- 
 plied red coats : when its wide chaussees swarmed with brilliant 
 
Amelia Invades the Low Countries 267 
 
 English equipages: when its great canal-boats, gliding by rich 
 pastures and pleasant quaint old villages, by old chateaux lying 
 amongst old trees, were all crowded with well-to-do English 
 travellers: when the soldier who drank at the village inn, not 
 only drank, but paid his score; and Donald, the Highlander,^ 
 billeted in the Flemish farmhouse, rocked the baby's cradle, 
 while Jean and Jeannette v/ere out getting in the hay. As our 
 painters are bent on mihtary subjects just now, I throw out this 
 as a good subject for the pencil to illustrate the principle of an 
 honest English war. All looked as brilliant and harmless as a 
 Hyde Park review. Meanwhile Napoleon, screened behind his 
 curtain of frontier fortresses, was preparing for the outbreak 
 which was to drive all these orderly people into fury and blood; 
 and lay so many of them low. 
 
 Everybody had such a perfect feeling of confidence in the 
 leader (for the resolute faith which the Duke of Wellington had 
 inspired in the whole English nation was as intense, as that 
 m.ore frantic enthusiasm with which at one time the French 
 regarded Napoleon), the country seemed in so perfect a state of 
 orderly defence, and the help at hand in case of need so near 
 and overwhelming, that alarm was unknown, and our travellers, 
 among whom two were naturally of a very timid sort, were, like 
 all the other multiplied English tourists, entirely at ease. The 
 famous regim^ent, with so many of whose officers we have made 
 acquaintance, was drafted in canal boats to Bruges and Ghent, 
 thence to march to Brussels. Jos accompanied the ladies in 
 the pubHc boats; the which all old travellers in Flanders must 
 remember for the luxury and accommodation they afforded. 
 So prodigiously good was the eating and drinking on board 
 these sluggish but most comfortable vessels, that there are 
 legends extant of an English traveller, who, coming to Belgium 
 for a week, and travelling in one of these boats, was so deHghted 
 with the fare there that he went backwards and forwards from 
 Ghent to Bruges perpetually until the railroads were invented, 
 when he drowned himself on the last trip of the passage-boat. 
 Jos's death was not to be of this sort, but his comfort was 
 exceeding, and Mrs. O'Dowd insisted that he only wanted her 
 sister Glorvina to make his happiness complete. He sate on 
 the roof of the cabin all day drinking Flemish beer, shouting 
 for Isidor, his servant, and talking gallantly to the ladies. 
 
 His courage was prodigious. " Boney attack us I " he cried. 
 
 ^ This incident is mentioned in Mr. Gleig's " Story of the Battle of 
 Waterloo." 
 
268 Vanity Fair 
 
 "My dear creature, my poor Emmy, don't be frightened. 
 There's no danger. The aUies will be in Paris in two months, I 
 tell you; v/hen I'll take you to dine in the Palais Royal, by Jove! 
 There are three hundred thousand Rooshians, I tell you, now 
 entering France by Mayence and the Rhine — three hundred 
 thousand under Wittgenstein and Barclay de Tolly, my poor 
 ^iove. You don't know military affairs, my dear. I do, and I 
 tell you there's no infantry in France can stand against Rooshian 
 infantry, and no general of Boney's that's fit to hold a candle 
 to Wittgenstein. Then there are the Austrians, they are five 
 hundred thousand if a man, and they are within ten marches 
 of the frontier by this time, under Schwartzenberg and Prince 
 Charles. Then there are the Prooshians under the gallant 
 Prince Marshal. Show me a cavalry chief like him now that 
 Murat is gone. Hey, Mrs. O'Dowd.^ Do you think our little 
 girl here need be afraid.'^ Is there any cause for fear, Isidor? 
 Hey, sir? Get some more beer." 
 
 Mrs. O'Dowd said that her " Glorvina was not afraid of any 
 man alive, let alone a Frenchman," and tossed off a glass of 
 beer with a wink which expressed her liking for the beverage. 
 
 Having frequently been in presence of the enemy, or, in other 
 words, faced the ladies at Cheltenham and Bath, our friend, the 
 Collector, had lost a great deal of his pristine timidity, and was 
 now, especially when fortified with liquor, as talkative as might 
 be. He was rather a favourite with the regiment, treating the 
 young officers with sumptuosity, and amusing them by his mili- 
 tary airs. And as there is one well-known regiment of the army 
 which travels with a goat heading the column, whilst another 
 is led by a deer, George said with respect to his brother-in-law 
 that his regiment marched with an elephant. 
 
 Since Amelia's introduction to the regiment, George began to 
 be rather ashamed of some of the company to which he had been 
 forced to present her; and determined, as he told Dobbin (with 
 what satisfaction to the latter it need not be said), to exchange 
 into some better regiment soon, and to get his wife away from 
 those damned vulgar women. But this vulgarity of being 
 ashamed of one's society is much more common among men than 
 women (except very great ladies of fashion, who, to be sure, in- 
 dulge in it), and Mrs. Amelia, a natural and unaffected person, 
 had none of that artificial shamefacedness which her husband 
 mistook for deHcacy on his own part. Thus Mrs. O'Dowd had a 
 cock's plume in her hat, and a very large " repayther " on her 
 stomach, which she used to ring on all occasions, narrating how 
 
Amelia Invades the Low Countries 269 
 
 it had been presented to her by her fawther, as she stipt into the 
 car'ge after her mar'ge; and these ornaments, with other out- 
 ward pecuHarities of the Major's wife, gave excruciating agonies 
 to Captain Osborne, v/hen his wife and the Major's came in con- 
 tact; whereas Amelia was only amused by the honest lady's 
 eccentricities, and not in the least ashamed of her company. 
 
 As they made that well-known journey, which almost every 
 Englishman of middle rank has travelled since, there might have 
 been more instructive, but few more entertaining, companions 
 than Mrs. Major O'Bowd. " Talk about kenal boats, my dear! 
 Ye should see the kenal boats between Dublin and Ballinasloe. 
 It's there the rapid travelling is; and the beautiful cattle. Sure 
 me fawther got a goold medal (and his Excellency himself eat a 
 slice of it, and said never was finer mate in his ioif) for a four- 
 year-old heifer, the like of which ye never saw in this country 
 any day." And Jos owned with a sigh, " that for good streaky 
 beef, really mingled with fat and lean, there was no country like 
 Engiand." 
 
 " Except Ireland, where all your best mate comes from," said 
 the Major's lady; proceeding, as is not unusual with patriots of 
 her nation, to make comparisons greatly in favour of her own 
 country. The idea of comparing the market at Bruges with 
 those of Dubhn, although she had suggested it herself, caused 
 immense scorn and derision on her part. " I'll thank ye tell me 
 what they mean by that old gazabo on the top of the m.arket- 
 place," said she, in a burst of ridicule fit to have brought the old 
 tower down. The place was full of EngHsh soldiery as they 
 passed. English bugles woke them in the morning; at night- 
 fall they went to bed to the note of the British fife and drum: 
 all the country and Europe was in arms, and the greatest event 
 of history pending: and honest Peggy O'Dowd, whom it con- 
 cerned as well as another, went on prattling about Ballinafad, 
 and the horses in the stables at Glenmalony, and the clar't drunk 
 there; and Jos Scdley interposed about curry and rice at Dum- 
 dum; and Amelia thought about her husband, and how best 
 she should show her love for him; as if these were the great 
 topics of the world. 
 
 Those who like to lay dov/n the History-book, and to speculate 
 upon what mighi have happened in the world, but for the fatal 
 occurrence of what actually did take place (a most puzzHng, 
 amusing, ingenious, and profitable kind of meditation), have no 
 doubt often thought to themselves what a specially bad time 
 
270 Vanity Fair 
 
 Napoleon took to come back from Elba, and to let loose his eagle 
 from Gulf San Juan to Notre Dame. The historians on our side 
 tell us that the armies of the allied powers were all providen- 
 tially on a war footing, and ready to bear down at a moment's 
 notice upon the Elban Emperor. The august jobbers assembled 
 at Vienna, and carving out the kingdoms of Europe according to 
 their wisdom, had such causes of quarrel among them.selves as 
 might have set the armies which had overcome Napoleon to 
 fight against each other, but for the return of the object of 
 unanimous hatred and fear. This monarch had an army in full 
 force because he had jobbed to himself Poland, and was deter- 
 mined to keep it : another had robbed half Saxony, and was bent 
 upon maintaining his acquisition: Italy was the object of a 
 third's solicitude. Each was protesting against the rapacity of 
 the other; and could the Corsican but have waited in prison 
 imtil all these parties were by the ears, he might have returned 
 and reigned unmolested. But what would have become of our 
 story and all our friends, then ? If all the drops in it were dried 
 up, what would become of the sea? 
 
 In the meanwhile the business of life and living, and the 
 pursuits of pleasure, especially, went on as if no end were to be 
 expected to them, and no enemy in front. When our travellers 
 arrived at Brussels, in which their regiment was quartered, a 
 great piece of good fortune, as all said, they found themselves 
 in one of the gayest and most brilliant little capitals in Europe, 
 and where all the Vanity Fair booths were laid out with the 
 most tempting liveliness and splendour. Gambling was here in 
 profusion, and dancing in plenty: feasting was there to fill with 
 delight that great gourmand of a Jos : there was a theatre where 
 a miraculous Cataiani was delighting all hearers : beautiful rides, 
 all enlivened with martial splendour; a rare old city, with 
 strange costumes and wonderful architecture, to delight the 
 eyes of little Amelia, who had never before seen a foreign country, 
 and fill her with charming surprises : so that now and for a few 
 weeks' space in a fine handsome lodging, whereof the expenses 
 were borne by Jos and Osborne, who was flush of money and 
 full of kind attentions to his wife — for about a fortnight, I say, 
 during which her honeymoon ended, Mrs. Amelia was as pleased 
 and happy as any little bride out of England. 
 
 Every day during this happy time there was novelty and 
 amusement for all parties. There was a church to see, or a 
 picture-gallery — there was a ride, or an opera. The bands of 
 the regiments were making music at all hours. The greatest 
 
Amelia Invades the Low Countries 271 
 
 folks of England walked in the Park — there was a perpetual 
 military festival. George^ taking out his wife to a new jaunt 
 or junket every night, was quite pleased with himself as usual, 
 and swore he was becoming quite a domestic character. And 
 a jaunt or a junket with him ! Was it not enough to set this 
 little heart beating with joy? Her letters home to her mother 
 were filled with delight and gratitude at this season. Her 
 husband bade her buy laces, millinery, jewels, and gimcracks of 
 all sorts. Oh, he was the kindest, best, and most generous of 
 men! 
 
 The sight of the very great company of lords and ladies and 
 fashionable persons who thronged the town, and appeared in 
 every public place, filled George's truly British soul with intense 
 delight. They flung off that happy frigidity and insolence of 
 demeanour which occasionally characterises the great at home, 
 and appearing in numberless public places, condescended to 
 mingle with the rest of the company whom they met there. 
 One night at a party given by the General of the division to 
 which George's regiment belonged, he had the honour of danc- 
 ing with Lady Blanche Thistlewood, Lord Bareacres' daughter; 
 he bustled for ices and refreshments for the two noble ladies; 
 he pushed and squeezed for Lady Bareacres' carriage; he 
 bragged about the Countess when he got home in a way which 
 his own father could not have surpassed. He called upon the 
 ladies the next day; he rode by their side in the Park; he asked 
 their party to a great dinner at a restaurateur's, and was quite 
 wild with exultation when they agreed to come. Old Bareacres, 
 who had not much pride and a large appetite, would go for a 
 dinner anywhere. 
 
 " I hope there will be no women besides our own party," 
 Lady Bareacres said, after reflecting upon the invitation which 
 had been made, and accepted with too much precipitancy. 
 
 " Gracious Heaven, Mamma — you don't suppose the man 
 would bring his wife," shrieked Lady Blanche, who had been 
 languisliing in George's arms in the newly-imported waltz for 
 hours the night before. " The men are bearable, but their 
 women " 
 
 " Wife, just married, dev'lish pretty woman, I hear," the old 
 Earl said. 
 
 " Well, my dear Blanche," said the mother, " I suppose, as 
 Papa wants to go, we must go; but we needn't know them in 
 England, you know." And so, determined to cut their new 
 acquaintance in Bond Street^ these great folks went to eat hib 
 
272 Vanity Fair 
 
 dinner at Brussels, and condescending to make him pay for 
 their pleasure, showed their dijs^nity by making his wife uncom- 
 fortable, and carefully excluding her from the conversation. 
 This is a species of dignity in which the high-bred British female 
 reigns supreme. To watch the behaviour of a fine lad}^ to other 
 and humbler women, is a very good sport for a philosophical 
 frequenter of Vanity Fair. 
 
 This festival, on which honest George spent a great deal of 
 money, was the very dismallest of all the entertainments which 
 Amelia had in her honeymoon. She wrote the most piteous 
 accounts of the feast home to her mamma: how the Countess 
 of Bareacres would not answer when spoken to; how Lady 
 Blanche stared at her with her eye-glass; and what a rage Cap- 
 tain Dobbin was in at their behaviour; and how my lord, as 
 they came away from the feast, asked to see the bill, and pro- 
 nounced it a d bad dinner and d ■ dear. But though 
 
 Amelia told all these stories, and wrote home regarding her 
 guests' rudeness, and her own discomfiture, old Mrs. Sedley was 
 mightily pleased nevertheless, and talked about Emmy's friend, 
 the Countess of Bareacres, with such assiduity that the news 
 how his son was entertaining Peers and Peeresses actually came 
 to Osborne's ears in the City. 
 
 Those who know the present Lieutenant-General Sir George 
 Tufto, K.C.B., and have seen him, as they may on most days in 
 the season, padded and in stays, strutting down Pall Mall with 
 a rickety swagger on his high-heeled lacquered boots, leering 
 under the bonnets of passers-by, or riding a showy chestnut, 
 and ogling broughams in the Parks — those who know the pre- 
 sent George Tufto would hardly recognise the daring Penin- 
 sular and Waterloo officer. Pie has thick curling brown hair 
 and black eyebrows now, and his whiskers are of the deepest 
 purple. He was light-haired and bald in 181 5, and stouter in 
 the person and in the limbs, which especially have shrunk very 
 m.uch of late. When he was about seventy years of age (he is 
 now nearly eighty), his hair, which was very scarce and quite 
 white, suddenly grew thick, and brown, and curly, and his 
 whiskers and eyebrows took their present colour. Ill-natured 
 people say that his chest is all wool, and that his hair, because 
 it never grows, is a wig. Tom Tufto, with whose father he 
 quarrelled ever so many years ago, declares that Mademoiselle 
 de Jaisey, of the French theatre, pulled his grandpapa's hair off 
 in the green-room; but Tom is notoriously spiteful and jealous; 
 and the General's wig has nothing to do with our story. 
 
Amelia Invades the Low Countries 273 
 
 One day, as some of our friends of the — th were sauntering 
 in the flower market of Brussels, having been to see the Hotel 
 de Ville, which Mrs. Major O'Dowd declared was not near so 
 large or handsome as her fawther's mansion of Glenmalony, an 
 officer of rank, with an orderly behind him, rode up to the 
 market, and, descending from his horse, came amongst the 
 flowers, and selected the very finest bouquet which money 
 could buy. The beautiful bundle being tied up in a paper, the 
 officer remounted, giving the nosegay into the charge of his 
 military groom, who carried it with a grin, following his chief, 
 who rode away in great state and self-satisfaction. 
 
 " You should see the flowers at Glenmalony," Mrs. O'Dowd 
 was remarking. " Me fawther has three Scotch garners with 
 nine helpers. We have an acre of hothouses, and pines as 
 common as pays in the sayson. Our greeps weighs six pounds 
 every bunch of 'em, and upon me honour and conscience I 
 think our magnolias is as big as tay-kettles." Dobbin, who 
 never used to " draw out " Mrs. O'Dowd, as that wicked Osborne 
 delighted in doing (much to Ameha's terror, who implored him 
 to spare her), fell back in the crowd, crowing and sputtering 
 until he reached a safe distance, when he exploded amongst the 
 astonished market-people with shrieks of yelling laughter. 
 
 '' Hwhat's that gawky guggling about.? " said Pirs. O'Dowd. 
 " Is it his nose bleedn? He always used to say 'twas his nose 
 bleedn, till he m.ust have pomped all the blood out of 'um. 
 An't the magnolias at Glenmalony as big as tay-kettles, 
 O'Dowd?" 
 
 " 'Deed then they are, and bigger, Peggy," the Major 
 said. When the conversation was interrupted in the manner 
 stated by the arrival of the officer who purchased the 
 bouquet. 
 
 " Dev'lish fine horse, — who is it? " George asked. 
 
 " You should see me brother Molloy Malony's horse Molasses, 
 that won the cop at the Gurragh," the Major's wife was exc^laim- 
 ing, and was continuing the family history, when her husbaud 
 interrupted her by saying — 
 
 " It's General Tufto, who commands the cavalry divi- 
 sion; " adding quietly, " he and I were both shot in the same 
 leg at Taiavera." 
 
 " Where you got your step," said George, with a laugh. 
 " General lufto ! Then, my dear, the Crawleys are come." 
 
 Amelia's heart fell,— she knew not why. The sun did not 
 seem to shine so bright. TJj^e tall old roofs and gables looked 
 
274 Vanity Fair 
 
 less picturesque all of a sudden, though it was a brilliant sunset, 
 and one of the brightest and most beautiful days at the end of 
 May. 
 
 CHAPTER XXIX 
 
 BRUSSELS 
 
 Mr. Jos had hired a pair of horses for his open carriage, with 
 which cattle, and the smart London vehicle, he made a very 
 tolerable figure in the drives about Bi"ussels. George pur- 
 chased a horse for his private riding, and he and Captain Dobbin 
 would often accompany the carriage in which Jos and his sister 
 took daily excursions of pleasure. They went out that day in 
 the Park for their accustomed diversion, and there, sure enough, 
 George's remark with regard to the arrival of Rawdon Crawley 
 and his wife proved to be correct. In the midst of a little troop 
 of horsemen, consisting of some of the very greatest persons in 
 Brussels, Rebecca was seen in the prettiest and tightest of riding 
 habits, mounted on a beautiful little Arab, which she rode to 
 perfection (having acquired the art at Queen's Crawley, where 
 the Baronet, Mr. Pitt, and Rawdon himself had given her many 
 lessons), and by the side of the gallant General Tufto. 
 
 " Sure it's the Juke himself," cried Mrs. Major O'Dowd to 
 Jos, who began to blush violently; " and that's Lord Uxbridge 
 on the bay. How elegant he looks! Me brother, Molloy 
 Malony, is as like him as two pays." 
 
 Rebecca did not make for the carriage; but as soon as she 
 perceived her old acquaintance Amelia seated in it, acknow- 
 ledged her presence by a gracious nod and smile and by kissing 
 and shaking her fingers playfully in the direction of the vehicle. 
 Then she resumed her conversation with General Tufto, who 
 asked " who the fat officer was in the gold-laced cap ? " on which 
 Becky replied, " that he was an officer in the East Indian ser- 
 vice." But Rawdon Crawley rode out of the ranks of his com- 
 pany, and came up and shook hands heartily with Amelia, and 
 said to Jos, " Well, old boy, how are you.? " and stared in Mrs. 
 O'Dowd's face and at the blackcock's feathers until she began 
 to think she had made a conquest of him. 
 
 George, who had been delayed behind, rode up almost 
 immediately with Dobbin^ and th^ touched their caps to the 
 
Brussels 275 
 
 august personages, among whom Osborne at once perceived 
 Mrs. Crawley. He was delighted to see Rawdon leaning over 
 his carriage familiarly and talking to Amelia^ and met the aide- 
 de-camp's cordial greeting with more than corresponding 
 waniith. The nods between Rawdon and Dobbin were of the 
 very faintest specimens of politeness. 
 
 Crawley told George where they were stopping, with General 
 Tufto at the Hotel du Pare, and George made his friend promise 
 to come speedily to Osborne's own residence. " Sorry I hadn't 
 seen you three days ago," George said. " Had a dinner at the 
 restaurateur's — rather a nice thing. Lord Bareacres, and the 
 Countess, and Lady Blanche, were good enough to dine with us 
 ■ — wish we'd had you." Having thus let his friend know his 
 claims to be a man of fashion, Osborne parted from Rawdon, 
 who followed the august squadron down an alley into which 
 they cantered, while George and Dobbin resumed their places, 
 one on each side of Amelia's carriage. 
 
 " How well the Juke looked," Mrs. O'Dowd remarked. 
 " The Wellesleys and Malonys are related; but, of course, poor 
 / would never dream of introducing myself unless his Grace 
 thought proper to remember our family tie." 
 
 " He's a great soldier," Jos said, much more at ease now the 
 great man was gone. " Was there ever battle won like Sala- 
 manca? Hey Dobbin? But where was it he learned his art? 
 In India, my boy ! The jungle's the school for a general, mark 
 me that, I knew him myself, too, Mrs. O'Dowd: we both of us 
 danced the same evening with Miss Cutler, daughter of Cutler 
 of the Artillery, and a devilish fine girl, at Dumdum." 
 
 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 Hke Old Eng- 
 land. The house was filled with familiar British faces, and 
 those toilettes for which the British female has long been cele- 
 brated. Mrs. O'Dowd's was not the least splendid amongst 
 these, and she had a curl on her forehead, and a set of Irish 
 diq^onds 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 
 v/hich 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 
 
276 Vanity Fair 
 
 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 tur- 
 ban, and a red satin gown, and a great watch .f* " 
 
 "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 liim," 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 compHment 
 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 re- 
 lented?" 
 
Brussels 277 
 
 " Sent me twenty pounds^ 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 ; v/ho 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 new- 
 comer 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-d-iete. 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 
 
278 Vanity Fair 
 
 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 
 r needn't ask: how pretty she looks? And who is that nice 
 gOod-natured-looking creature with her — a flame of yours ! Oh, 
 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 v/hich showed itself, in spite of the publicity 
 of the place; for she embraced her dearest friend in the pre- 
 sence 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 ad- 
 mired Mrs. O'Dowd's large cairngorm brooch and superb Irish 
 diamonds, and wouldn't believe that they were not from Gol- 
 conda 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 
 
Brussels 279 
 
 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 
 ralHed. Amelia was overpowered by the flash and 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 com- 
 mands. Osborne and Crawley were repeatedly together now. 
 General Ty^to 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 
 
28o Vanity Fair 
 
 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, soften- 
 ing the phrase charitably for George's ear. 
 
 " Upon my word, I thought when v/e were at Brighton she 
 was doing me the honour to be jealous of me; and now I sup- 
 pose 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 con- 
 quering 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 
 
Brussels 281 
 
 counter to his fate, but yielded himself up to it quite com- 
 placently. 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 regi- 
 mental 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 Crawieys' com- 
 pany; losing money to the husband and flattering himself that 
 the wife v/as 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 un- 
 availing talk between them was spared. Our friend George was 
 in the full career of the pleasures of Vanity Fair. 
 
 There never was, since the days of Darius, such a brilliant 
 train of camp-followers as hung round the Duke of Wellington's 
 army in the Low Countries, in 1815; and led it dancing and 
 feasting, as it were, up to the very brink of battle. A certain 
 ball which a noble Duchess gave at Brussels on the 15th of June 
 in the above-named year is historical. All Brussels had been in 
 a state of excitement about it, and I have heard from ladies who 
 were in that town at the period, that the talk and interest of 
 persons of their own sex regarding the ball was much greater 
 even than in respect of the enemy in their front. The struggles, 
 intrigues, and prayers to get tickets were such as only English 
 
282 Vanity Fair 
 
 ladies will employ, in order to gain admission to the society of 
 the great of their own nation. 
 
 Jos and Mrs. O'Dowd, who were panting to be asked, strove 
 in vain to procure tickets; but others of our friends were more 
 lucky. For instance, through the interest of my Lord Bare- 
 acres, and as a set-off for the dinner at the restaurateur's, George 
 got a card for Captain and Mrs. Osborne; which circumstance 
 greatly elated him. Dobbin, who was a friend of the General 
 commanding the division in which their regiment was, came 
 laughing one day to Mrs. Osborne, and displayed a similar in- 
 vitation, which made Jos envious, and George wonder how the 
 deuce he should be getting into society. Mr. and Mrs. Rawdon, 
 finally, were of course invited; as became the friends of a 
 General commanding a cavalry brigade. 
 
 On the appointed night, George, having commanded new 
 dresses and ornaments of all sorts for Amelia, drove to the 
 famous ball, where his wife did not know a single soul. After 
 looking about for Lady Bareacres, who cut him, thinking the 
 card was quite enough — and after placing Amelia on a bench, 
 he left her to her own cogitations there, thinking, on his own 
 part, that he had behaved very handsomely in getting her 
 new clothes, and bringing her to the ball, where she was free to 
 amuse herself as she liked. Her thoughts were not of the 
 pleasantest, and nobody except honest Dobbin came to disturb 
 them. 
 
 Whilst her appearance was an utter failure (as her husband 
 felt with a sort of rage), Mrs. Rawdon Crawley's debut was, 
 on the contrary, very brilliant. She arrived very late. Her 
 face was radiant; her dress perfection. In the midst of the 
 great persons assembled, and the eye-glasses directed to her, 
 Rebecca seemed to be as cool and collected as when she used 
 to marshal Miss Pinkerton's little girls to church. Numbers of 
 the men she knew already, and the dandies thronged round her. 
 As for the ladies, it was whispered among them that Rawdon 
 had run away with her from out of a convent, and that she was 
 a relation of the Montmorency family. She spoke French so 
 perfectly that there might be some truth in this report, and it 
 was agreed that her manners were fine, and her air distingue. 
 Fifty would-be partners thronged round her at once, and pressed 
 to have the honour to dance with her. But she said she was 
 engaged, and only going to dance very little ; and made her way 
 at once to the place where Emmy sate quite unnoticed, and dis- 
 mally unhappy. And so, to finish the poor child at once, Mrs. 
 
Brussels 283 
 
 Rawdon ran and greeted affectionately her dearest Amelia^ and 
 began forthwith to patronise her. She found fault with her 
 friend's dress, and her hairdresser, and wondered how she could 
 be so chaussee, and vowed that she must send her corsetiere the 
 next morning. She vowed that it was a delightful ball: that 
 there was everybody that every one knew, and only a very few 
 nobodies in the whole room. It is a fact, that in a fortnight, and 
 after three dinners in general society, this young woman had got 
 up the genteel jargon so well, that a native could not speak it 
 better; and it was only from her French being so good, that you 
 could know she was not a bom woman of fashion. 
 
 George, who had left Emmy on her bench on entering the ball- 
 room, very soon found his way back when Rebecca was by her 
 dear friend's side. Becky was just lecturing Mrs. Osborne upon 
 the follies which her husband was committing. " For God's 
 sake, stop him from gambling, my dear," she said, " or he will 
 ruin himself. He and Rawdon are playing at cards every night, 
 and you know he is very poor, and Rawdon will win every 
 shilling from him if he does not take care. Why don't you pre- 
 vent him, you little careless creature? Why don't you come 
 to us of an evening, instead of moping at home with that Captain 
 Dobbin? I daresay he is tres aimable ; but how could one love 
 a man with feet of such size ? Your husband's feet are darlings 
 — here he comes. Where have you been, wretch? Here is 
 Emmy ciying her eyes out for you. Are you coming to fetch 
 me for the quadrille? " And she left her bouquet and shawl by 
 Amelia's side, and tripped off with George to dance. Women 
 only know how to wound so. There is a poison on the tips of 
 their little shafts, which stings a thousand times more than a 
 man's blunter weapon. Our poor Emmy, who had never hated, 
 never sneered all her life, was powerless in the hands of her re- 
 morseless little enemy. 
 
 George danced with Rebecca twice or thrice — how many 
 times Amelia scarcely knew. She sate quite unnoticed in her 
 corner, except when Rawdon came up with some words of 
 clumsy conversation: and later in the evening, when Captain 
 Dobbin made so bold as to bring her refreshments and sit beside 
 her. He did not like to ask her why she was so sad; but as a 
 pretext for the tears which were filling in her eyes, she told him 
 that Mrs. Crawley had alarmed her by telling her that George 
 would go on playing. 
 
 " It is curious, when a man is bent upon play, by what clumsy 
 rogues he will allow himself to be cheated/' Dobbin said; and 
 
284 Vanity Fair 
 
 Emmy sai'd^ " Indeed." She was thinking of something else. 
 It was not the loss of the money that grieved her. 
 
 At last George came back for Rebecca's shawl and flowers. 
 She was going away. She did not even condescend to come 
 back and say good-bye to Amelia. The poor girl let her husband 
 come and go without saying a word^ and her head fell on her 
 breast. Dobbin had been called away, and was whispering deep 
 in conversation with the General of the division, his friend^ and 
 had not seen this last parting. George went away then with 
 the bouquet; but when he gave it to the owner, there lay a note, 
 coiled like a snake among the flowers. Rebecca's eye caught it 
 at once. She had been used to deal with notes in early life. 
 She put out her hand and took the nosegay. He saw by her 
 eyes as they met, that she was aware what she should find there. 
 Her husband hurried her away, still too intent upon his own 
 thoughts, seemingly, to take note of any marks of recognition 
 which might pass between his friend and his wife. These were, 
 however^ but trifling. Rebecca gave George her hand with one 
 of her usual quick knowing glances, and made a curtsey and 
 walked away. George bowed over the hand, said nothing in 
 reply to a remark of Crawley's, did not hear it even, his brain 
 was so throbbing with triumph and excitement, and allowed 
 them to go away without a word. 
 
 His wife saw the one part at least of the bouquet-scene. It 
 was quite natural that George should come at Rebecca's request 
 to get her her scarf and flowers : it was no more than he had done 
 twenty times before in the course of the last few days ; but now 
 it was too much for her. " William," she said, suddenly cling- 
 ing to Dobbin, who was near her, " you've always been very 
 kind to me — I'm — I'm not well. Take me home." She did not 
 know she called him by his Christian name, as George was accus- 
 tomed to do. He went away with her quickly. Her lodgings 
 were hard by; and they threaded through the crowd without, 
 where everything seemed to be more astir than even in the ball- 
 room within. George had been angry twice or thrice at finding 
 his wife up on his return from the parties which he frequented: 
 so she went straight to bed now; but although she did not sleep, 
 and although the din and clatter, and the galloping of horsemen 
 were incessant, she never heard any of these noises, having quite 
 other disturbances to keep her awake. 
 
 Osborne meanwhile, wild with elation, went off to a play-table, 
 and began to bet frantically. He won repeatedly. " Every- 
 thing succeeds with me to-night," he said. But his luck at 
 
Brussels 285 
 
 play even did not cure him of his restlessness, and he started up 
 after a whiie^ pocketing his winnings^, and went to a buffet, 
 where he drank off many bumpers of wine. 
 
 Here, as he was rattling av/ay to the people around, laughing 
 loudly and wild with spirits, Dobbin found him. He had been 
 to the card-tables to look there for his friend. Dobbin looked 
 as pale and grave as his comrade was flushed and jovial. 
 
 "Hullo, Dob! Come and drink, old Dob ! The Duke's wine 
 is famous. Give me some more, you sir; " and he held out a 
 trembling glass for the liquor. 
 
 " Come out, George," said Dobbin, still gravely; " don't 
 drink." 
 
 '^ Drink! there's nothing like it. Drink yourself, and light 
 up your lantern jaws, old boy. Here's to you." 
 
 Dobbin went up and whispered something to him, at which 
 George, giving a start and a wild hurray, tossed off his glass, 
 clapped it on the table, and walked away speedily on his friend's 
 arm. " The enemy has passed the Sambre," William said, 
 " and our left is already engaged. Come away. We are to 
 march in three hours." 
 
 Away went George, his nerves quivering with excitement at 
 the news so long looked for, so sudden when it came. What 
 were love and intrigue now? He thought about a thousand 
 things but these in his rapid walk to his quarters — his past life 
 and future chances — the fate which might be before him — the 
 wife, the child perhaps, from v/hom unseen he might be about to 
 part. Oh, how he wished that night's work undone ! and that 
 with a clear conscience at least he might say farewell to the tender 
 and guileless being by whose love he had set such little store ! 
 
 He thought over his brief married life. In those few weeks he 
 had frightfully dissipated his little capital. How wild and reck- 
 less he had been ! Should any mischance befall him : what was 
 then left for her ? Hov/ unworthy he was of her ! Why had he 
 married her.'* He was not fit for marriage. Why had he dis- 
 obeyed his father, who had been always so generous to him? 
 Hope, remorse, ambition, tenderness, and selfish regret filled his 
 heart. He sate down and wrote to his father, remembering 
 what he had said once before, when he was engaged to fight a 
 duel. Dawn faintly streaked the sky as he closed this farewell 
 letter. He sealed it, and kissed the superscription. He thought 
 how he had deserted that generous father, and of the thousand 
 kindnesses which the stem old man had done him. 
 
 He had looked into Amelia's bedroom when he entered; she 
 
286 Vanity Fair 
 
 lay quiet^ and her eyes seemed closed, and he was glad that she 
 was asleep. On arriving at his quarters from the ball, he had 
 found his regimental servant already making preparations for 
 his departure: the man had understood his signal to be still, 
 and these arrangements were very quickly and silently made. 
 Should he go in and wake Amelia, he thought, or leave a note 
 for her brother to break the news of departure to jier? He 
 went in to look at her once again. 
 
 She had been awake when he first entered her room, but ha.d 
 kept her eyes closed, so that even her wakefulness should not 
 seem to reproach him. But when he had returned, so soon 
 after herself, too, this timid little heart had felt more at ease, 
 and turning towards him as he stept softly out of the room, she 
 had fallen into a light sleep. George came in and looked at her 
 again, entering still more softly. By the pale night-lamp he 
 could see her sweet, pale face — the purple eyelids were fringed 
 and closed, and one round arm, smooth and white, lay outside 
 of the coverlet. Good God! how pure she was; how gentle, 
 how tender, and how friendless! and he, how selfish, brutal, 
 and black with crime! Heart-stained, and shame-stricken, he 
 stood at the bed's foot, and looked at the sleeping girl. How 
 dared he — who was he, to pray for one so spotless! God bless 
 her! God bless her! He came to the bedside, and looked at 
 the hand, the little soft hand, lying asleep; and he bent over 
 the pillow noiselessly towards the gentle pale face. 
 
 Two fair arms closed tenderly round his neck as he stooped 
 down. " I am awake, George," the poor child said, with a sob 
 fit to break the little heart that nestled so closely by his own. 
 She was awake, poor soul, and to what.? At that moment a 
 bugle from the Place of Arms began sounding clearly, and was 
 taken up through the town; and amidst the drums of the 
 infantry, and the shrill pipes of the Scotch, the whole city 
 awoke. 
 
 CHAPTER XXX 
 
 " THE GIRL I LEFT BEHIND ME " 
 
 We do not claim to rank among the military novelists. Our 
 place i5 with the non-combatants. When the decks are cleared 
 for action we go below and wait meekly. We should only be 
 
" The Girl I Left Behind Me " 287 
 
 in the way of the manoeuvres that the gallant fellows are 
 performing overhead. We shall go no farther with the — th 
 than to the city gate; and leaving Major O'Dowd to his duty, 
 come back to the Major's wife, and the ladies, and the 
 baggage. 
 
 Now the Major and his lady, who had not been invited to 
 the ball at which in our last chapter other of our friends figured, 
 had much more time to take their wholesome natural rest in 
 bed, than was accorded to people who wished to enjoy pleasure 
 as well as to do duty. " It's my beHef, Peggy, my dear," said 
 he, as he placidly pulled his nightcap over his ears, " that there 
 will be such a ball danced in a day or two as some of 'em has 
 never heard the chune of ; " and he was much more happy to 
 retire to rest after partaking of a quiet tumbler, than to figure 
 at any other sort of amusement. Peggy, for her part, would 
 have liked to have shown her turban and bird of paradise at the 
 ball, but for the information which her husband had given her, 
 and which made her very grave. 
 
 " I'd like ye wake me about half-an-hour before the assembly 
 beats," the Major said to his lady. " Call me at half-past one, 
 Peggy dear, and see me things is ready. May be I'll not come 
 back to breakfast, Mrs. O'D." With which words, which signi- 
 fied his opinion that the regiment would march the next morn- 
 ing, the Major ceased talking, and fell asleep. 
 
 Mrs. O'Dowd, the good housewife, arrayed in curl papers 
 and a camisole, felt that her duty was to act, and not to sleep, 
 at this juncture. " Time enough for that," she said, " when 
 Mick's gone; " and so she packed his travelling valise ready for 
 the march, brushed his cloak, his cap, and other warlike habili- 
 ments, set them out in order for him; and stowed away in the 
 cloak pockets a light package of portable refreshments, and a. 
 wicker-covered flask or pocket pistol, containing near a pint of 
 a remarkably sound Cognac brandy, of which she and the- 
 Major approved very much; and as soon as the hands of the: 
 " repay ther " pointed to half-past one, and its interior arrange- 
 ments (it had a tone quite equal to a cathaydral, its fair owner 
 considered) knelled forth that fatal hour, Mrs. O'Dowd woke 
 up her Major, and had as comfortable a cup of coffee prepared 
 for him as any made that morning in Brussels. And who is 
 there will deny that this worthy lady's preparations betokened 
 affection as much as the fits of tears and hysterics by which 
 more sensitive females exhibited their love, and that their par- 
 taking of this coffee, which they drank together while the bugles 
 
288 Vanity Fair 
 
 were sounding the turn-out and the drums beating in the various 
 quarters of the town^ was not more useful and to the purpose 
 than the outpouring of any mere sentimrnt could be? The 
 consequence was^ that the Major appeared on parade quite 
 trim^ fresh, and alert, his well-shaved rosy countenance, as he 
 sate on horseback, giving cheerfulness and confidence to the 
 whole corps. All the officers saluted her when the regiment 
 marched by the balcony on which this brave woman stood, and 
 waved them a cheer as they passed; and I daresay it was not 
 from want of courage, but from a sense of female delicacy and 
 propriety, that she refrained from leading the gallant — th per- 
 sonally into action. 
 
 On Sundays, and at periods of a solemn nature, Mrs. O'Dowd 
 used to read with great gravity out of a large volume of her 
 uncle the Dean's sermons. It had been of great comfort to her 
 on board the transport as they were coming home, and were 
 veiy nearly wrecked, on their return from the West Indies. 
 After the regiment's departure she betook herself to this volume 
 for meditation; perhaps she did not understand much of what 
 she was reading, and her thoughts were elsewhere: but the 
 sleep project, with poor Mick's nightcap there on the pillow^ 
 was quite a vain one. So it is in the world. Jack or Donald 
 marches away to glory with his knapsack on his shoulder, step- 
 ping out briskly to the tune of " The Girl I left behind me." 
 It is she who remains and suffers, — and has the leisure to think, 
 and brood, and remember. 
 
 Knowing how useless regrets are, and how the indulgence of 
 sentiment only serves to make people more miserable, Mrs. 
 Rebecca wisely determined to give way to no vain feelings of 
 sorrow, and bore the parting from her husband with quite a 
 Spartan equanimity. Indeed, Captain Rawdon himself was 
 much more affected at the leave-taking than the resolute little 
 woman to whom he bade farewell. She had mastered this rude 
 coarse nature; and he loved and worshipped her with all his 
 faculties of regard and admiration. In all his life he had never 
 been so happy, as, during the past few months, his wife had 
 made him. All former delights of turf, mess, hunting-field, 
 and gambling- table; all previous loves and courtships of mil- 
 liners, opera-dancers, and the like easy triumphs of the clumsy 
 military Adonis, were quite insipid when compared with the 
 lawful matrimonial pleasures which of late he had enjoyed. 
 She had known perpetually how to divert him; and he had 
 found his house and her society a thousand times more pleasant 
 
" The Girl I Left Behind Me " 289 
 
 than any place or company which he had ever frequented from 
 his childhood until now. And he cursed his past fohies and 
 extravagances, and bemoaned his vast outlying debts above all, 
 which must remain for ever as obstacles to prevent his wife's 
 advancement in the world. He had often groaned over these 
 midnight conversations with Rebecca, although as a bachelor 
 they had never given him any disquiet. He himself was struck 
 with this phenomenon. " Hang it," he would say (or perhaps 
 use a still stronger expression out of his simple vocabulary), 
 *' before I was married I didn't care what bills I put my name 
 to, and so long as Moses would wait or Levy would renew for 
 three months, I kept on never minding. But since I'm married, 
 except renewing, of course, I give you my honour I've not 
 touched a bit of stamped paper." 
 
 Rebecca always knew how to conjure away these moods of 
 melancholy. " Why, my stupid love," she would say, " we 
 have not done with your aunt yet. If she fails us, isn't, there 
 what you call the Gazette? or, stop, when your uncle Bute's 
 life drops, I have another scheme. The living has always be- 
 longed to the younger brother, and why shouldn't you sell out 
 and go into the Church? " The idea of this conversion set 
 Rawdon into roars of laughter: you might have heard the 
 explosion through the hotel at midnight, and the haw-haws of 
 the great dragoon's voice. General Tufto heard him from his 
 quarters on the first floor above them; and Rebecca acted the 
 scene with great spirit, and preached Rawdon's first sermon, 
 to the immense delight of the General at breakfast. 
 
 But these were mere bygone days and talk. When the final 
 news arrived that the campaign was opened, and the troops 
 were to march, Rawdon's gravity became such that Becky 
 rallied him about it in a manner which rather hurt the feelings 
 of the Guardsman. " You don't suppose I'm afraid, Becky, I 
 should think," he said, with a tremor in his voice. " But I'm 
 a pretty good mark for a shot, and you see if it brings me down, 
 why I leave one and perhaps two behind me whom I should wish 
 to provide for, as I brought 'em into the scrape. It is no laugh- 
 ing matter that, Mrs. C., anyways." 
 
 Rebecca by a hundred caresses and kind words tried to soothe 
 the feelings of the wounded lover. It was only when her vivacity 
 and sense of humour got the better of this sprightly creature (as 
 they would do under most circumstances of life indeed) that she 
 would break out with her satire, but she could soon put on a 
 demure face. " Dearest love/' she said,, " do you suppose I 
 K298 
 
290 Vanity Fair 
 
 feel nothing? " and hastily dashing something from her eyes^ 
 she looked up in her husband's face with a smile. 
 
 " Look here/' said he. " If I drop, let us see what there is 
 for you. I have had a pretty good run of luck here, and here's 
 two hundred and thirty pounds. I have got ten Napoleons in 
 my pocket. That is as much as I shall want; for the General 
 pays everything like a prince; and if I'm hit, why you know I 
 cost nothing. Don't cry, little woman; I may live to vex you 
 yet. Well, I shan't take either of my horses, but shall ride the 
 General's grey charger: it's cheaper, and I told him mine was 
 lame. If I'm done, those two ought to fetch you something. 
 Grigg offered ninety for the mare yesterday, before this con- 
 founded news came, and like a fool I wouldn't let her go under 
 the two o's. Bullfinch will fetch his price any day, only you'd 
 better sell him in this country, because the dealers have so many 
 bills of mine, and so I'd rather he shouldn't go back to England. 
 Your little mare the General gave you will fetch something, and 
 
 there's no d d livery-stable bills here as there are in London," 
 
 Rawdon added, with a laugh. " There's that dressing-case cost 
 me two hundred, — that is, I owe two for it; and the gold tops 
 and bottles must be worth thirty or forty. Please to put that 
 up the spout, ma'am, with my pins, and rings, and watch and 
 chain, and things. They cost a precious lot of money. Miss 
 Crawley, I know, paid a hundred down for the chain and ticker. 
 Gold tops and bottles, indeed ! dammy. I'm sorry I didn't take 
 more now. Edwards pressed on me a silver-gilt boot-jack, and 
 I might have had a dressing-case fitted up with a silver warming- 
 pan, and a service of plate. But we must make the best of what 
 we've got, Becky, you know." 
 
 And so, making his last dispositions. Captain Crawley, who 
 had seldom thought about anything but himself until the last 
 few months of his life, when Love had obtained the mastery 
 over the dragoon, went through the various items of his little 
 catalogue of effects, striving to see how they might be turned 
 into money for his wife's benefit, in case any accident should 
 befall him. He pleased himself by noting down with a pencil, 
 in his big schoolboy handwriting, the various items of his portable 
 property which might be sold for his v/idow's advantage — as, 
 for example, '' My double-barril by Manton, say 40 guineas; my 
 driving cloak, lined with sable fur, £50 ; my duelling pistols in 
 rosewood case (same which I shot Captain Marker), £20; my 
 regulation saddle-holsters and housings; my Laurie ditto," and 
 so forth, over all of which articles he made Rebecca the mistress. 
 
" The Girl I Left Behind Me " 291 
 
 Faithful to his plan of economy, the Captiin dressed himself 
 in his oldest and shabbiest uniform and epaulets, leaving the 
 newest behind under his wife's (or it might be his widow's) 
 guardianship. And this famous dandy of Windsor and Hyde 
 Park went off on his campaign with a kit as modest as that of a 
 sergeant, and with something like a prayer on his lips for the 
 woman he was leaving. He took her up from the ground, and 
 held her in his arms for a minute, tight pressed against his 
 strong-beating heart. His face was purple and his eyes dim, 
 as he put her down and left her. He rode by his General's side, 
 and smoked his cigar in silence as they hastened after the troops 
 of the General's brigade, which preceded them; and it was not 
 until they were some miles an their way that he left off twirling 
 his mustachio and broke silence. 
 
 And Rebecca, as we have said, wisely determined not to give 
 way to unavailing sentimentahty on her husband's departure. 
 She waved him an adieu from the window, and stood there for 
 a moment looking out after he was gone. The cathedral towers 
 and the full gables of the quaint old houses were just beginning 
 to blush in the sunrise. There had been no rest for her that 
 night. She was still in her pretty ball-dress, her fair hair hang- 
 ing somewhat out of curl on her neck, and the circles round her 
 eyes dark with watching. " What a fright I seem," she said, 
 examining herself in the glass, " and how pale this pink makes 
 one look ! " So she divested herself of this pink raiment ; in 
 doing which a note fell out from her corsage, which she picked 
 up with a smile, and locked into her dressing-box. And then 
 she put her bouquet of the ball into a glass of water, and went 
 to bed and slept very comfortably. 
 
 The town was quite quiet when she woke up at ten o'clock, 
 and partook of coffee, very requisite and comforting after the 
 exhaustion and grief of the morning's occurrences. 
 
 This meal over, she resumed honest Rawdon's calculations of 
 the night previous, and surveyed her position. Should the 
 worst befall, all things considered, she was pretty well-to-do. 
 There were her own trinkets and trousseau, in addition to those 
 which her husband had left behind. Rawdon's generosity, 
 when they were first married, has already been described and 
 lauded. Besides these, and the little mare, the General, her 
 sla^^e and worshipper, had made her many very handsome pre- 
 sents, in the shape of cashmere shawls bought at the auction of a 
 French general's lady, and numerous tributes from the jewellers' 
 shops, all of which betokened her admirer's taste and wealth. 
 
292 Vanity Fair 
 
 As for " tickers," as poor Rawdon called watches, her apart- 
 ments were alive with their clicking. For, happening to men- 
 tion one night that hers, which Rawdon had given to her, was of 
 English workmanship, and went ill, on the very next morning 
 there came to her a little bijou marked Leroy, with a chain and 
 cover charmingly set with turquoises, and another signed 
 Breguet, which was covered with pearls, and yet scarcely bigger 
 than a half-crown. General Tufto had bought one, and Captain 
 Osborne had gallantly presented the other. Mrs. Osborne had 
 no watch, though, to do George justice, she might have had one 
 for the asking, and the Honourable Mrs. Tufto in England had 
 an old instrument of her mother's that might have served for the 
 plate-warming pan which Rawdon talked about. If Messrs. 
 Howell & James were to publish a list of the purchasers of all 
 the trinkets which they sell, how surprised would some families 
 be : and if all these ornaments went to gentlemen's lawful wives 
 and daughters, what a profusion of jewellery there would be 
 exhibited in the genteelest homes of Vanity Fair ! 
 
 Every calculation made of these valuables, Mrs. Rebecca 
 found, not without a pungent feeling of triumph and self-satis- 
 faction, that should circumstances occur, she might reckon on 
 six or seven hundred pounds at the very least, to begin the world 
 with; and she passed the morning disposing, ordering, looking 
 out, and locking up her properties in the most agreeable manner. 
 Among the notes in Rawdon 's pocket-book, was a draft for twenty 
 pounds on Osborne's banker. This made her think about Mrs. 
 Osborne. " I will go and get the draft cashed," she said, " and 
 pay a visit afterwards to poor little Emmy." If this is a novel 
 without a hero, at least let us lay claim to a heroine. No man 
 in the British army which has marched away, not the great 
 Duke himself, could be more cool or collected in the presence of 
 doubts and difficulties, than the indomitable little aide-de- 
 camp's wife. 
 
 And there was another of our acquaintances who was also to 
 be left behind, a non-combatant, and whose emotions and 
 behaviour we have therefore a right to know. This was our 
 friend the ex-Collector of Boggley Wollah, whose rest was 
 broken, Hke other people's, by the sounding of the bugles in 
 the early morning. Being a great sleeper, and fond of his bed, 
 it is possible he would have snoozed on until his usual hour of 
 rising in the forenoon, in spite of all the drums, bugles, and bag- 
 pipes in the British army, but for an interruption, which did 
 
" The Girl I Left Behind Me '' 293 
 
 not come from George Osborne, who shared Jos's quarters with 
 him, and was as usual occupied too much with his own affairs 
 or with grief at parting with his wife, to think of taldng leave of 
 his slumbering brother-in-law — it was not George, we say, who 
 interposed between Jos Sedley and sleep, but Captain Dobbin, 
 who came and roused him up, insisting on shaking hands with 
 him before his departure. 
 
 " Very kind of you," said Jos, yawning, and wishing the 
 Captain at the deuce, 
 
 " I — I didn't like to go off without sapng 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 gentle- 
 man 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 nn 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 in 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 Eng- 
 land in case of a misfortune .f* " 
 
 " 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 
 
2 94 Vanity Fair 
 
 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 perfectl}^ 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 com.mon to the family 
 party, and opposite this door was that of Amelia's chamber. 
 The bugles had wakened everybody; there was no use in con- 
 cealment 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 cam- 
 paign. 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 his sash against 
 her bosom, from which the heavy net of crimson dropped like 
 a large stain of blood. Our gentle-hearted Captain felt a guilt)^ 
 shock as he looked at her. " Good God," thought he, *' and is 
 it grief like this I dared to pr)'' 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. 
 
 iyfilS'i:. 
 
"The Girl I Left Behind Me" 295 
 
 At last, George took Emmy's hand, and led her back into the 
 bedroom, from whence he came out alone. The parting had 
 taken pL'ice 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 tre- 
 mendous hazards of loss or gain ! What were all the games of 
 chance he had ever played compared to this one ? Into all con- 
 tests 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 dali3dng; 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. 
 
296 Vanity Fair 
 
 CHAPTER XXXI 
 
 IN WHICH JOS SEDLEY TAKES CARE OF HIS SISTER 
 
 Thus all the superior officers being summoned on duty else- 
 where, Jos Sedley was left in command of the httle 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 occur- 
 rences 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 anteroom/' he said to Isidor, 
 the servant. 
 
 " Perhaps he won't v/ant 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 
 
Jos Sedley Takes Care of His Sister 297 
 
 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 dial too ill;, 
 and had been in a frightful state ever since her husband's de- 
 parture, so her bonne said. Jos showed his sympathy, by pour- 
 ing her out a large cup of tea. It was his way of exhibiting 
 Idndness : and he improved on this ; he not only sent her break- 
 fast, 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 over- 
 bearing (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 re- 
 moved from under his hands, to fall into other people's posses- 
 sion 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 nicknacks 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 1 what an effect they 
 
298 Vanity Fair 
 
 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 beerhouse 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 our 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 orna- 
 ment an unconscious turtle with a placard on which is written, 
 *^ Soup to-morrow." 
 
 Amelia's attendant was much less selfishly disposed. Few 
 dependants could come near that kind and gentle creature with- 
 out 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 Varmee, 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 afternoon Mr. Jos's Isidor went from 
 his lodgings into the town, and to the gates of the hotels and 
 lodging-houses round about the Pare, 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 gentle- 
 men 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 
 
Jos Sedley Takes Care of His Sister 299 
 
 plentifully in Brussels. " Soldiers ! " it said, " this is the anni- 
 versary 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. 
 
 These opinions in the course of the day were brought to operate 
 upon Mr. Sedley. He was told that the Duke of Wellington had 
 gone to try and rally his army, the advance of which had been 
 utterly crushed the night before. 
 
 " Crushed, psha! " said Jos, whose heart was pretty stout at 
 breakfast-time. '' The Duke has gone to beat the Emperor, as 
 he has beaten all his generals before." 
 
 " His papers are burned, his effects are removed, and his 
 quarters are being got ready for the Duke of Dalmatia," Jos's 
 informant replied. " I had it from his own maitre d' hotel. Milor 
 Due de Richemont's people are packing up everything. His 
 Grace has fled already, and the Duchess is only waiting to see 
 the plate packed to join the King of France at Ostend." 
 
 " The King of France is at Ghent, fellow," replied Jos, affect- 
 ing incredulity. 
 
 " He fled last night to Bruges, and embarks to-day from 
 Ostend. The Due de Berri is taken prisoner. Those who wish 
 to be safe had better go soon, for the dykes will be opened to- 
 morrow, and who can fly when the whole country is under 
 water? " 
 
 " Nonsense, sir, we are three to one, sir, against any force 
 Boney can bring into the field," Mr. Sedley objected; " the 
 Austrians and the Russians are on their march. He must, he 
 shall be crushed," Jos said, slapping his hand on the table. 
 
 " The Prussians were three to one at Jena, and he took their 
 army and kingdom in a week. They were six to one at Mont- 
 
300 Vanity Fair 
 
 mirail, and he scattered them like sheep. The Austrian army 
 is coming, but with the Empress and the King of Rome at its 
 head; and the Russians, bah! the Russians will withdraw. No 
 quarter is to be given to the English, on account of their cruelty 
 to our braves on board the infamous pontoons. Look here, 
 here it is in black and white. Here's the proclamation of His 
 Majesty the Emperor and King," said the now declared partisan 
 of Napoleon, and taking the document from his pocket, Isidor 
 sternly thrust it into his master's face, and already looked upon 
 the frogged coat and valuables as his own spoil. 
 
 Jos was, if not seriously alarmed as yet, at least considerably 
 disturbed in mind. " Give me my coat and cap, sir," said he, 
 " and follow me. I will go myself and learn the truth of these 
 reports." Isidor was furious as Jos put on the braided frock. 
 " Milor had better not wear that military coat," said he; " the 
 Frenchmen have sworn not to give quarter to a single British 
 soldier." 
 
 " Silence, sirrah! " said Jos, with a resolute countenance still, 
 and thrust his arm into tne sleeve with indomitable resolution, 
 in the performance of which heroic act he was found by Mrs. 
 Rawdon Crawley, who at this juncture came up to visit Amelia, 
 and entered without ringing at the antechamber door. 
 
 Rebecca was dressed very neatly and smartly as usual: her 
 quiet sleep after Rawdon's departure had refreshed her, and her 
 pink smiling cheeks were quite pleasant to look at, in a town 
 and on a day when everybody else's countenance wore the 
 appearance of the deepest anxiety and gloom. She laughed at 
 the attitude in which Jos was discovered, and the struggles and 
 convulsions with which the stout gentleman thrust himself into 
 the braided coat. 
 
 " Are you preparing to join the army, Mr. Joseph.'* " she said. 
 " Is there to be nobody left in Brussels to protect us poor 
 women ? " Jos succeeded in plunging into the coat, and came 
 forward blushing and stuttering out excuses to his fair visitor. 
 "^ How was she after the events of the morning — after the 
 fatigues of the ball the night before ? " Monsieur Isidor dis- 
 appeared into his master's adjacent bedroom, bearing off the 
 flowered dressing-gown. 
 
 " How good of you to ask," said she, pressing one of his hands 
 in both her own. " How cool and collected you look when 
 everybody else is frightened! How is our dear little Emmy? 
 It must have been an awful, awful parting." 
 
 " Tremendous/' Jos said. 
 
Jos Sedley Takes Care of His Sister 301 
 
 " You men can bear anything," replied the lady. " Parting 
 or danger are nothing to you. Own now that you were going 
 to join the army and leave us to our fate. I know you were — 
 something tells me 3^ou were. I was so frightened, when the 
 thought came into my head (for I do sometimes think of you 
 when I am alone, Mr. Joseph), that I ran off immediately to beg 
 and entreat you not to fly from us." 
 
 This speech might be interpreted, " My dear sir, should an 
 accident befall the army, and a retreat be necessary, you have 
 a very comfortable carriage, in which I propose to take a seat.^' 
 I don't know whether Jos understood the words in this sense. 
 But he was profoundly mortified by the lady's inattention to 
 him during their stay at Brussels. He had never been pre- 
 sented to any of Rawdon Crawley's great acquaintances: he 
 had scarcely been invited to Rebecca's parties; for he was too 
 timid to play much, and his presence bored George and Rawdon 
 equally, who neither of them, perhaps, liked to have a witness 
 of the amusements in which the pair chose to indulge. " Ah! " 
 thought Jos, *' now she wants me she comes to me. When there 
 is nobody else in the way she can think about old Joseph Sed- 
 ley!" But besides these doubts he left flattered at the idea 
 Rebecca expressed of his courage. He blushed a good deal, 
 and put on an air of importance. " I should like to see the 
 action," he said. " Every man of any spirit would, you know. 
 I've seen a little service in India, but nothing on this grand 
 scale." 
 
 " You men would sacrifice anything for a pleasure," Rebecca 
 answered. " Captain Crawley left me this morning as gay as 
 if he were going to a hunting party. What does he care ? What 
 do any of you care for the agonies and tortures of a poor for- 
 saken woman? (I wonder whether he could really have been 
 going to the troops, this great lazy gourmand }) Oh, dear Mr. 
 Sedley, I have come to you for comfort — for consolation. I have 
 been on my knees all the morning. I tremble at the frightful 
 danger into which our husbands, our friends, our brave troops 
 and allies, are rushing. And I come here for shelter, and find 
 another of my friends^ — the last remaining to me — bent upon 
 plunging into the dreadful scene! " 
 
 " My dear madam," Jos replied, now beginning to be quite 
 soothed, '* don't be alarmed. I only said I should like to go — 
 what Briton would not? But my duty keeps me here: I can^t 
 leave that poor creature in the next room." And he pointed 
 with his finger to the door of the chamber in which Amelia was. 
 
302 Vanity Fair 
 
 " Good^ noble brother! " Rebecca said^, putting her handker- 
 chief to her eyes^ and smelling the eau-de-cologne with which it 
 was scented. "I have done you injustice: you have* got a 
 heart. I thought you had not." 
 
 " Oh, upon my honour ! " Jos said, making a motion as if 
 he would lay his hand upon the spot in question. " You do 
 me injustice, indeed you do — my dear Mrs. Crav/ley." 
 
 " I do, now your heart is true to your sister. But I remember 
 two years ago — when it was false to me! " Rebecca said, fixing 
 her eyes upon him for an instant, and then turning away into the 
 window. 
 
 Jos blushed violently. That organ which he was accused by 
 Rebecca of not possessing began to thump tumultuously. He 
 recalled the days when he had fled from her, and the passion 
 which had once inflamed him — the days when he had driven her 
 in his curricle: when she had knit the green purse for him: 
 when he had sate enraptured gazing at her white arms and 
 bright eyes. 
 
 " I know you think me ungrateful," Rebecca continued, 
 coming out of the window, and once more looking at him and 
 addressing him in a low tremulous voice. " Your coldness, 
 your averted looks, your manner when we have met of late — 
 when I came in just now, all proved it to me. But were there 
 no reasons why I should avoid you ? Let your own heart answer 
 that question. Do you think my husband was too much in- 
 clined to welcome you? The only unkind words I have ever 
 had from him (I will do Captain Crawley that justice) have been 
 about you — and most cruel, cruel words they were." 
 
 " Good gracious! what have I done? " asked Jos in a flurry 
 of pleasure and perplexity! "what have I done — to — to—?" 
 
 " Is jealousy nothing ? " said Rebecca. " He makes me miser- 
 able about you. And whatever it might have been once — 
 my heart is all his. I am innocent now. Am I not, Mr. 
 Sedley?^' 
 
 All Jos's blood tingled with delight, as he surveyed this victim 
 to his attractions. A few adroit words, one or two knowing 
 tender glances of the eyes, and his heart was inflamed again and 
 his doubts and suspicions forgotten. From Solomon down- 
 wards, have not wiser men than he been cajoled and befooled 
 by women ? " If the worst comes to the worst," Becky thought, 
 " my retreat is secure; and I have a right-hand seat in the 
 barouche." 
 
 There is no knowing into what declarations of love and ardour 
 
Jos Sedley Takes Care of His Sister 303 
 
 the tumultuous passions of Mr. Joseph might have led him^, if 
 Isidor the valet had not made his re-appearance at this minute 
 and begun to busy himself about the domestic affairs. Jos, 
 who was just going to gasp out an avowal, choked almost with 
 the emotion that he was obliged to restrain. Rebecca too be- 
 thought her that it was time she should go in and comfort her 
 dearest Amelia. " Au revoir^ she said, kissing her hand to Mr. 
 Joseph, and tapped gently at the door of his sister's apartment. 
 As she entered and closed the door on herself, he sank down in a 
 chair, and gazed and sighed and puffed portentously. " That 
 coat is very tight for Milor," Isidor said, still having his eye on 
 the frogs. But his master heard him not: his thoughts were 
 elsewhere: now glowing, maddening, upon the contemplation 
 of the enchanting Rebecca: anon shrinking guiltily before the 
 vision of the jealous Rawdon Crawley, with his curling, fierce 
 mustachios, and his terrible duelling pistols loaded and cocked. 
 
 Rebecca's appearance struck Amelia with terror, and made 
 her shrink back. It recalled her to the world, and the remem- 
 brance of yesterday. In the overpowering fears about to- 
 morrow she had forgotten Rebecca, — jealousy, — everything 
 except that her husband was gone and was in danger. Until 
 this dauntless worldling came in and broke the spell, and lifted 
 the latch, we too have forborne to enter into that sad chamber. 
 How long had that poor girl been on her knees ! what hours of 
 speechless prayer and bitter prostration had she passed there ! 
 The war - chroniclers who write brilliant stories of fight 
 and triumph scarcely tell us of these. These are too mean 
 parts of the pageant: and you don't hear widows' cries or 
 mothers' sobs in the midst of the shouts and jubilation in the 
 great Chorus of Victory. And yet when was the time, that such 
 have not cried out: heart-broken humble protestants, unheard 
 in the uproar of the triumph ! 
 
 After the first movement of terror in Amelia's mind — when 
 Rebecca's green eyes lighted upon her, and rustling in her fresh 
 silks and brilliant ornaments, the latter tripped up with ex- 
 tended arms to embrace her — a feeling of anger succeeded, and 
 from being deadly pale before, her face flushed up red, and she 
 returned Rebecca's look after a moment with a steadiness which 
 surprised and somewhat abashed her rival. 
 
 " Dearest Amelia, you are very unwell," the visitor said, 
 putting forth her hand to take Amelia's. "What is it? I 
 could not rest until I knew how you were." 
 
 Amelia drew back her hand — never since her life began had 
 
304 Vanity Fair 
 
 that gentle soul refused to believe or to answer any demonstra- 
 tion of goodwill or affection. But she drew back her hand, and 
 trembled all over. *' Why are you here, Rebecca? " she said^ 
 still looking at her solemnly with her large eyes. These glances 
 troubled her visitor. 
 
 " She must have seen him give me the letter at the ball/' 
 Rebecca thought. " Don't be agitated, dear Amelia," she said, 
 looking down. " I came but to see if I could — if you were well." 
 
 *' Are you well? " said Amelia. " I daresay you are. You 
 don't love your husband. You would not be here if you did. 
 Tell me, Rebecca, did I ever do you anything but kindness ? " 
 
 " Indeed, Amelia, no," the other said, still hanging down her 
 head. 
 
 " When you were quite poor, who was it that befriended you? 
 Was I not a sister to you ? You saw us all in happier days before 
 he married me. I was all in all then to him ; or would he have 
 given up his fortune, his family, as he nobly did, to make me 
 happy? Why did you come between my love and me? Who 
 sent you to separate those whom God joined, and take my 
 darling's heart from me — my own husband ? Do you think 
 you could love him as I did? His love was everything to me. 
 You knew it, and wanted to rob me of it. For shame, Rebecca; 
 bad and wicked woman — false friend and false wife." 
 
 " Amelia, I protest before God, I have done my husband no 
 wrong," Rebecca said, turning from her. 
 
 " Have you done me no wrong, Rebecca? You did not suc- 
 ceed, but you tried. Ask your heart if you did not." 
 
 She knows nothing, Rebecca thought. 
 
 " He came back to me. I knew he would. I knew that no 
 falsehood, no flattery, could keep him from me long. I knew 
 he would come. I prayed so that he should." The poor girl 
 spoke these words with a spirit and volubility which Rebecca 
 had never before seen in her, and before which the latter was 
 quite dumb. " But what have I done to you," she continued 
 in a more pitiful tone, " that you should try and take him from 
 me? I had him but for six weeks. You might have spared me 
 these, Rebecca. And yet, from the very first day of our wed- 
 ding, you came and blighted it. Now he is gone, are you come 
 to see how unhappy I am? " she continued. " You made me 
 wretched enough for the past fortnight : you might have spared 
 me to-day." 
 
 " I — I never came here^" interposed Rebecca; with unlucky 
 truth. 
 
Jos Sedley Takes Care of His Sister 305 
 
 " No. You didn't come. You took him away. Are you 
 come to fetch him from me? " she continued in a wilder tone. 
 " He was here^ but he is gone now. There on that very sofa he 
 sate. Don't touch it. We sate and talked there. I was on his 
 knee, and my arms were round his neck, and we said ' Our 
 Father.' Yes, he was here: and they came and took him away, 
 but he promised me to come back." 
 
 " He will come back, my dear/' said Rebecca^ touched in spite 
 of herself. 
 
 " Look," said Amelia, " this is his sash — isn't it a pretty 
 colour? " and she took up the fringe and kissed it. She had tied 
 it round her waist at some part of the day. She had forgotten 
 her anger, her jealousy, the very presence of her rival seemingly. 
 For she walked silently and almost with a smile on her face, 
 towards the bed, and began to smooth down George's pillow. 
 
 Rebecca walked, too, silently away. "How is Amelia.'*" 
 asked Jos, who still held his position in the chair. 
 
 ^' There should be somebody with her," said Rebecca. " I 
 think she is very unwell: " and she went away with a very grave 
 face, refusing Mr. Sedley's entreaties that she would stay and 
 partake of the early dinner which he had ordered. 
 
 Rebecca was of a good-natured and obliging disposition ; and 
 she liked Amelia rather than otherwise. Even her hard words, 
 reproachful as they were, were complimentary — the groans of 
 a person stinging under defeat. Meeting Mrs. O'Dowd, whom 
 the Dean's sermons had by no means comforted, and who was 
 walking very disconsolately in the Pare, Rebecca accosted the 
 latter, rather to the surprise of the Major's wife, who was not 
 accustomed to such marks of politeness from Mrs. Rawdon 
 Crawley, and informing her that poor little Mrs. Osborne was in 
 a desperate condition, and- almost mad with grief, sent off the 
 good-natured Irishwoman straight to see if she could console her 
 young favourite. 
 
 " I've cares of my own enough," Mrs. O'Dowd said gravely, 
 " and I thought poor Amelia would be little wanting for com- 
 pany this day. But if she's so bad as you say, and you can't 
 attend to her, who used to be so fond of her, faith Fll see if I can 
 be of service. And so good marning to ye. Madam;" with 
 which speech and a toss of her head, the lady of the repayther 
 took a farewell of Mrs. Crav/ley, whose company she by no means 
 courted, 
 
 Becky watched her marching off, with a smile on her lip. 
 
306 Vanity Fair 
 
 She had the keenest sense of humour, and the Parthian look 
 which the retreating Mrs. O'Dowd flung over her shoulder 
 almost upset Mrs. Crawley's gravity. " My service to ye, me 
 fine Madam, and I'm glad to see ye so cheerful," thought Peggy. 
 " It's not you that will cry your eyes out with grief, any way." 
 And with this she passed on, and speedily found her way to Mrs. 
 Osborne's lodgings. 
 
 The poor soul was still at the bedside, where Rebecca had left 
 her, and stood almost crazy with grief. The Major's wife, a 
 stronger-minded woman, endeavoured her best to comfort her 
 young friend. " You must bear up, Amelia dear," she said 
 kindly, " for he mustn't find you ill when he sends for you after 
 the victory. It's not you are the only woman that are in the 
 hands of God this day." 
 
 " I know that. I am very wicked, very weak," Amelia said. 
 She knew her own weakness well enough. The presence of the 
 more resolute friend checked it, however; and she was the 
 better of this control and company. They went on till two 
 o'clock; their hearts were with the column as it marched 
 farther and farther away. Dreadful doubt and anguish — 
 prayers and fears and griefs unspeakable — followed the regi- 
 ment. It was the women's tribute to the war. It taxes both 
 alike, and takes the blood of the men, and the tears of the 
 women. 
 
 At half past two, an event occurred of daily importance to 
 Mr. Joseph: the dinner-hour arrived. Warriors may fight and 
 perish, but he must dine. He came into Amelia's room to see 
 if he could coax her to share that meal. "Try," said he; 
 " the soup is very good. Do try, Emmy," and he kissed her 
 hand. Except when she was married, he had not done so much 
 for years before. " You are very good and kind, Joseph," she 
 said. " Everybody is, but, if you please, I will stay in my room 
 to-day." 
 
 The savour of the soup, however, was agreeable to Mrs. 
 O'Dowd's nostrils; and she thought she would bear Mr. Jos 
 company. So the two sate down to their meal. " God bless 
 the meat," said the Major's wife solemnly; she was thinking 
 of her honest Mick, riding at the head of his regiment: " 'Tis 
 but a bad dinner those poor boys will get to-day," she said, 
 with a sigh, and then, like a philosopher, fell to. 
 
 Jos's spirits rose with his meal. He would drink the regi- 
 ment's health; or, indeed, take any other excuse to indulge in 
 a glass of champagne. " We'll drink to O'Dowd and his brave 
 
Jos Takes Flight 307 
 
 — th/' said he bowing gallantly to his guest. " Hey^ Mrs. 
 O'Dowd? Fill Mrs. O'Dowd's glass, Isidor." 
 
 But all of a sudden^ Isidor started, and the Major's wife laid 
 down her knife and fork. The windows of the room were open 
 and looked southward, and a dull distant sound came over the 
 sun-lighted roofs from that direction. " What is it.f^ " said Jos. 
 " Why don't you pour, you rascal? " 
 
 " Cest lefeu I " said Isidor, running to the balcony. 
 
 " God defend us; it's cannon! " Mrs. O'Dowd cried, starting 
 up, and followed too to the window. A thousand pale and 
 anxious faces might have been seen looking from other case- 
 ments. And presently it seemed as if the whole population of 
 the city rushed into the streets. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXII 
 
 IN WHICH JOS TAKES FLIGHT, AND THE WAR IS BROUGHT 
 
 TO A CLOSE 
 
 We of peaceful London City have never beheld — and please 
 God never shall witness — such a scene of hurry and alarm, as 
 that which Brussels presented. Crowds rushed to the Namur 
 gate, from which direction the noise proceeded, and many rode 
 along the level chmissee, to be in advance of any intelligence 
 from the army. Each' man asked his neighbour for news ; and 
 even great English lords and ladies condescended to speak to 
 persons whom they did not know. The friends of th-^ French 
 went abroad, wild with excitement, and prophesying the triumph 
 of their Emperor. The merchants closed their shops, and came 
 out to swell the general chorus of alarm and clamour. Women 
 rushed to the churches, and crowded the chapels, and knelt 
 and prayed on the flags and steps. The dull sound of the 
 cannon went on rolling, rolling. Presently carriages with 
 travellers began to leave the town, galloping away by the Ghent 
 barrier. The prophecies of the French partisans began to pass 
 for facts. " He has cut the armies in two," it was said. " He 
 is marching straight on Brussels. He will overpower the Eng- 
 lish, and be here to-night." " He will overpower the English," 
 shrieked Isidor to his master, " and will be here to-night." 
 The man bounded in and out from the lodgings to the street, 
 
308 Vanity Fair 
 
 always returning with some fresh particulars of disaster. Jos's 
 face grew paler and paler. Alarm began to take entire possession 
 of the stout civilian. All the champagne he drank brought no 
 courage to him. Before sunset he was worked up to such a 
 pitch of nervousness as gratified his friend Isidor to behold, who 
 now counted surely upon the spoils of the owner of the laced 
 coat. 
 
 The women were away all this time. After hearing the firing 
 for a moment, the stout Major's wife bethought her of her 
 friend in the next chamber, and ran in to watch, and if possible 
 to console Amelia. The idea that she had that helpless and 
 gentle creature to protect, gave additional strength to the 
 natural courage of the honest Irishwoman. She passed five 
 hours by her friend's side, sometimes in remonstrance, some- 
 times talking cheerfully, oftener in silence, and terrified mental 
 supplication. " I never let go her hand once," said the stout 
 lady afterwards, " until after sunset, when the firing was over." 
 Pauline, the bonne, was on her knees at church hard by, praying 
 for son homme a elle. 
 
 When the noise of the cannonading was over, Mrs. O'Dowd 
 issued out of Amelia's room into the parlour adjoining, where 
 Jos sate with two emptied flasks, and courage entirely gone. 
 Once or twice he had ventured into his sister's bedroom, look- 
 ing very much alarmed, and as if he would say something. 
 But the Major's wife kept her place, and he went away without 
 disburthening himself of his speech. He was ashamed to tell 
 her that he wanted to fly. But when she made her appearance 
 in the dining-room, where he sate in the twilight in the cheer- 
 less company of his empty champagne bottles, he began to open 
 his mind to her. 
 
 " Mrs. O'Dowd," he said, " hadn't you better get Amelia 
 ready ? " 
 
 " Are yougoing to take her out for a walk? " said the Major's 
 lady; '* sure she's too weak to stir.'* 
 
 "I — I've ordered the carriage," he said, "and — and post- 
 horses; Isidor is gone for them," Jos continued. 
 
 " What do you want with driving to-night! " answered the 
 lady. " Isn't she better on her bed.? I've just got her to He 
 dov/n." 
 
 " Get her up," said Jos; " she must get up, I say: " and he 
 stamped his foot energetically. " I say the horses are ordered 
 — yes, the horses are ordered. It's all over, and " 
 
 " And what? " asked Mrs. O'Dowd. 
 
Jos Takes Flight 309 
 
 " I'm off for Ghent/' Jos answered. " Everybody is going; 
 there's a place for you ! We shall start in half-an-hour." 
 
 The Major's wife looked at him with infinite scorn. " I don't 
 move till O'Dowd gives me the route/' said she. " You may 
 go if you like^ Mr. Sedley; but faith, Amelia and I stop here." 
 
 " She shall go/' said Jos, with another stamp of his foot. 
 Mrs. O'Dowd put herself with arms akimbo before the bedroom 
 door. 
 
 "Is it her mother you're going to take her to? " she said; 
 " or do you want to go to Mamma, yourself, Mr. Sedley? Good 
 marning — a pleasant journey to ye, sir. Bon voyage, as they 
 say, and take my counsel, and shave off them mustachios, or 
 they'll bring you into mischief." 
 
 " D n! " yelled out Jos, wild with fear, rage, and mortifi- 
 cation; and Isidor came in at this juncture, swearing in his 
 turn. " Pas de chevaux, sacrebleu ! " hissed out the furious 
 domestic. All the horses were gone. Jos was not the only 
 man in Brussels seized with panic that day. 
 
 But Jos's fears, great and cruel as they were already, were 
 destined to increase to an almost frantic pitch before the night 
 was over. It has been mentioned how Pauline, the bonne, had 
 son homme a elle also in the ranks of the army that had gone out 
 to meet the Emperor Napoleon. This lover was a native of 
 Brussels, and a Belgian hussar. The troops of his nation signal- 
 ised themselves in this war for anything but courage, and young 
 Van Cutsum, Pauline's admirer, was too good a soldier to dis- 
 obey his Colonel's orders to run away. Whilst in garrison at 
 Brussels young Regulus (he had been born in the revolutionary 
 times) found his great comfort, and passed almost all his leisure 
 moments, in Pauline's kitchen; and it was with pockets and 
 holsters crammed fuU of good things from her larder, that he 
 had taken leave of his weeping sweetheart, to proceed upon the 
 campaign a few days before. 
 
 As far as his regiment was concerned, this campaign was over 
 now. They had formed a part of the division und^r the com- 
 mand of his sovereign apparent, the Prince of Orange, and as 
 respected length of swords and mustachios, and the richness of 
 uniform and equipments, Regulus and his comrades looked to 
 be as gallant a body of men as ever tioimpet sounded for. 
 
 When Ney dashed upon the advance of the allied troops, 
 carrying one position after the other, until the arrival of the 
 great body of the British army from Brussels changed the 
 aspect of the combat of Quatre Bras, the squadrons among 
 
3IO Vanity Fair 
 
 which Regultis rode showed the greatest activity in retreating 
 before the French, and were dislodged from one post after 
 another wliich they occupied with perfect alacrity on their part. 
 Their movements were only checked by the advance of the 
 British in their rear. Thus forced to halt, the enemy's cavalry 
 (whose bloodthirsty obstinacy cannot be too severely repre- 
 hended) had at length an opportunity of coming to close quarters 
 with the brave Belgians before them; who preferred to en- 
 counter the British rather than the French, and at once turning 
 tail rode through the English regiments that were behind them, 
 and scattered in all directions. The regiment in fact did not 
 exist any more. It was nowhere. It had no headquarters. 
 Regulus found himself galloping many miles from the field of 
 action, entirely alone; and whither should he fly for refuge so 
 naturally as to that kitchen and those faithful arms in which 
 Pauline had so often welcomed him ! 
 
 At some ten o'clock the clinking of a sabre might have been 
 heard up the stair of the house where the Osbornes occupied a 
 store}^ in the Continental fashion. A knock might have been 
 heard at the kitchen door; and poor Pauline, come back from 
 church, fainted almost with terror as she opened it and saw 
 before her her haggard hussar. He looked as pale as the mid- 
 night dragoon who came to disturb Leonora. Pauline would 
 have screamed, but that her cry would have called her masters, 
 and discovered, her friend. She stifled her scream, then, and 
 leading her hero into the kitchen, gave him beer, and the choice 
 bits from the dinner, which Jos had not had the heart to taste. 
 The hussar showed he was no ghost by the prodigious quantity 
 of flesh and beer which he devoured — and during the mouthfuls 
 he told his tale of disaster. 
 
 His regiment had performed prodigies of courage, and had 
 withstood for a while the onset of the whole French army. But 
 they were overwhelmed at last, as was the whole British army 
 by this time. Ney destroyed each regiment as it came up. 
 The Belgians in vain interposed to prevent the butchery of the 
 English. The Brunswickers were routed and had fled — their 
 Duke was killed. It was a general debacle. He sought to drown 
 his sorrow for the defeat in floods of beer. 
 
 Isidor, who had come into the kitchen, heard the conversa- 
 tion, and rushed out to inform his master. " It is all over," he 
 shrieked to Jos. " Milor Duke is a prisoner; the Duke of 
 Brunswick is killed; the British army is in full flight; there 
 is only one man escaped, and he is in the kitchen now — come 
 
Jos Takes Flight 3 1 1 
 
 and hear him." So Jos tottered into that apartment, 
 where Regulus still sate on the kitchen table, and clung fast 
 to his flagon of beer. In the best French which he could 
 muster, and which was in sooth of a very ungrammatical sort, 
 Jos besought the hussar to tell his tale. The disasters deepened 
 as Regulus spoke. He was the only man of his regiment not 
 slain on the field. He had seen the Duke of Brunswick fall, 
 the black hussars fly, the Ecossais pounded down by the 
 cannon. 
 
 " And the — th? " gasped Jos. 
 
 " Cut in pieces," said the hussar — ^upon which Pauline cried 
 out, " my mistress, ma honne -petite dame,'^ went off fairly into 
 hysterics, and filled the house with her screams. 
 
 Wild with terror, Mr. Sedley knew not how or where to seek 
 for safety. He rushed from the kitchen back to the sitting-room, 
 and cast an appealing look at Amelia's door, which Mrs. O'Dowd 
 had closed and locked in his face; but he remembered how scorn- 
 fully the latter had received him, and after pausing and listening 
 for a brief space at the door, he left it, and resolved to go into 
 the street, for the first time that day. So, seizing a candle, he 
 looked about for his gold-laced cap, and found it lying in its 
 usual place, on a console-table, in the anteroom, placed before a 
 mirror at which Jos used to coquet, always giving his side-locks 
 a twirl, and his cap the proper cock over his eye, before he went 
 forth to make appearance in public. Such is the force of habit, 
 that even in the midst of his terror he began mechanically to 
 twiddle with his hair, and arrange the cock of his hat. Then 
 he looked amazed at the pale face in the glass before him, and 
 especially at his mustachios, which had attained a rich growth 
 in the course of near seven weeks, since they had come into the 
 world. They will mistake me for a military man, thought he, 
 remembering Isidor's warning, as to the massacre with which all 
 the defeated British army was threatened ; and staggering back 
 to his bed-chamber, he began wildly pulling the bell which sum- 
 moned his valet. 
 
 Isidor answered that summons. Jos had sunk in a chair — 
 he had torn off his neckcloths, and turned down his collars, and 
 was sitting with both his hands lifted to his throat. 
 
 " Coupez-mot, Isidor," shouted he: " vite I Coupez-moi ! " 
 
 Isidor thought for a moment he had gone mad, and that he 
 wished his valet to cut his throat. 
 
 " Les moustaches y^ gasped Jos; " les moustaches — coupy, rasy, 
 
312 Vanity Fair 
 
 vite I " — his French was of this sort — ^voluble^ as we have said^ 
 but not remarkable for grammar. 
 
 Isidor swept off the mustachios in no time with the razor, and 
 heard with inexpressible delight his master's orders that he 
 should fetch a hat and a plain coat. *' Ne porty ploo — habit 
 militair — bonny — bonny a voo, prenny dehors " — were Jos's 
 words, — the coat and cap were at last his property. 
 
 This gift being made, Jos selected a plain black coat and 
 waistcoat from his stock, and put on a large white neckcloth, 
 and a plain beaver. If he could have got a shovel-hat he would 
 have worn it. As it was, you would have fancied he was a 
 flourishing, large parson of the Church of England. 
 
 " Venny maintenong,^' he continued, " sweevy — ally — party 
 — dong la rooT And so having said, he plunged swiftly down 
 the stairs of the house, and passed into the street. 
 
 Although Regulus had vowed that he was :±ie only man of his 
 regiment, or of the allied army, almost, who had escaped being 
 cut to pieces by Ney, it appeared that his statement was in- 
 correct, and that a good number more of the supposed victims 
 had survived the massacre. Many scores of Regulus's com- 
 rades had found their way back to Brussels, and — ^all agreeing 
 that they had run away — filled the whole town with an idea of 
 the defeat of the allies. The arrival of the French was expected 
 hourly; the panic continued, and preparations for flight went 
 on everywhere. No horses ! thought Jos, in terror. He made 
 Isidor inquire of scores of persons, whether they had any to lend 
 or sell, and his heart sank within him, at the negative answers 
 returned everywhere. Should he take the journey on foot? 
 Even fear could not render that ponderous body so active. 
 
 Almost all the hotels occupied by the English in Brussels face 
 the Pare, and Jos wandered irresolutely about in this quarter, 
 with crowds of other people, oppressed as he was by fear and 
 curiosity. Some families he saw more happy than himself, 
 having discovered a team of horses, and rattling through the 
 streets in retreat; others again there were whose case was like 
 his own, and who could not for any bribes or entreaties procure 
 the necessary means of flight. Amongst these would-be fugi- 
 tives, Jos remarked the Lady Bareacres and her daughter, who 
 sate in their carriage in the porte-cochere of their hotel, all their 
 imperials packed, and the only drawback to whose flight was 
 the same want of motive power which kept Jos stationary. 
 
 Rebecca Crawley occupied apartments in this hotel; and 
 had before this period had sundry hostile meetings with the 
 
Jos Takes Flight 3 i 3 
 
 ladies of the Bareacres family. My Lady Bareacres cut Mrs. 
 Crawley on the stairs when they met by chance; and in all 
 places where the latter's name was mentioned, spoke persever- 
 ingly ill of her neighbour. The Countess was shocked at the 
 familiarity of General Tufto with the aide-de-camp's wife. 
 The Lady Blanche avoided her as if she had been an infectious 
 disease. Only the Earl himself kept up a sly occasional acquain- 
 tance with her, when out of the jurisdiction of his ladies. 
 
 Rebecca had her revenge now upon these insolent enemies. 
 It became known in the hotel that Captain Crawley's horses had 
 been left behind, and when the panic began, Lady Bareacres 
 condescended to send her maid to the Captain's wife with her 
 Ladyship's compliments, and a desire to know the price of Mrs. 
 Crawley's horses. Mrs. Crawley returned a note with her com- 
 pliments, and an intimation that it was not her custom to 
 transact bargains with the ladies' maids. 
 
 This curt reply brought the Earl in person to Becky's apart- 
 ment; but he could get no more success than the first ambas- 
 sador. *' Send a lady's maid to me 1 " Mrs. Crawley cried in 
 great anger; " why didn't my Lady Bareacres tell me to go and 
 saddle the horses ! Is it her Ladyship that wants to escape, or 
 her Ladyship's femme de chambre ? " And this was all the 
 answer that the Earl bore back to his Countess. 
 
 What will not necessity do.? The Countess herself actually 
 came to wait upon Mrs. Crawley on the failure of her second 
 envoy. She entreated her to name her own price; she even 
 offered to invite Becky to Bareacres House, if the latter would 
 but give her the means of returning to that residence. Mrs. 
 Crawley sneered at her. 
 
 " I don't want to be waited on by bailiffs in livery," she said; 
 " you will never get back though most probably — at least not 
 you and your diamonds together. The French will have those. 
 They will be here in two hours, and I shall be half-way to Ghent 
 by that time. I would not sell you my horses, no, not for the 
 two largest diamonds that your Ladyship w^ore at the ball." 
 Lady Bareacres trembled with rage and terror. The diamonds 
 were sewed into her habit, and secreted in my Lord's padding 
 and boots. " Woman, the diamonds are at the banker's, and 
 I will have the horses," she said. Rebecca laughed in her face. 
 The infuriate Countess went below, and sate in her carriage; 
 her maid, her courier, and her husband, were sent once more 
 through the town, each to look for cattle ; and woe betide those 
 who came last! Her ladyship was resolved on departing the 
 
314 Vanity Fair 
 
 very instant the horses arrived from any quarter — with her 
 husband or without him. 
 
 Rebecca had the pleasure of seeing her Ladyship in the horse- 
 less carriage, and keeping her eyes fixed upon her, and bewailing, 
 in the loudest tone of voice, the Countess's perplexities. " Not 
 to be able to get horses!" she said, "and to have all those 
 diamonds sewed into the carriage cushions! What a prize it 
 will be for the French when they come! — the carriage and the 
 diamonds, I mean; not the lady! " She gave this information 
 to the landlord, to the servants, to the guests, and the innumer- 
 able stragglers about the courtyard. Lady Bareacres could 
 have shot her from the carriage window. It was while enjoying 
 the humiliation of her enemy that Rebecca caught sight of Jos, 
 who made towards her directly he perceived her. 
 
 That altered, frightened, fat face, told his secret well enough. 
 He too wanted to fly, and was on the look-out for the means of 
 escape. ^^ He shall buy my horses," thought Rebecca, "and 
 I'll ride the mare." 
 
 Jos walked up to his friend, and put the question for the 
 hundredth time during the past hour, " Did she know where 
 horses were to be had? " 
 
 " What, you fly? " said Rebecca, with a laugh. " I thought 
 you were the champion of all the ladies, Mr. Sedley." 
 
 " I — I'm not a military m.an," gasped he. 
 
 " And Amelia ? — Who is to protect that poor little sister of 
 yours? " asked Rebecca. " You surely would not desert her? " 
 
 " What good can I do her, suppose — suppose the enemy 
 arrive?" Jos answered. "They'll spare the women; but my 
 man tells m.e that they have taken an oath to give no quarter to 
 the men — the dastardly cowards." 
 
 " Horrid! " cried Rebecca, enjoying his perplexity. 
 
 " Besides, I don't want to desert her," cried the brother. 
 " She shan't be deserted. There is a seat for her in m};^ carriage, 
 and one for you, dear Mrs. Crawley, if you will come ; and if we 
 can get horses " — sighed he — 
 
 " I have two to sell," the lady said. Jos could have flung 
 himself into her arms at the news, " Get the carriage, Isidor," 
 he cried; " we've found them — we have found them! " 
 
 " My horses never were in harness," added the lady. " Bull- 
 finch would kick the carriage to pieces, if you put him in the 
 traces." 
 
 " Bat he is quiet to ride? " asked the civilian. 
 
 "'As quiet as a lamb, and as fast as a hare," answered Rebecca. 
 
J 
 
 OS Take^ Flight 315 
 
 " Do you think he is up to my weight? " Jos said. He was 
 already on his back, in imagination, without ever so much as a 
 thought for poor Amelia. What person who loved a horse- 
 speculation could resist such a temptation? 
 
 In reply, Rebecca asked him to come into her room, whither 
 he followed her quite breathless to conclude the bargain. Jos 
 seldom spent a half-hour in his life which cost him so much 
 money. Rebecca, measuring the value of the goods which she 
 had for sale by Jos's eagerness to purchase as well as by the 
 scarcity of the article, put upon her horses a price so prodigious 
 as to make even the civilian draw back. " She would sell both 
 or neither," she said resolutely. Rawdon had ordered her not 
 to part with them for a price less than that which she specified. 
 Lord Bareacres below would give her the same money — and 
 with all her love and regard for the Sedley family, her dear Mr. 
 Joseph must conceive that poor people must live — nobody, in a 
 word, could be more affectionate, but more firm about the 
 matter of business. 
 
 Jos ended by agreeing, as might be supposed of him. The 
 sum he had to give her was so large that he was obliged to ask 
 for time: so large as to be a Httle fortune to Rebecca, who 
 rapidly calculated that with this sum and the sale of the residue 
 of Rawdon's effects, and her pension as a widow should he fail, 
 she would now be absolutely independent of the world, and 
 might look her weeds steadily in the face. 
 
 Once or twice in the day she certainly had herself thought 
 about flying. But her reason gave her better counsel. " Sup- 
 pose the French do come," thought Becky, " what can they do 
 to a poor officer's widow ? Bah ! The time of sacks and sieges 
 are over. We shall be let to go home quietly, or I may five 
 pleasantly abroad with a snug little income." 
 
 Meanwhile Jos and Isidor went off to the stables to inspect 
 the newly purchased cattle. Jos bade his man saddle the 
 horses at once. He would ride away that very night, that very 
 hour. And he left the valet busy in getting the horses ready, 
 and went homewards himself to prepare for his departure. It 
 must be secret. He would go to his chamber by the back 
 entrance. He did not care to face Mrs. O'Dowd and Amelia, 
 and own to them that he was about to run. 
 
 By the time Jos's bargain with Rebecca was completed, and 
 his horses had been visited and examined, it was almost morning 
 once more. But though midnight was long past, there was no 
 rest for the city: the people were up, the lights in the houses 
 
316 Vanity Fair 
 
 flamed, crowds were still about the doors, and the streets were 
 busy. Rumours of various natures went still from mouth to 
 mouth: one report averred that the Prussians had been utterly 
 defeated ; another that it was the English who had been attacked 
 and conquered; a third that the latter had held their ground. 
 This last rumour gradually got strength. No Frenchmen had 
 made their appearance. Stragglers had come in from the army 
 bringing reports more and more favourable: at last an aide-de- 
 camp actually reached Brussels with dispatches for the Com- 
 mandant of the place, who placarded presently through the 
 town an official announcement of the success of the allies at 
 Quatre Bras, and the entire repulse of the French under Ney 
 after a six hours' battle. The aide-de-camp must have arrived 
 some time while Jos and Rebecca were making their bargain 
 together, or the latter was inspecting his purchase. When he 
 reached his own hotel, he found a score of its numerous inhabi- 
 tants on the threshold discoursing of the news; there was no 
 doubt as to its truth. And he went up to communicate it to 
 the ladies under his charge. He did not think it was necessary 
 to tell them how he had intended to take leave of them, how he 
 had bought horses, and what a price he had paid for them. 
 
 But success or defeat was a minor matter to them, who had 
 only thought for the safety of those they loved. Amelia, at the 
 news of the victory, became still more agitated even than before. 
 She was for going that moment to the army. She besought her 
 brother with tears to conduct her thither. Her doubts and 
 terrors had reached their paroxysm; and the poor girl, who for 
 many hours had been plunged into stupor, raved and ran hither 
 and thither in hysteric insanity — a piteous sight. No man 
 writhing in pain on the hard-fought field fifteen miles off, where 
 lay, after their struggles, so many of the brave — no man suffered 
 more keenly than this poor harmless victim of the war. Jos 
 could not bear the sight of her pain. He left his sister in the 
 charge of her stouter female companion, and descended once 
 more to the threshold of the hotel, where everybody still lingered, 
 and talked, and waited for more news. 
 
 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. Waggons 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 
 
Jos Takes Flight 317 
 
 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. Sedl^y'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 bsst thing: it 
 was news of him. It was poor Tom Stubble, who had marched 
 out of Brussels so gallantly twenty-four hours before, bsaring 
 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 con- 
 clusion 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 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 
 
3 1 8 Vanity Fair 
 
 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 himself from a case-bottle. It 
 was Captain Osborne that cut down the French lancer v/ho had 
 speared the Ensign. Amelia turned so pale at the notion, that 
 Mrs. O'Dowd stopped the young Ensign in his 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 ahvays laughing at me." 
 
 Young Stubble vov/ed 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 move- 
 ments 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 
 Em.peror, 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 waJls probably, of which the chances were more 
 than doubtful. The Duke of Wellington had but twenty thou- 
 sand British troops on whom he could rely, for the Germans 
 v/ere raw militia, the Belgians disaffected; and with this handful 
 his Grace had to resist a hundred and fifty thousand men that 
 
Jos Takes Flight 319 
 
 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 EngUsh t^^t could be 
 brought to resist him would perish at their posts, and the con- 
 queror 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 Rav/don is worth ten of this creature." And then she fell 
 
320 Vanity Fair 
 
 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 with- 
 out anger the Bareacres party drive off, bethought her of the 
 precaution which the Countess had taken, and did a little needle- 
 work for her own advantage; she stitched away the major part 
 of her trinkets, bills, and banknotes 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 congre- 
 gation. The same service was read on that day in twenty thou- 
 sand 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 congre- 
 
Jos Takes Flight 321 
 
 gation at Brussels. Much louder than that which had inter- 
 rupted 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 nie, 
 will you, Mrs. O'Dowd.?" 
 
 " No, my dear fellow," said she, going up and kissing the boy. 
 " No harm shall come to you while / 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 courtyard. 
 Mrs. O'Dowd heard the clattering hoofs of the horses as they 
 issued from the gate; and looking on, made many scornful re- 
 marks on poor Joseph as he rode down the street with Isidor 
 after him in the laced cap. The horses, v/hich 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 
 
322 Vanity Fair 
 
 into the parlour window. Such a bull in a china-shop / 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. 
 
 AH 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 oi 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 herce, we Frenchmen and Englishmen might be 
 boasting and killing each other still, carrying out bravely the 
 Devil's code of honour. 
 
 All our friends took their share and fought like men in the 
 great field. All day long, whilst the women were praying ten 
 miles away, the lines of the dauntless English infantry were 
 receiving and repelling the furious charges of the French horse- 
 men. Gims which were heard at Brussels were ploughing up 
 their ranks, and comrades falling, and the resolute survivors 
 closing in. Towards evening, the attack of the French, repeated 
 and resisted so bravely, slackened in its fury. They had other 
 foes besides the British to engage, or were preparing for a final 
 onset. It came at last: the columns of the imperial Guard 
 marched up the hill of Saint Jean, at length and at once to 
 sweep the English from the height which they had maintained 
 all day, and spite of all: unseared by the thunder of the artillery, 
 which hurled death from the English line— the dark rolling 
 column pressed on and up the hill. It seemed almost to crest 
 the eminence, when it began to wave and falter. Then it 
 stopped, still facing the shot. Then at last the English troops 
 rushed from the post from which no enemy bad been able to 
 dislodge them, and the Guard turned and fled. 
 
 No more firing was heard at Brussels— the pursuit rolled miles 
 
Miss Crawley's Relations 323 
 
 away. Darkness came down on the field and city; and Amelia 
 was praying for George^ who was lying on his face^ dead, with a 
 bullet through his heart. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIII 
 IN WHICH MISS Crawley's relations are very anxious 
 
 ABOUT HER 
 
 The kind reader must please to remember — while the army is 
 marching from Flanders, and, after its heroic actions there, is 
 advancing to take the fortifications on the frontiers of France, 
 previous to an occupation of that country, — that there are a 
 number of persons living peaceably in England who have to 
 do with the history at present in hand, and must come in for 
 their share of the chronicle. During the time of these battles 
 and dangers, old Miss Crawley was living at Brighton, very 
 moderately moved by the great events that were going on. 
 The great events rendered the newspapers rather interesting, to 
 be sure, and Briggs read out the Gazette, in which Rawdon 
 Crawley's gallantry was mentioned with honour, and his pro- 
 motion was presently recorded. 
 
 " What a pity that young man has taken such an irretrievable 
 step in the world! " his aunt said; " with his rank and dis- 
 tinction he might have married a brewer's daughter with a 
 quarter of a million — like Miss Grains; or have looked to ally 
 himself with the best families in England. He would have had 
 my money some day or other: or his children would — for I'm 
 not in a hurry to go. Miss Briggs, although you may be in a 
 hurry to be rid of me; and instead of that, he is a doomed 
 pauper, with a dancing-girl for a wife." 
 
 " Will my dear Miss Crawley not cast an eye of compassion 
 upon the heroic soldier, whose name is inscribed in the annals of 
 his country's glory.? " said Miss Briggs, who was greatly excited 
 by the Waterloo proceedings, and loved speaking romantically 
 when there was an occasion. 
 
 " Has not the Captain — or the Colonel as I may now style him 
 —done deeds which make the name of CrawL-y illastrious? " 
 
 " Briggs, you are a fool," said Miss Crawley: " Colonel 
 Crawley has dragged the name of Crawley through the mud, 
 Miss Briggs. Marry a drawing-master's daughter, indeed! — 
 
324 Vanity Fair 
 
 marry a dame de cbmpagnie — for she was no better, Briggs ; no, 
 she was just what you are — only younger, and a great deal 
 prettier and cleverer. Were you an accomplice of that aban- 
 doned wretch, I wonder, of whose vile arts he became a victim, 
 and of whom you used to be such an admirer? Yes, I daresay 
 you were an accomplice. But you will find yourself disappointed 
 in my will, I can tell you; and you will have the goodness to 
 write to Mr. Waxy, and say that I desire to see him immediately.'* 
 Miss Crawley was now in the habit of writing to Mr. Waxy, her 
 solicitor, almost every day in the week, for her arrangements 
 respecting her property were all revoked, and her perplexity 
 was great as to the future disposition of her money. 
 
 The spinster had, however, rallied considerably; as was 
 proved by the increased vigour and frequency of her sarcasms 
 upon Miss Briggs, all which attacks the poor companion bore 
 with meekness, with cowardice, with a resignation that was 
 half generous and half hypocritical — with the slavish submis- 
 sion/in a word, that women of her disposition and station are 
 compelled to show. Who has not seen how women bully 
 women? What tortures have men to endure, comparable to 
 those daily repeated shafts of scorn and cruelty with which poor 
 women are riddled by the tyrants of their sex? Poor victims! 
 But we are starting from our proposition, which is, that Miss 
 Crawley was always particularly annoying and savage when she 
 was rallying from illness — as they say wounds tingle most when 
 they are about to heal. 
 
 While thus approaching, as all hoped, to convalescence, Miss 
 Briggs was the only victim admitted into the presence of the 
 invalid ; yet Miss Crawley's relatives afar off did not forget their 
 beloved kinswoman, and by a number of tokens, presents, and 
 kind affectionate messages, strove to keep themselves alive in 
 her recollection. 
 
 In the first place, let us mention her nephew, Rawdon Crawley. 
 A few weeks after the famous fight of Waterloo, and after the 
 Gazette had made known to her the promotion and gallantry of 
 that distinguished officer, the Dieppe packet brought over to 
 Miss Crawley at Brighton a box containing presents, and a 
 dutiful letter, from the Colonel her nephew. In the box were a 
 pair of French epaulets, a Cross of the Legion of Honour, and the 
 hilt of a sword — reHcs from the field of battle: and the letter 
 described with a good deal of humour how the latter belonged 
 to a commanding-officer of the Guard, who having sworn that 
 " the Guard died, but never surrendered," was taken prisoner 
 
Miss Crawley's Relations 325 
 
 the next minute by a private soldier^ who broke the Frenchman's 
 sword with the butt of his musket, when Rawdon made himself 
 master of the shattered weapon. As for the'cross and epaulets, 
 they came from a Colonel of French cavalry, who had fallen 
 under the aids-de-camp's arm in the battle: ^ and Rawdon 
 Crawley did not know what better to do with the spoils than to 
 send them to his kindest and most affectionate old friend. 
 Should he continue to write to her from Paris, whither the army 
 was marching ? He might be able to give her interesting news 
 from that capital, and of some of Miss Crawley's old friends of 
 the emigration, to whom she had shown so much kindness during 
 their distress. -- - ' Tv 
 
 The spinster caused Briggs to write back to the Colonel a 
 gracious and complimentary letter, encouraging him to con- 
 tinue his correspondence. His, first letter was so excessively 
 lively and amusing that she should look with pleasure for its 
 successors. — "Of course, I know," she explained to Miss Briggs, 
 " that Rawdon could not write such a good letter any more than 
 you could, my poor Briggs, and that itis that clever little wretch 
 of a Rebecca, who dictates every word to him; but that is no 
 reason why my nephew should not amuse me ; and so I wish to 
 let him understand that I am in high good-humour." 
 
 I wonder whether she knew it was not only Becky who wrote 
 the letters, but that Mrs. Rawdon actually took and sent home 
 the trophies — which she bought for a few francs, from one of the 
 innumerable pedlars who immediately began to deal in relics 
 of the war. The novelist, who knows everything, knows this 
 also. Be this, however, as it may, Miss Crawley's gracious reply 
 greatly encouraged our young friends, Rawdon and his lady, 
 who hoped for the best from their aunt's evidently pacified 
 humour: and they took care to entertain her with many 
 delightful letters from Paris, whither, as Rawdon said, they 
 had the good luck to go in the track of the conquering army. 
 
 To the Rector's lady, who went off to tend her husband's 
 broken collar-bone at the Rectory at Queen's Crawley, the 
 spinster's communications were by no means so gracious. Mrs. 
 Bute, that brisk, managing, lively, imperious woman had com- 
 mitted the most fatal of all errors with regard to her sister-in- 
 law. She had not merely oppressed her and her household — ■ 
 she had bored Miss Crawley; and if poor Miss Briggs had been 
 a woman of any spirit, she might have been made happy by the 
 commission which her principal gave her to write a letter to Mrs. 
 Bute Crawley, saying that Miss Crawley's health was gi-eatly 
 
3^6 Vanity Fair 
 
 improved since Mrsl Bute had left her^ and begging the latter on 
 no account to put herself to trouble, or quit her family for Miss 
 Crawley's sake. This triumph over a lady who had been very 
 haughty and cruel in her behaviour to Miss Rriggs, would have 
 rejoiced most women; but the truth is, Briggs was a wom.an of 
 no spirit at all, and the moment her enemy was disccHiifited, she 
 began to feel compassion in her favour. 
 
 " How silly I was/' Mrs. Bute thought, and with reason, 
 " ever to hint that I was coming, as I did, in that foolish letter 
 when we sent Miss Crawley the guinea-fowls. I ought to have 
 gone without a word ta the poor dear doting old creature, and 
 taken her out of the hands of that ninny Briggs, and that harpy 
 of Si/efnme de chambre. Bute, Bute, why did yoli break your 
 collar-bone? " \ ■.. » 
 
 Why, indeed? We have seen how Mrs. Bute, having the 
 game in her hands, had really played her cards too well. She 
 had ruled over Miss Crawley's household utterly and completely, 
 to be utterly and completely routed when a favourable oppor- 
 tunity for rebellion came. She and her household, however, 
 considered that she had been the victim of horrible selfishness 
 and treason, and that her sacrifices in Miss Crawley's behalf had 
 met with the most savage ingratitude. Rawdon's promotion, 
 and the honourable mention made of his name in the Gazette, 
 filled this good Christian lady also with alarm. Would his aunt 
 relent towards him now that he was a Lieutenant-Colonel and 
 a C.B.? and would that odious Rebecca once more get into 
 favour? The Rector's wife wrote a sermon for her husband 
 about the vanity of military glory and the prosperity of the 
 wicked, which the worthy pai-son read in his best voice and with- 
 out understanding one syllable of it. He had Pitt Crawley for 
 one of his auditors' — Pitt, who had come with his two half-sisters 
 to church, which the old Baronet could now by no means be 
 brought to frequent. 
 
 Since the departure of Becky Sharp, that old wretch had given 
 himself up entirely to his bad courses, to the great scandal of the 
 county and the mute horror of his son. The ribbons in Miss 
 Horrocks' cap became more splendid than ever. The polite 
 famihes fled the Hall and its owner in terror. Sir Pitt went 
 about tippling at his tenants' houses; and drank rum-and^ 
 water with the farmers at Mudbury and the neighbouring places 
 on market-days. He drove the family coach-and-four to 
 Southampton with Miss Horrocks inside: and the county people 
 expected every week, as his son did in speechless agony, that his 
 
Miss Crawley's Relations 327 
 
 marriage with her would be announced in the provincial paper. 
 It was indeed a rude burthen for Mr. Crawley to bear. His 
 eloquence was palsied at the missionary meetings, and other 
 religious assemblies in the neighbourhood,, where he had been in 
 the habit of presiding^ and of speaicing for hours; for he felt, 
 when he rose, that the audience said, " That is the son of the old 
 reprobate Sir Pitt, who is very likely drinking at the public- 
 house at this very moment." And once when he was speaking 
 of the benighted condition of the King of Timbuctoo, and the 
 number of his wives who were likewise in darkness, some gipsy 
 miscreant from the crowd asked, " How many is there at Queen's 
 Crawley, Young Squaretoes .^^ " to the surprise of the platform 
 and the ruin of Mr. Pitt's speech. And the two daughters of 
 the house of Queen's Crawley would have been allowed to run 
 utterly wild (for Sir Pitt swore that no governess should ever 
 enter into his doors again), had not Mr. Crawley, by threatening 
 the old gentleman, forced the latter to send them to school. 
 
 Meanwhile, as we have said, whatever individual differences 
 there might be betv/een them all, Miss Crawley's dear nephews 
 and nieces were unanimous in loving her and sending her tokens 
 of affection. Thus Mrs. Bute sent guinea-fowls, and some 
 remarkably fine cauliflowers, and a pretty purse or pincushion 
 worked by her darling girls, who begged to keep a little place in 
 the recollection of their dear aunt, while Mr. Pitt sent peaches 
 and grapes and venison from the Hall. The Southampton 
 coach used to carry these tokens of affection to Miss Crawley at 
 Brighton: it used sometimes to convey Mr. Pitt thither too: 
 for his differences with Sir Pitt caused Mr. Crawley to absent 
 himself a good deal from home now; and besides he had an 
 attraction at Brighton in the person of Lady Jane Sheepshanks, 
 whose engagement to Mr. Crawley has been formerly mentioned 
 in this history. Her Ladyship and her sisters lived at Brighton 
 with their mamma, the Countess Southdown, that strong- 
 minded woman so favourably known in the serious world. 
 
 A few words ought to be said regarding her Ladyship and her 
 noble family, who are bound by ties of present and future 
 relationship to the house of Crawley. Respecting the chief of the 
 Southdown family, Clement William, fourth Earl of Southdown, 
 little need be told, except that his Lordship came into Parlia- 
 ment (as Lord Wolsey) under the auspices of Mr. Wilberforce 
 and for a time was a credit to his political sponsor, and decidedly 
 a serious young man. But words cannot describe the feelings 
 of his admirable mother, when she learned, very shortly after 
 
328 Vanity Fair 
 
 her noble husband's demise, that her son was a member of 
 several worldly clubs, had lost largely at play at Wattier's and 
 the Cocoa Tree; that he had raised money on post-obits, and 
 encumbered the family estate; that he drove four-in-hand, and 
 patronised the ring; and that he actually had an opera-box, 
 where he entertained the most dangerous bachelor company. 
 His name was only mentioned with groans in the dowager's 
 circle. 
 
 The Lady Emily was her brother's senior by many years; and 
 took considerable rank in the serious world as author of some 
 of the delightful tracts before mentioned, and of many hymns 
 and spiritual pieces. A fnature spinster, and having but faint 
 ideas of marriage, her love for the blacks occupied almost all her 
 feelings. It is to her, I believe, we owe that beautiful poem — 
 
 " Lead us to some sunny isle, 
 Yonder in the western deep; 
 Where the skies for ever smile. 
 And the blacks for ever weep," etc. 
 
 She had correspondences with clerical gentlemen in most of 
 our East and West India possessions; and was secretly attached 
 to the Reverend Silas Hornblower, who was tattooed in the 
 South Sea Islands. 
 
 As for the Lady Jane, on whom, as it has been said, Mr. Pitt 
 Crawley's affection had been placed, she was gentle, blushing, 
 silent, and timid. In spite of his falHng away, she wept for her 
 brother, and was quite ashamed of loving him still. Even yet 
 she used to send him little hurried smuggled notes, and pop 
 them into the post in private. The one dreadful secret which 
 weighed upon her life was, that she and the old housekeeper 
 had been to pay Southdown a furtive visit at his chambers in 
 the Albany; and found him — Oh the naughty dear abandoned 
 wretch! smoking a cigar v/ith a bottle of cura9oa before him. 
 She admired her sister, she adored her mother, she thought Mr. 
 Crawley the most delightful and accompHshed of men, after 
 Southdown, that fallen angel: and her mamma and sister, who 
 were ladies of the most superior sort, managed everything for 
 her, and regarded her with that amiable pity, of which your 
 really superior woman always has such a share to give away. 
 Her mamma ordered her dresses, her books, her bonnets, and 
 her ideas for her. She was made to take pony-riding, or piano- 
 exercise, or any other sort of bodily medicament, according as 
 my Lady Southdown saw meet; and her Ladyship would have 
 kept her daughter in pinafores up to her present age of six-and- 
 
Miss Crawley's Relations 329 
 
 twenty, but that they were thrown off when Lady Jane was 
 presented to Queen Charlotte. 
 
 When these ladies first came to their house at Brighton, it 
 was to them alone that Mr. Crawley paid his personal visits, 
 contenting himself by leaving a card at his aunt's house, and 
 making a modest inquiry of Mr. Bowls, or his assistant footman, 
 with respect to the health of the invalid. When he met Miss 
 Briggs coming home from the library with a cargo of novels 
 under her arm, Mr. Crawley blushed in a manner quite unusual 
 to him, as he stepped forward and shook Miss Crawley's com- 
 panion by the hand. He introduced Miss Briggs to the lady 
 with whom he happened to be walking, the Lady Jane Sheep- 
 shanks, saying, " Lady Jane, permit me to introduce to you my 
 aunt's kindest friend and most affectionate companion, Miss 
 Briggs, whom you know under another title, as authoress of the 
 delightful ' Lyrics of the Heart,' of which you are so fond." 
 Lady Jane blushed too as she held out a kind little hand to Miss 
 Briggs, and said something very civil and incoherent about 
 mamma, and proposing to call on Miss Crawley, and being glad 
 to be made known to the friends and relatives of Mr. Crawley; 
 and with soft dove-Hke eyes saluted Miss Briggs as they 
 separated, while Pitt Crawley treated her to a profound courtly 
 bow, such as he had used to H.H. the Duchess of Pumpernickel, 
 when he was attache at that court. 
 
 The artful diplomatist and disciple of the Machiavellian 
 Binkie ! It was he who had given Lady Jane that copy of poor 
 Briggs's early poems, which he remembered to have seen at 
 Queen's Crawley, with a dedication from the poetess to his 
 father's late wife; and he brought the volume with him to 
 Brighton, reading it in the Southampton coach and marking it 
 with his own pencil, before he presented it to the gentle Lady 
 Jane. It was he, too, who laid before Lady Southdown the 
 great advantages which might occur from an intimacy between 
 her family and Miss Crawley, — advantages both worldly and 
 spiritual, he said; for Miss Crawley was now quite alone; the 
 monstrous dissipation and alliance of his brother Rawdon had 
 estranged her affections from that reprobate young man; the 
 greedy tyranny and avarice of Mrs. Bute Crawley had caused 
 the old lady to revolt against the exorbitant pretensions of that 
 part of the family; and though he himself had held off all his 
 life from cultivating Miss Crawley's friendship, with perhaps an 
 improper pride, he thought now that every becoming means 
 should be taken, both to save her soul from perdition, and to 
 
 *L298 
 
330 Vanity Fair 
 
 secure her fortune to himself as the head of the house of Crawley. 
 
 The strong-minded Lady Southdown quite agreed in both 
 proposals of her son-in-law, and was for converting Miss Crawley 
 off-hand. At her own home, both at Southdown and at Trotter- 
 more Castle, this tall and awful missionary of the truth rode 
 about the country in her barouche with outriders, launched 
 packets of tracts among the cottagers and tenants, and would 
 order Gaffer Jones to be converted, as she would order Goody 
 Hicks to take a James's powder, without appeal, resistancCj or 
 benefit of clergy. My Lord Southdown, her late husband, an 
 epileptic and simple-minded nobleman, was in the habit of 
 approving of everything which his Matilda did and thought. 
 So that whatever changes her own belief might undergo (and it 
 accommodated itself to a prodigious variety of opinion, taken 
 from all sorts of doctors among the Dissenters) she had not the 
 least scruple in ordering her tenants and inferiors to follow and 
 believe after her. Thus whether she received the Reverend 
 Saunders M'Nitre, the Scotch divine; or the Reverend Luke 
 Waters, the mild Wesleyan; or the Reverend Giles Jowls, the 
 illuminated Cobbler, who dubbed himself Reverend as Napoleon 
 crowned himself Emperor— the household, children, tenantry 
 of my Lady Southdown were expected to go down on their knees 
 with her Ladyship, and sa}^ Amen to the prayers of either Doctor. 
 During these exercises old Southdown, on account of his invalid 
 condition, was allowed to sit in his own room, and have negus^ 
 and the paper read to him. Lady Jane was the old Earl's 
 favourite daughter, and tended him and loved him sincerely: 
 as for Lady Emily, the authoress of the " Washerwoman of 
 Finchley Common," her denunciations of future punishment 
 (at this period, for her opinions modified afterwards) were so 
 awful that they used to frighten the timid old gentleman her 
 father, and the physicians declared his fits always -occurred after 
 one of her Ladyship's sermons. 
 
 " I will certainly call," said Lady Southdown then, in reply- 
 to the exhortation of her daughter's pretendu, Mr. Pitt Crawley 
 — *' Who is Miss Crawley's medical man? " 
 
 Mr. Crawley mentioned the name of Mr. Creamer. 
 
 " A most dangerous and ignorant practitioner, my dear Pitt. 
 I have providentially been the means of removing him from 
 several houses: though in one or two instances I did not arrive 
 in time. I could not save poor dear General Glanders, who was 
 dying under the hands of that ignorant man— dying. He rallied 
 a little under the Podgers' pills which I adm^inistered to him; 
 
Miss Crawley's Relations 331 
 
 but alas! it was too late. His death was delightful, however; 
 and his change was only for the better. Creamer, my dear Pitt, 
 must leave your aunt." 
 
 Pitt expressed his perfect acquiescence. He, too, had been 
 carried along by the energy of his noble kinswoman, and future 
 mother-in-law. He had been made to accept Saunders M'Nitre, 
 Luke Waters, Giles Jowls, Podgers' Pills, Rodgers" Pills, Pokey's 
 Elixir, every one of her Ladyship's remedies, spiritual or tem- 
 poral. He never left her house without carrying respectfully 
 away with him piles of her quack theology and medicine, ^h, 
 my dear brethren and fellow-sojourners in Vanity Faipf'which 
 among you does not know and suffer under such benevolent 
 despots? It is in vain you say to them, " Dear Madam, I took 
 Podgers' specific at your orders last year, and believe in itw 
 Why, why am I to recant and accept the Rodgers' articles 
 now.'*" There is no help for it; the faithful proselytiser, if 
 she cannot convince by argument, bursts into tears, and the 
 recusant finds himself, at the end of the contest, taking down 
 the bolus, and saying, " Well, well, Rodgers' be it." 
 
 " And as for her spiritual state," continued the lady, " that 
 of course must be looked to immediately; with Creamer about 
 her, she may go off any day; and in what a condition, my dear 
 Pitt, in what a dreadful condition! I will send the Reverend 
 Mr. Irons to her instantly. Jane, write a line to the Reverend 
 Bartholomew Irons, in the third person, and say that I desire 
 the pleasure of his company this evening at tea at half-past six. 
 He is an awakening man ; he ought to see Miss Crawley before 
 she rests this night. And Emily, my love, get ready a packet 
 of books for Miss Crawley. Put up ' A Voice from the Flames,' 
 'A Trumpet- warning to Jericho,' and the ' Fieshpots Broken: 
 or, the Converted Cannibal.' " 
 
 " And the ' Washerwoman of Finchley Common,' Mamma,'* 
 said Lady Emily. " It is as well to begin soothingly at first." 
 
 " Stop, my dear ladies," said Pitt, the diplomatist. " With 
 every deference to the opinion of my beloved and respected 
 Lady Southdown, I think it would be quite unadvisable to com- 
 mence so early upon serious topics with Miss Crawley. Re- 
 member her delicate condition, and how little, how very fittle 
 accustomed she has hitherto been to considerations connected 
 with her immortal welfare," 
 
 "Can we then begin too early, Pitt?" said Lady Emily, 
 rising with six little books already in her hand. 
 
 " If you begin abruptly, you will frighten her altogether. I 
 
332 Vanity Fair 
 
 know my aunt's worldly nature so well as to be sure that any 
 abrupt attempt at conversion will be the very worst means that 
 can be employed for the welfare of that unfortunate lady. You 
 will only frighten and annoy her. She will very likely fling the 
 books away, and refuse all acquaintance with the givers." 
 
 " You are as worldly as Miss Crawley, Pitt/' said Lady Emily, 
 tossing out of the room, her books in her hand. 
 
 " And I need not tell you, my dear Lady Southdown," Pitt 
 continued, in a low voice, and without heeding the interruption, 
 " how fatal a little want of gentleness and caution may be to 
 any hopes which we may entertain with regard to the worldly 
 possessions of my aunt. Remember she has seventy thousand 
 pounds; think of her age and her highly nervous and delicate 
 condition; I know that she has destroyed the will which was 
 made in my brother's (Colonel Crawley's) favour; it is by 
 soothing that wounded spirit that we must lead it into the 
 right path, and not by frightening it; and so I think you will 
 agree with me that — that " 
 
 " Of course, of course," Lady Southdown remarked. " Jane, 
 my love, you need not send that note to Mr. Irons. If her 
 health is such that discussions fatigue her, we will wait her 
 amendment. I will call upon Miss Crawley to-morrow." 
 
 " And if I might suggest, my sweet lady," Pitt said in a bland 
 tone, " it would be as well not to take our precious Emily, v^'^ho 
 is too enthusiastic ; but rather that you should be accompanied 
 by our sweet and dear Lady Jane." 
 
 " Most certainly, Emily would ruin everything," Lady South- 
 down said: and this time agreed to forego her usual practice, 
 which was, as we have said, before she bore down personally 
 upon any individual whom she proposed to subjugate, to fire in 
 a quantity of tracts upon the menaced party (as a charge of the 
 French was always preceded by a furious cannonade). Lady 
 Southdown, we say, for the sake of the invalid's health, or for 
 the sake of her soul's ultimate welfare, or for the sake of her 
 money, agreed to temporise. 
 
 The next day, the great Southdown female family carriage, 
 with the Earl's coronet and the lozenge (upon which the three 
 lambs trottant argent upon the field vert of the Southdowns, 
 were quartered with sable on a bend or, three snuff-mulls gules, 
 the cognisance of the house of Binkie), drove up in state to Miss 
 Crawley's door, and the tall serious footman handed in to Mr. 
 Bowls her Ladyship's cards for Miss Crawley, and one likewise 
 for Miss Eriggs. By way of compromise, Lady Emily sent in 
 
James Crawley's Pipe is Put Out 333 
 
 a packet in the evening for the latter lady, containing copies of 
 the " Washerwoman," and other mild and favourite tracts for 
 Miss B.'s own perusal; and a few for the servants' hall, viz.: 
 " Crumbs from the Pantry," " The Frying Pan and the Fire," 
 and " The Livery of Sin," of a much stronger kind. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIV 
 
 JAMES Crawley's pipe is put out 
 
 The am^^h\e behaviour of Mr. Crawley, and Lady Jane's kind 
 reception of her, highly flattered Miss Briggs, who was enabled 
 to speak a good word for the latter, after the cards of the South- 
 down family had been presented to Miss Crawley. A Countess's 
 card left personally too for her, Briggs, was not a little pleasing 
 to the poor friendless companion. " What could Lady South- 
 down mean by leaving a card upon you, I wonder, Miss Briggs ? " 
 said the republican Miss Crawley; upon which the companion 
 meekly said " that she hoped there could be no harm in a lady 
 of rank taking notice of a poor gentlewoman," and she put 
 away this card in her work-box amongst her most cherished 
 personal treasures. Furthermore, Miss Briggs explained how 
 she had met Mr. Crawley walking with his cousin and long- 
 affianced bride the day before; and she told how kind and 
 gentle-looking the lady was, and what a plain, not to say 
 common, dress she had, ail the articles of which, from the 
 bonnet down to the boots, she described and estimated with 
 female accuracy. 
 
 Miss Crawley allowed Briggs to prattle on without interrupt- 
 ing her too much. As she got well, she was pining for society. 
 Mr. Creamer, her medical man, would not hear of her returning 
 to her old haunts and dissipation in London. The old spinster 
 was too glad to find any companionship at Brighton, and not 
 only were the cards acknowledged the very next day, but Pitt 
 Crawley was graciously invited to come and see his aunt. He 
 came, bringing with him Lady Southdown and her daughter. 
 The dowager did not say a word about the state of Miss Crawley's 
 soul; but talked with much discretion about the weather: about 
 the war and the downfall of the monster Bonaparte: and above 
 
334 Vanity Fair 
 
 all, about doctors, quacks, and the particular merits of Dr. 
 Podger, whom she then patronised. 
 
 During their interview Pitt Crawley made a great stroke, 
 and one which showed that, had his diplomatic career not been 
 blighted by early neglect, he might have risen to a high rank in 
 his profession. When the Countess Dowager of Southdown fell 
 foul of the Corsican upstart, as the fashion was in those days, 
 and showed that he was a monster stained with every conceiv- 
 able crime, a coward and a tyrant not fit to live, one whose fall 
 was predicted, etc., Pitt Crawley suddenly took up the cudgels 
 in favour of the man of Destiny. He described the First Consul 
 as he saw him at Paris at the Peace of Amiens; when he, Pitt 
 Crawley, had the gratification of making the acquaintance of 
 the great and good Mr. Fox, a statesman whom, however much 
 he might differ with him, it was impossible not to admire 
 fervently — a statesman who had always had the highest 
 opinion of the Emperor Napoleon. And he spoke in terms of 
 the strongest indignation of the faithless conduct of the allies 
 towards this dethroned monarch, who, after giving himself 
 generously up to their mercy, was consigned to an ignoble and 
 cruel banishment, while a bigoted Popish rabble was tyrannising 
 over France in his stead. 
 
 This orthodox horror of Romish superstition saved Pitt Crawley 
 in Lady Southdown's opinion, whilst his admiration for Fox 
 and Napoleon raised him immeasurably in Miss Crawley's eyes. 
 Her friendship with that defunct British statesman was 
 mentioned when we first introduced her in this history. A true 
 Whig, Miss Crawley had been in opposition all through the war, 
 and though, to be sure, the downfall of the Emperor did not 
 very much agitate the old lady, or his ill-treatment tend to 
 shorten her life or natural rest, yet Pitt spoke to her heart when 
 he lauded both her idols; and by that single speech made 
 immense progress in her favour. 
 
 " And what do you think, my dear? " Miss Crawley said to 
 the young lady, for whom she had taken a Uking at first sight, 
 as she always did for pretty and modest young people; though 
 it must be owned her affections cooled as rapidly as they rose. 
 
 Lady Jane blushed very much, and said '* that she did not 
 understand politics, which she left to wiser heads than hers: 
 but though Mamma was, no doubt, correct, Mr. Crawley had 
 spoken beautifully." And when the ladies were retiring at the 
 conclusion of their visit. Miss Crawley hoped " Lady Southdown 
 would be so kind as to send her Lady Jane sometimes, if she 
 
James Crawley's Pipe is Put Out 335 
 
 could be spared to come down and console a poor sick lonely 
 old womarn^^ — This promise was graciously accordedyand they 
 separated upon great terms of amity. 
 
 " Don't let Lady Southdown come again, Pitt," said the old 
 lady. " She is stupid and pompous, like all your mother's 
 family, whom I never could endure. But bring that nice good- 
 natured little Jane as often as ever you please." Pitt promised 
 that he would do so. He did not tell the Countess of Southdown 
 what opinion his aunt had formed of her Ladyship, who, on the 
 contrary, thought that she had made a most delightful and 
 majestic impression on Miss Crawley. 
 
 And so, nothing loth to comfort a sick lady, and perhaps not 
 sorry in her heart to be freed now and again from the dreary 
 spouting of the Reverend Bartholomew Irons, and the serious 
 toadies who gathered round the footstool of the pompous 
 Countess, her mamma. Lady Jane became a pretty constant 
 visitor to Miss Crawley, accompanied her in her drives, and 
 solaced many of her evenings. She was so naturally good and 
 soft, that even Firkin was not jealous of her; and the gentle 
 Briggs thought her friend was less cruel to her, when kind Lady 
 Jane was by. Towards her Ladyship Miss Crawley's manners 
 were charming. The old spinster told her a thousand anecdotes 
 about her youth, talking to her in a very different strain from 
 that in which she had been accustomed to converse with the 
 godless little Rebecca; for there was that in Lady Jane's 
 innocence which rendered light talking impertinence before her, 
 and Miss Crawley was too much of a gentlewoman to offend such 
 purity. The young lady herself had never received kindness 
 except from this old spinster, and her brother and father: and 
 she repaid Miss Crawley's engoument by artless sweetness and 
 friendship. 
 
 In the autumn evenings (when Rebecca was flaunting at Paris, 
 the gayest among the gay conquerors there, and our Amelia, our 
 dear wounded Amelia, ah! where was she.?) Lady Jane would be 
 sitting in Miss Crawley's drawing-room singing sweetly to her, 
 in the twilight, her Uttle simple songs and hymns, while the sun 
 was setting, and the sea was roaring on the beach. The old 
 spinster used to wake up when these ditties ceased, and ask for 
 more. As for Briggs, and the quantity of tears of happiness 
 which she now shed as she pretended to knit, and looked out at 
 the splendid ocean darkling before the windows, and the lamps 
 of heaven beginning more brightly to shine — who^ I say, can 
 measure the happiness and sensibility of Briggs? 
 
336 Vanity Fair 
 
 Pitt meanwhile in the dining-room, with a pamphlet on the 
 Corn Laws or a Missionary Register by his side, took that kind 
 of recreation which suits romantic and unromantic men after 
 dinner. He sipped Madeira: built castles in the air: thought 
 himself a fine fellow: felt himself much more in love with Jane 
 than he had been any time these seven years, during which their 
 liaison had lasted without the slightest impatience on Pitt's part 
 — and slept a good deal. V/hen the time for coffee came, Mr. 
 Bowls used to enter in a noisy manner, and summon Squire Pitt, 
 who would be found in the dark very busy with his pamphlet. 
 
 " I wish, my love, I could get somebody to play piquet with 
 me," Miss Crawley said one night when this functionary made 
 his appearance with the candles and the coffee. " Poor Briggs 
 can no more play than an owl, she is so stupid " (the spinster 
 always took an opportunity of abusing Briggs before the ser- 
 vants); " and I think I should sleep better if I had my game." 
 
 At this Lady Jane blushed to the tips of her little ears, and 
 down to the ends of her pretty fingers ; and when Mr. Bowls had 
 quitted the room and the door was quite shut, she said — 
 
 " Miss Crawley, I can play a little. I used to — to play a little 
 with poor dear papa." 
 
 " Come and kiss me. Come and kiss me this instant, you dear 
 good Httle soul," cried Miss Crawley in an ecstasy; and in thi^. 
 picturesque and friendly occupation Mr. Pitt found the old ladj 
 and the young one, when he came upstairs with his pamphlet in 
 his hand. How she did blush all the evening, that poor Lady 
 Jane! 
 
 It must not be imagined that Mr. Pitt Crawley's artifices 
 escaped the attention of his dear relations at the Rectory at 
 Queen's Crawley. Hampshire and Sussex lie very close together, 
 and Mrs. Bute had friends in the latter county who took care to 
 inform her of all, and a great deal more than all, that passed at 
 Miss Crawley's house at Brighton. Pitt was there more and 
 more. He did not come for months together to the Hall, where 
 his abominable old father abandoned himself completely to 
 rum-and-water, and the odious society of the Horrocks family. 
 Pitt's success rendered the Rector's family furious, and Mrs. 
 Bute regretted more (though she confessed less) than ever her 
 monstrous fault in so insulting Miss Briggs, and in being so 
 haughty and parsimonious to Bowls and Firkin, that she had 
 not a single person left in Miss Crawley's household to give her 
 information of what took place there. " It was all Bute's 
 collar-bone/' she persisted in saying; " if that had not broke, 
 
James Crawley's Pipe is Put Out 337 
 
 I never would have left her. I am a martyr to duty and to your 
 odious unclerical habit of hunting, Bute." 
 
 "Hunting; nonsense! It was you that frightened her, 
 Barbara/' the divine interposed. " You're a clever woman, but 
 you've got a devil of a temper; and you're a screw with your 
 money, Barbara." 
 
 " You'd have been screwed in gaol, Bute, if I had not kept 
 your money." 
 
 " I know I would, my dear," said the Rector good-naturedly. 
 " You are a clever woman, but you manage too well, you know: " 
 and the pious man consoled himself with a big glass of port. 
 
 " What the deuce can she find in that spooney of a Pitt 
 Crawley? " he continued. "The fellow has not pluck enough 
 to say Bo to a goose. I remember when Rawdon, who is a man, 
 and be hanged to him, used to flog him round the stables as if he 
 was a whipping-top: and Pitt would go howling home to his 
 ma — ha, ha ! Why, either of my boys would whop him with one 
 hand. Jim says he's remembered at Oxford as Miss Crawley 
 still — the spooney." 
 
 " I say, Barbara," his Reverence continued, after a pause. 
 
 " What? " said Barbara, who was biting her nails, and drum- 
 ming the table. 
 
 " I say, why not send Jim over to Brighton to see if he can 
 do anything with the old lady. He's very near getting his 
 degree, you know. He's only been plucked twice — so was I — but 
 he's had the advantages of Oxford and a university education. 
 He knows some of the best chaps there. He pulls stroke in 
 
 the Boniface boat. He's a handsome feller. D it, ma'am, 
 
 let's put him on the old woman, hey; and tell him to thrash Pitt 
 if he says an^-think. Ha, ha, ha ! " 
 
 " Jim might go down and see her, certainly," the housewife 
 said; adding with a sigh, " H we could but get one of the girls 
 into the house ; but she could never endure them, because they 
 are not pretty! " Those unfortunate and well-educated women 
 made themselves heard from the neighbouring drawing-room, 
 where they were thrumming away, with hard fingers, an elaborate 
 music-piece on the pianoforte, as their mother spoke; and in- 
 deed, they were at music, or at backboard, or at geography, or 
 at history, the whole day long. But what avail all these accom- 
 plishments, in Vanity Fair, to girls who are short, poor, plain, 
 and have a bad complexion? Mrs. Bute could think of nobody 
 but the Curate to take one of them off her hands; and Jim 
 coming in from the stable at this minute, tlirough the parlour 
 
338 Vanity Fair 
 
 window, with a short pipe stuck in his oilskin cap, he and his 
 
 father fell to talking about odds on the St. Legex, and the colloquy- 
 between the Rector and his wife ended. 
 
 Mrs. Bute did not augur much good to the cause from the 
 sending of her son James as an ambassador, and saw him depart 
 in rather a despairing mood. Nor did the young fellow himself, 
 when told what his mission was to be, expect much pleasure or 
 benefit from it; but he was consoled by the thought that possibly 
 the old lady would give him some handsome remembrance of her, 
 which would pay a few of his most pressing bills at the com- 
 mencement of the ensuing Oxford term, and so took his place by 
 the coach from Southampton, and was safely landed at Brighton 
 on the same evening, with his portmanteau, his favourite bull- 
 dog Towzer, and an immense basket of farm and garden produce, 
 from the dear Rectory folks to the dear Miss Crawley. Con- 
 sidering it was too late to disturb the invalid lady on the first 
 night of his arrival, he put up at an inn, and did not wait upon 
 Miss Crawley until a late hour in the noon of next day. 
 
 JaTies Crawley, when his aunt had last beheld him, was a 
 ga'wky lad, at that uncomfortable age when the voice varies 
 between an unearthly treble and a preternatural bass; when the 
 face not uncommonly blooms out with appearances for which 
 Rowland's Kalydor is said to act as a cure; when boys are seen 
 to shave furtively with their sisters' scissors, and the sight of 
 other young women produces intolerable sensations of terror in 
 them; when the great hands and ankles protrude a long way 
 from garments which have grown too tight for them; when their 
 presence after dinner is at once frightful to the ladies, who are 
 whispering in the twilight in the drawing-room, and inexpres- 
 sibly odious to the gentlemen over the mahogany, who are re- 
 strained from freedom of intercourse and delightful interchange 
 of wit by the presence of that gawky innocence; when, at the 
 conclusion of the second glass, papa says, "Jack, my boy, go 
 out and see if the evening holds up," and the youth, willing to 
 be free, yet hurt at not being yet a man, quits the incomplete 
 banquet. James, then a hobbadehoy, was now become a young 
 man, having had the benefits of a university education, and 
 acquired the inestimable polish which is gained by living in a 
 fast set at a small college, and contracting debts, and being 
 rusticated, and being plucked. 
 
 He was a handsome lad, however, when he came to present 
 himself to his aunt at Brighton, and good looks were always a 
 title to the fickle old lady's favour. Nor did his blushes and 
 
James Crawley's Pipe is Put Out 339 
 
 awkwardness take away from it; she was pleased with these 
 healthy tokens of the young gentlenrian's ingenuousness. 
 
 He said " he had come down for a couple of days to see a man 
 of his college, and — and to pay my respects to you^ Ma'am, and 
 my father's and mother's who hope you are well." 
 
 Pitt was in the room with Miss Crawley when the lad was 
 announced, and looked very blank when his name was mentioned.: 
 The old lady had plenty of humour, and enjoyed her correct 
 nephew's perplexity. She asked after all the people at the 
 Rectory with great interest; and said she was thinking of paying 
 them a visit. She praised the lad to his face, and said he was 
 well-grown and very much improved, and that it was a pity his 
 sisters had not some of his good looks ; and finding, on inquiry, 
 that he had taken up his quarters at an hotel, would not hear 
 of his stopping there, but bade Mr. Bowls send for Mr. James 
 Crawley's things instantly; " and hark ye, Bowls," she added, 
 with great graciousness, " you will have the goodness to pay 
 Mr. James's bill." 
 
 She flung Pitt a look of arch triumph, which caused that 
 diplomatist almost to choke with envy. Much as he had in- 
 gratiated himself with his aunt, she had never yet invited him 
 to stay under her roof, and here was a young whipper-snapper, 
 who at first sight was made welcome there. 
 
 " I beg your pardon, sir," says Bowls, advancing with a pro- 
 found bow; " what 'otel, m^ shall Thomas fetch the luggage 
 from?" 
 
 " Oh, dam," said young James, starting up, as if in some 
 alarm, " I'll go." 
 
 " What 1 " said Miss Crawley. 
 
 " The Tom Cribb's Arms," said James, blushing deeply. 
 
 Miss Crawley burst out laughing at this title. Mr. BoWls 
 gave one abrupt guffaw, as a confidential servant of the family, 
 but choked the rest of the volley; the diplomatist only 
 smiled. 
 
 " I — I didn't know any better," said James, looking down, 
 " I've never been here before; it was the coachman told me." 
 The young story-teller! The fact is, that oh the Southamptofi 
 coach, the day previous, James Crawley had met the Tutbury 
 Pet, who was coming to Brighton to make a match with the 
 Rottingdean Fibber; and enchanted by the Pet's conversation, 
 had passed the evening in company with that scientific man arid 
 his friends, at the inn in question. 
 
 " I— I'd best go and settle the sCdte" JameS c6ntinued. 
 
340 Vanity Fair 
 
 " Couldn't think of asking you, Ma'am/' he added generously. 
 This delicacy made his aunt laugh the more. 
 
 " Go and settle the bill, Bowls," she said, with a wave of her 
 hand, " and bring it to me." 
 
 Poor lady, she did not know what she had done ! " There — 
 there's a little dawg^^ said James, looking frightfully guilty. 
 " I'd best go for him. He bites footmen's calves." 
 
 All the party cried out with laughing at this description; even 
 Briggs and Lady Jane, who was sitting mute during the inter- , 
 view between Miss Crawley and her nephew : and Bowls, with- 
 out a word, quitted the room. 
 
 Still, by way of punishing her elder nephew. Miss Crawley 
 persisted in being gracious to the young Oxonian. There were 
 no limits to her kindness or her compliments when they once 
 began. She told Pitt he might come to dinner, and insisted 
 that James should accompany her in her drive, and paraded him 
 solemnly up and down the cliff, on the back seat of the barouche. 
 During all this excursion, she condescended to say civil things 
 to him; she quoted Italian and French poetry to the poor be- 
 wildered lad, and persisted that he was a fine scholar, and was 
 perfectly sure he would gain a gold medal, and be a Senior 
 Wrangler. 
 
 " Haw, haw," laughed James, encouraged by these compli- 
 ments; " Senior Wrangler, indeed; that's at the other shop." 
 
 " What is the other shop, my dear child? " said the lady. 
 
 " Senior Wranglers at Cambridge, not Oxford," said the 
 scholar with a knowing air; and would probably have been 
 more confidential, but that suddenly there appeared on the 
 cliff in a tax-cart, drawn by a bang-up pony, dressed in white 
 flannel coats, with mother-of-pearl buttons, his friends the 
 Tutbury Pet and the Rottingdean Fibber, with three other 
 gentlemen of their acquaintance, who all saluted poor James 
 there in the carriage as he sate. This incident damped the 
 ingenuous youth's spirits, and no word of yea or nay could he 
 be induced to utter during the rest of the drive. 
 
 On his return he found his room prepared, and his port- 
 manteau ready, and might have remarked that Mr. Bowls's 
 countenance, when the latter conducted him to his apartments, 
 wore a look of gravity, wonder, and compassion. But the 
 thought of Mr. Bowls did not enter his head. He was deploring 
 the dreadful predicament in which he found himself, in a house 
 fuU of old women, jabbering French and Italian, and talking 
 poetry to him. " Regularly up a tree, by jingo ! " exclaimed 
 
 \ 
 
James Crawley's Pipe is Put Out 341 
 
 the modest boy, who could not face the gentlest of her sex — 
 not even Briggs — when she began to talk to him; whereas, put 
 him at Ifiiey Lock, and he could out-slang the boldest barge- 
 man. 
 
 At dinner, James appeared choking in a white neckcloth, and 
 had the honour of handing my Lady Jane downstairs, while 
 Briggs and Mr. Crawley followed afterwards, conducting the 
 old lady, with her apparatus of bundles, and shawls, and 
 cushions. Half of Briggs 's time at dinner was spent in superin- 
 tending the invalid's comfort, and in cutting up chicken for her 
 fat spaniel. James did not talk much, but he made a point of 
 asking all the ladies to drink wine, and accepted Mr. Crawley's 
 challenge, and consumed the greater part of a bottle of cham- 
 pagne which Mr. Bowls was ordered to produce in his honour. 
 The ladies having withdrawn, and the two cousins being left, 
 together, Pitt, the ex-diplomatist, became very communicative 
 and friendly. He asked after James's career at college — what 
 his prospects in life were — hoped heartily he would get on ; and, 
 in a word, was frank and amiable. James's tongue unloosed 
 with the port, and he told his cousin his life, his prospects, his 
 debts, his troubles at the httle-go, and his rows with the proctors, 
 filling rapidly from the bottles before him, and flying from port 
 to Madeira with joyous activity. 
 
 " The chief pleasure which my aunt has," said Mr. Crawley, 
 filling his glass, " is that people should do as they like in her 
 house. This is Liberty Hall, James, and you can't do Miss 
 Crawley a greater kindness than to do as you please, and ask for 
 what you will. I know you have all sneered at me in the 
 country for being a Tory. Miss Crawley is liberal enough to 
 suit an}^ fancy. She is a republican in principle, and despises 
 everything Hke rank or title." 
 
 "Why are you going to marry an Earl's daughter?" said 
 James. 
 
 " My dear friend, remember it is not poor Lady Jane's fault 
 that she is well-born," Pitt replied, with a courtly air. " She 
 cannot help being a lady. Besides, I am a Tory, you know." 
 
 " Oh, as for that," said Jim, " there's nothing like old blood; 
 no, dammy, nothing like it. I'm none of your radicals. I know 
 what it is to be a gentleman, dammy. See the chaps in a boat- 
 race; look at the fellers in a fight; ay, look at a dawg killing 
 rats, — which is it wins? the good-blooded ones. Get some 
 more port, Bowls, old boy, whilst I buzz this bottle here. What 
 was la saying? " 
 
342 Vanity Fair 
 
 " I think you were speaking of dogs killing rats," Pitt 
 remarked mildly, handing his cousin the decanter to '* buzz." 
 
 " Killing rats was I ? Well, Pitt, are you a sporting man ? 
 Do you want to see a dawg as cmi kill a rat? If you do, come 
 down with me to Tom Corduroy's, in Castle Street Mews, and 
 I'll show you such a bull- terrier as — -—Pooh! gammon/' cried 
 James, bursting out laughing at his own absurdity, — " you don't 
 care about a dawg or rat; it's all nonsense. I'm blest if I think 
 you know the difference between a dog and a duck." 
 
 " No; by the way," Pitt continued with increased blandness, 
 " it was about blood you were talking, and the personal 
 advantages which people derive from patrician birth. Here's 
 the fresh bottle." 
 
 " Blood's the word," said James, gulping the ruby fluid down, 
 " Nothing like blood, sir, in bosses, dawgs, and men. Why, 
 only last term, just before I was rusticated, that is, I mean just 
 before I had the measles, ha, ha, — there was me and Ringwood 
 of Christchurch, Bob Ringwood, Lord Cinqbar's son, having our 
 beer at the Bell at Blenheim, when the Banbury bargeman 
 offered to fight either of us for a bowl of punch. X couldn't,; 
 My arm was in a sling; couldn't even take the drag down,— ^ 
 brute of a mare of mine had fell with me only two days before, 
 out with the Abingdon^ and I thought my arm was broke. Well, 
 sir, I couldn't finish him, but Bob had his coat off at once — he 
 stood up to the Banbury man for three minutes, and polished 
 him off in four rounds easy. Gad, how he did drop, sir, and 
 what was it? Blood, sir, all blood." 
 
 " You don't drink, James," the ^x-atiache continued. " In 
 my time at Oxford, the men passed round the bottle a little 
 quicker than you young fellows seem to do." 
 
 " Come, come," said James, putting his hand to his nose and 
 winking at his cousin with a pair of vinous eyes, " no jokes, old 
 boy; no trying it on me. You want to trot me out, but it's no 
 go. In vino Veritas, old boy. Mars, Bacchus, Apollo virorum, 
 hey? I wish my aunt would send down some of this to the 
 governor; it's a precious good tap." 
 
 " You had better ask her," Maehiavel continued, " or make 
 the best of your time now. What says the bard ? ' Nunc vino 
 pellite curas, Cras ingens iterabimus aequor,' " and the Bac- 
 chanalian, quoting the above with a House of Commons air, 
 tossed off nearly a thimbleful of wine with an immense flourish of 
 his glass. 
 
 At the Rectory, when the bottle of port wine was opened after 
 
James Crawley's Pipe is Put Out 343 
 
 dinner, the young ladies had each a glass from a bottle of currant 
 wine. Mrs. Bute took one glass of port^ honest James had a 
 couple commonly, but as his father grew very sulky if he made 
 further inroads on the bottle, the good lad generally refrained 
 from trying for more, and subsided either into the currant wine, 
 or to some private gin-and-water in the stables, which he enjoyed 
 in the company of the coachman and his pips. At Oxford, the 
 quantity of v/ine was unlimited, but the quality was inferior: 
 but when quantity and quality united, as at his aunt's house, 
 James showed that he could appreciate them indeed; and 
 hardly needed any of his cousin's encouragement in draining 
 ofi the second bottle supplied by Mr. Bowls. 
 
 When the time for coffee came, however, and for a return to 
 the ladies, of whom he stood in awe, the young gentleman's 
 agreeable frankness left him, and he relapsed into his usual surly 
 timidity; contenting himself by saying yes and no, by scowling 
 at Lady Jane, and by upsetting one cup of coffee during th6 
 evening. 
 
 If he did not speak he yawned in a pitiable manner, and his 
 presence threw a damp upon the modest proceedings of the 
 evening, for Miss Crawley and Lady Jane at their piquet, and 
 Miss Briggs at her work, felt that his eyes were wildly fixed on 
 them, and were uneasy under that maudlin look. 
 
 " He seems a very silent, awkward, bashful lad," said Miss 
 Crawley to Mr. Pitt. 
 
 " He is more communicative in men's society than with 
 ladies," Machiavel drily replied: perhaps rather disappointed 
 that the port wine had not made Jim speak more. 
 
 He had spent the early part of the next morning in writing 
 home to his mother a most flourishing account of his reception 
 by Miss Crawley. But ah ! he little knew what evils the day was 
 bringing for him, and how short his reign of favour was destined 
 to be. A circumstance which Jim had forgotten — a trivial but 
 fatal circumstance — had taken place at the Cribb's Arms oii 
 the night before he had come to his aunt's house. It was no 
 other than this — Jim, who was always of a generous disposition, 
 and when in his cups especially hospitable, had in the course of 
 the night treated the Tutbury champion and the Rottingdeaii 
 man, and their friends, twice or thrice to the refreshment of gin- 
 and-water-^so that no less than eighteen glasses of that fluid at 
 eightpence per glass was charged in Mr. James Crawley's bill. 
 It was not the amount of eightpences, but the quantity of gin, 
 which told fatally against poor James's character, when his 
 
344 Vanity Fair 
 
 aunt's butler, Mr. Bowls, went down at his mistress's request to 
 pay the young gentleman's bill. The landlord, fearing lest the 
 account should be refused altogether, swore solemnly that the 
 young gent had consumed personally every farthing's worth of 
 the liquor: and Bowls paid the bill finally, and showed it on his 
 return home to Mrs. Firkin, who was shocked at the frightful 
 prodigality of gin; and took the bill to Miss Briggs as accoun- 
 tant-general; who thought it her duty to mention the circum- 
 stance to her principal, Miss Crawley. 
 
 Had he drunk a dozen bottles of claret, the old spinster could 
 have pardoned him. Mr. Fox and Mr. Sheridan drank claret. 
 Gentlemen drank claret. But eighteen glasses of gin consumed 
 among boxers in an ignoble pot-house — it was an odious 
 crime, and not to be pardoned readily. Everything went 
 against the lad; he came home perfumed from the stables, 
 whither he had been to pay his dog Towzer a visit — and whence 
 he was going to take his friend out for an airing, when he met 
 Miss Crawley and her wheezy Blenheim spaniel, which Towzer 
 would have eaten up had not the Blenheim fled squealing to the 
 protection of Miss Briggs, while the atrocious master of the bull- 
 dog stood laughing at the horrible persecution. 
 
 This day too the unlucky boy's modesty had likewise for- 
 saken him. He was lively and facetious at dinner. During 
 the repast he levelled one or two jokes against Pitt Crawley: he 
 drank as much wine as upon the previous day; and going quite 
 unsuspiciously to the drawing-room, began to entertain the 
 ladies there with some choice Oxford stories. He described 
 the different pugilistic qualities of Molyneux and Dutch Sam, 
 offered playfully to give Lady Jane the odds upon the Tutbury 
 Pet against the Rottingdean man, or take them, as her Lady- 
 ship chose: and crowned the pleasantry by proposing to back 
 himself against his cousin Pitt Crawley, either with or without 
 the gloves. " And that's a fair offer, my buck," he said with a 
 loud laugh, slapping Pitt on the shoulder, '' and my father told 
 me to make it too, and he'll go halves in the bet, ha, ha ! " So 
 saying, the engaging youth nodded knowingly at poor Miss 
 Briggs, and pointed his thumb over his shoulder at Pitt Crawley 
 in a jocular and exulting manner. 
 
 Pitt was not pleased altogether perhaps, but still not unhappy 
 ia the main. Poor Jim had his laugh out: and staggered 
 across the room with his aunt's candle, when the old lady moved 
 to retire, and offered to salute her with the blandest tipsy smile: 
 and he took his own leave and went upstairs to his bedroom 
 
James Crawley's Pipe is Put Out 345 
 
 perfectly satisfied with himself^ and with a pleased notion that 
 his aunt's money would be left to him in preference to his father 
 and all the rest of the family. 
 
 Once up in the bedroom, one would have thought he could 
 not make matters worse; and yet this unlucky boy did. The 
 moon was shining very pleasantly out on the sea, and Jim, 
 attracted to the window by the romantic appearance of the 
 ocean and the heavens, thought he would further enjoy them 
 while smoking. Nobody would smell the tobacco, he thought, 
 if he cunningly opened the window and kept his head and pipe 
 in the fresh air. This he did: but being in an excited state, 
 poor Jim had forgotten that his door was open all this time, so 
 that the breeze blowing inwards and a fine thorough draught 
 being established, the clouds of tobacco were carried downstairs, 
 and arrived with quite undiminished fragrance to Miss Crawley 
 and Miss Briggs, 
 
 The pipe of tobacco finished the business: and the Bute- 
 Crawleys never knew how many thousand pounds it cost them. 
 Firkin rushed downstairs to Bowls, who was reading out the 
 " Fire and the Frying Pan " to his aide-de-camp in a loud and 
 ghostly voice. The dreadful secret was told to him by Firkin 
 with so frightened a look, that for the first moment Mr. Bowls 
 and his young man thought that robbers were in the house ; the 
 legs of whom had probably been discovered by the woman under 
 Miss Crawley's bed. When made aware of the fact, however — 
 to rush upstairs at three steps at a time — to enter the uncon- 
 scious James's apartment, calling out, " Mr. James," in a voice 
 stifled with alarm, and to cry, " For Gawd's sake, sir, stop that 
 'ere pipe," was the work of a minute with Mr. Bowls. *' Mr. 
 James, what 'ave you done ! " he said in a voice of the deepest 
 pathos, as he threw the implement out of the window. " What 
 'ave you done, sir! Missis can't abide 'em." 
 
 " Missis needn't smoke," said James with a frantic misplaced 
 laugh, and thought the whole matter an excellent joke. But 
 his feelings were very different in the morning, when Mr. Bowls's 
 young man, who operated upon Mr. James's boots, and brought 
 him his hot water to shave that beard which he was so anxiously 
 expecting, handed a note in to Mr. James in bed, in the hand- 
 writing of Miss Briggs. 
 
 " Dear Sir," it said, " Miss Crawley has passed an exceedingly 
 disturbed night, owing to the shocking manner in which the 
 house has been polluted by tobacco; Miss Crawley bids me say 
 she regrets that she is too unwell to see you before you go — and 
 
346 Vanity Fair 
 
 above all that she ever induced you to remove from the alehouse, 
 where she is sure you will be much more comfortable during the 
 rest of your stay at Brighton." 
 
 And herewith honest James's career as a candidate for his 
 aunt's favour ended. He had in fact, and without knowing it, 
 done what he menaced to do. He had fought his cousin Pitt 
 with the gloves. 
 
 Where meanwhile was he who had been once first favourite 
 for this race for money? Becky and Rawdon; as we have seen, 
 were come together after Waterloo, and were passing the winter 
 of 181 5 at Paris in great splendour and gaiety. Rebecca was a 
 good economist, and the price poor Jos Sedley had paid for her 
 two horses was in itself sufficient to keep their little establish- 
 ment afloat for a year, at the least; there was no occasion to 
 turn into money " my pistols, the same which I shot Captain 
 Marker," or the gold-dressing case, or the cloak lined with 
 sable. Becky had it made into a pelisse for herself, in which 
 she rode in the Bois de Boulogne to the admiration of all: and 
 you should have seen the scene between her and her delighted 
 husband, whom she rejoined after the army had entered Cam- 
 bray, and when she unsewed herself, and let out of her dress all 
 those watches, nicknacks, bank-notes, cheques, and valuables 
 which she had secreted in the wadding, previous to her meditated 
 flight from Brussels ! Tufto was charmed, and Rawdon roared 
 with delightful laughter, and swore that she was better than 
 any play he ever saw, by Jove. And the way in which she 
 jockeyed Jos, and which she described with infinite fun, carried 
 up his delight to a pitch of quite insane enthusiasm. He believed 
 in his wife as much as the French soldiers in Napoleon. 
 
 Her success in Paris was remarkable. All the French ladies 
 voted her charming. She spoke their language admirably. 
 She adopted at once their grace, their liveliness, their manner. 
 Her husband was stupid certainly — all English are stupid — -and, 
 besides, a dull husband at Paris is always a point in a lady's 
 favour. He was the heir of the rich and spirititelle Miss Crawle)^ 
 whose house had been open to so many of the French noblesse 
 during the emigration. They received the Colonel's wife in 
 their own hotels — " Why," wrote a great lady to Miss Crawley, 
 who had bought her lace and trinkets at the Duchess's o^'vti 
 price, and given her many a dinner during the pinching times 
 after the Revolution — " Why does not our dear Miss come to 
 her nephew and niece, and her attached friends at Paris? All 
 
James Crawley's Pipe is Put Out 347 
 
 the world raffoles of the charming Mistress and her esptegle 
 beauty. Yes, we see in her the grace, the charm, the wit of 
 our dear friend Miss Crawley! The King took notice of her 
 yesterday at the Tuileries, and we are all jealous of the attention 
 which Monsieur pays her. If you could have seen the spite oi x 
 a certain stupid Miladi Bareacres (whose eagle-beak and toque A/ 
 and feathers may be seen peering over the heads of all assem- 
 blies), when Madame, the Duchess of Angouleme, the august 
 daughter and companion of kings, desired especially to be pre- 
 sented to Mrs. Crawley, as your dear daughter and protegee, and 
 thanked her in the name of France, for all your benevolence 
 towards our unfortunates during their exile! She is of all the 
 societies, of all the balls — of the balls — yes — of the dances, no; 
 and yet how interesting and pretty this fair creature looks^ 
 surrounded by the homage of the men, and so soon to be a 
 mother ! To hear her spealc of you, her protectress, her mother, 
 would bring tears to the eyes of ogres. How she loves you! 
 how we ail love our admirable, our respectable Miss Crawley! " 
 
 It is to be feared that this letter of the Parisian great lady 
 did not by any means advance Mrs. Becky's interest with her 
 admirable, her respectable, relative. On the contrary, the 
 fury of the old spinster was beyond bounds, when she found 
 what was Rebecca's situation, and how audaciously she had 
 made use of Miss Crawley's name, to get an entree into Parisian 
 society. Too much shaken in mind and body to compose a 
 letter in the French language in reply to that of her corre- 
 spondent, she dictated to Briggs a furious answer in her own 
 native tongue, repudiating Mrs. Rawdon Crawley altogether, 
 and warning the public to beware of her as a most artful and 
 
 dangerous person. But as Madame the Duchess of X had 
 
 only been twenty years in England, she did not understand a 
 single word of the language, and contented herself by informing 
 Mrs. Rawdon Crawley at their next meeting, that she had 
 received a charming letter from that chere Mees, and that it 
 was full of benevolent things for Mrs. Crawley, who begun 
 seriously to have hopes that the spinster would relent. 
 
 Meanwhile, she was the gayest and most admired of English- 
 women: and had a little European congress on her reception - 
 night. Prussians and Cossacks, Spanish and English — all the 
 world was at Paris during this famous winter: to have seen the 
 stars and cordons in Rebecca's humble saloon would have made 
 all Baker Street pale with envy. Famous warriors rode by her 
 carriage in the Bois, or crowded her modest little box at the 
 
348 Vanity Fair 
 
 Opera. Rawdon was in the highest spirits. There were no 
 duns in Paris as yet: there were parties every day at Very's or 
 Beauvilliers' ; play was plentiful and his luck good. Tufto 
 perhaps was sulky. Mrs. Tufto had come over to Paris at her 
 own invitation, and besides this contretemps, there were a score 
 of generals now round Becky's chair, and she might take her 
 choice of a dozen bouquets when she went to the play. Lady 
 Bareacres and the chiefs of the English society, stupid and 
 irreproachable females, writhed with anguish at the success of 
 the Httle upstart Becky, whose poisoned jokes quivered and 
 rankled in their chaste breasts. But she had all the men on 
 her side. She fought the women with indomitable courage, 
 and they could not talk scandal in any tongue but their own. 
 
 So m fetes, pleasures, and prosperity, the winter of 1815-16 
 passed away with Mrs. Rawdon Crawley, who accommodated 
 herself to polite life as if her ancestors had been people of fashion 
 for centuries past-v-and who from her wit, talent and energy, 
 indeed merited a place of honour in Vanity Fair/ In the early 
 '^spring of 1816, Galignani's Journal contained the following an- 
 nouncement in an interesting comer of the paper: " On the 
 26th of March — the Lady of Lieutenant-Colonel Crawley, of 
 the Life Guards Green — of a son and heir." 
 
 This event was copied into the London papers, out of which 
 Miss Briggs read the statement to Mis^ Crawley, at breakfast, 
 at Brighton. The intelligence, expected as it might have been, 
 caused a crisis in the affairs of the Crawley family. The 
 spinster's rage rose to its height, and sending instantly for Pitt, 
 her nephew, and for the Lady Southdown, from Brunswick 
 Square, she requested an immediate celebration of the marriage 
 which had been so long pending between the two families. 
 And she announced that it was her intention to allow the young 
 couple a thousand a year during her lifetime, at the expiration 
 of which the bulk of her property would be settled upon her 
 nephew and her dear niece. Lady Jane Crawley. Waxy came 
 down to ratify the deeds — Lord Southdown gave away his sister 
 — she was married by a Bishop, and not by the Rev. Bartholo- 
 mew Irons — to the disappointment of the irregular prelate. 
 
 When they were married, Pitt would have liked to take a 
 hymeneal tour with his bride, as became people of their con- 
 dition. But the affection of the old lady towards Lady Jane 
 had grown so strong, that she fairly owned she could not part 
 with her favourite. Pitt and his wife came therefore and lived 
 with Miss Crawley: and (greatly to the annoyance of poor Pitt, 
 
Widow and Mother 349 
 
 who conceived himself a most injured character — being subject 
 to the humours of his aunt on one side, and of his mother-in- 
 law on the other) Lady Southdown, from her neighbouring 
 house, reigned over the whole family — Pitt, Lady Jane, Miss 
 Crawley, Briggs, Bowls, Firkin, and all. She pitilessly dosed 
 them with her tracts and ber medicine, she dismissed Creamer, 
 she installed Rodgers, and soon stripped Miss Crawley of even 
 the semblance of authority. The poor soul grew so timid that 
 she actually left off bullying Briggs any more, and clung to her 
 niece, more fond and terrified every day. "^eace to thee, kind- 
 aniLieliish, vain and generous old heathen !x^We shall see thee 
 no more. Let us hope that Lady Jane supported her kindly, 
 and led her with gentle hand out of the busy struggle of Vanity 
 Fair, 
 
 CHAPTER XXXV 
 
 WIDOW AND MOTHER 
 
 The news of the great fights of Quatre Bras and Waterloo 
 reached England at the same time. The Gazette first published 
 the result of the two battles; at which glorious intelligence 
 all England thrilled with triumph and fear. Particulars then 
 followed ; and after the announcement of the victories came the 
 list of the wounded and the slain. Who can tell the dread with 
 which that catalogue was opened and read! Fancy, at every 
 village and homestead almost through the three kingdoms, the 
 great news coming of the battles in Flanders, and the feelings 
 of exultation and gratitude, bereavement and sickening dismay, 
 when the lists of the regimental losses were gone through, and 
 it became known whether the dear friend and relative had 
 escaped or fallen. Anybody who will take the trouble of look- 
 ing back to a file of the newspapers of the time, must, even now, 
 feel at second-hand this breathless pause of expectation. The 
 lists of casualties are carried on from day to day: you stop in 
 the midst as in a story which is to be continued in our next. 
 Think what the feelings must have been as those papers followed 
 each other fresh from the press; and if such an interest could 
 be felt in our country, and about a battle where but twenty 
 thousand of our people were engaged, think of the condition of 
 
350 Vanity Fair 
 
 Europe for twenty years before, where people were fighting, 
 not by thousands but by millions; each one of whom as he 
 struck his enemy wounded horribly some other innocent heart 
 far away. 
 
 The news which that famous Gazette brought to the Osbornes 
 gave a dreadful shock to the family and its chief. The girls 
 indulged unrestrained in their grief. The gloom-stricken old 
 father was still more borne down by his fate and sorrow. He 
 strove to think that a judgment was on the boy for his disobedi- 
 ence. He dared not own that the severity of the sentence 
 frightened him, and that its fulfilment had come too soon upon 
 his curses. Sometimes a shuddering terror struck him, as if he 
 had been the author of the doom which he had called down on 
 his son. There was a chance before of reconciliation. The boy's 
 wife might have died; or he might have come back and said. 
 Father, I have sinned. But there was no hope now. He stood 
 on the other side of the gulf impassable, haunting his parent with 
 sad eyes. He remembered them once before so in a fever, when 
 every one thought the lad was dying, and he lay on his bed 
 speechless, and gazing with a dreadful gloom. Good God ! how 
 the father clang to the doctor then; and with what a sickening 
 anxiety he followed him: what a weight of grief was off his mind 
 when, after the crisis of the fever, the lad recovered, and looked 
 at his father once more with eyes that recognised him. But 
 now there was no help or cure, or chance of reconcilement: 
 above all, there were no humble words to soothe vanity out- 
 raged and furious, or bring to its natural flow the poisoned, 
 angry blood. And it is hard to say which pang it was that tore, 
 the proud father's heart most keenly- — that his son should have 
 gone out of the reach of his forgiveness, or that the apology 
 which his own pride expected should have escaped him. 
 
 Whatever his sensations might have been, however, the stern 
 old man would have no confidant. He never mentioned his 
 son's name to his daughters; but ordered the elder to place all 
 the females of the establishment in mourning ; and desired that 
 the male servants should be similarly attired in deep black. 
 All parties and entertainments, of course, were to be put off. 
 No communications were made to his future son-in-law, whose 
 marriage-day had been fixed; but there was enough in Mr. 
 Osborne's appearance to prevent Mr. Bullock from making any 
 inquiries or in an)'^ way pressing forward that ceremony. He and 
 the ladies whispered about it under their voices in the drawing- 
 room sometimes, whither the father never came. He remained 
 
Widov and Mother 3 5 1 
 
 constantly in his own study; the whole front part of the house 
 being closed until some time after the completion of the general 
 0iouming. 
 
 About three weeks after the i8th of June, Mr. Osborne's 
 acquaintance, Sir William Dobbin, called at Mr. Osborne's house 
 in Russell Square, with a very pale and agitated face, and in- 
 sisted upon seeing that gentleman. Ushered into his room, and 
 after a few words, which neither the speaker nor the host under- 
 stood, the former produced from an enclosure a letter sealed 
 with a large red seal. " My son. Major Dobbin," the Alderman- 
 said, with some hesitation, " despatched me a letter by an 
 officer of the — ^th, who arrived in town to-day. My son's letter 
 contains one for you, Osborne." The Alderman placed the 
 letter on the table, and Osborne stared at him for a moment or 
 two in silence. His looks frightened the ambassador, who, after 
 looking guiltily for a little time at the grief -stricken man, hurried 
 away without another word. 
 
 The letter was in George's well-known bold handwriting. It 
 was that one which he had written before daybreak on the i6tb 
 of June, and just before he took leave of Amelia. The great 
 red seal was emblazoned with the sham coat of arms which 
 Osborne had assumed from the Peerage, with " Pax in beUo " for 
 a motto; that of the ducal house with which the vain old man 
 tried to fancy himself connected. The hand that signed it would 
 never hold pen or sword more. The very seal that sealed it had 
 been robbed from George's dead body as it lay on the field of 
 battle. The father knew nothing of this, but sat and looked 
 at the letter in terrified vacancy. He almost fell when he went 
 to open it. 
 
 Have you ever had a difference with a dear friend ? How his 
 letters, written in the period of love and confidence, sicken and 
 rebuke you ! What a drear}'' mourning it is to dwell upon those 
 vehement protests of dead affection! What lying epitaphs 
 they make over the corpse of Lovel What dark, cruel com- 
 ments upon Life and Vanities ! Most of us have got or written 
 drawers full of them. They are closet-skeletons which we keep 
 and shun. Osborne trembled long before the letter from his 
 dead son. 
 
 The poor boy's letter did not say much. He had been too 
 proud to acknowledge the tenderness which his heart felt. He 
 only said, that on the eve of a great battle, he wished to bid his 
 father farewell, and solemnly to implore his good offices for the 
 wife — ^it might be for the child — ^whom he left behind him. He 
 
352 Vanity Fm 
 
 owned with contrition that his, irregularities and his extrava- 
 gance had already wasted a large part of his mother's little 
 fortune. He thanked his father for his former generous 
 conduct; and he promised' him, that if he fell on tJbe field, or 
 survived it, he would at;t in a manner worthy of the name of 
 George Osborne. 
 
 His English habit, pride, awkwardness perhaps, had pre- 
 vented him from sajring more. His father could not see the 
 kiss George had placed on the superscription of his letter. Mr. 
 Osborne dropped it with the bitterest, deadliest pang of balked 
 affection and revenge. His son was still beloved and unfor- 
 given. 
 
 About two months afterwards, however, as the young ladies 
 of the family went to church with their father, they remarked 
 how he took a different seat from that which he usually occupied 
 when he chose to attend di^ne worship; and that from his 
 cushion opposite, he looked up at the wall over their heads. This 
 caused the young wojmen likewise to gaze in the direction to- 
 wards which their father's gloomy eyes pointed; and they saw 
 an elaborate monument upon the wall, where Britannia wais 
 represented weepirrg over an urn, and a broken sword and a 
 couchant lien; indicated that the piece of sculpture had been 
 erected in honour of a deceased warrior. The sculptors of those 
 days had stocks of such funeral emblems in hand ; as you may 
 see stiU on the walls of St. Paul's, which are • covered with 
 hundreds of these braggart heathen allegories. There was a 
 constant demand for them during the first fifteen years of 
 the present century^ 
 
 Under the memorial in question were emblazoned the well- 
 known and pompous Osborne arms; and the inscription said, 
 that the monument was " Sacred to the Memory of George 
 Osborne, Junior, Esq., late a Captain in His Majesty's — th 
 regiment of foot, who fell on the i8th of June :^8i5, aged 28 
 years, wliile fighting for his king and country in the glorious 
 victory of Waterloo. Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori." 
 
 The sight of that stone agitated the nerves of the sisters so 
 much, that Miss Maria was compelled to leave the church. The 
 congregation made way respectfully for those sobbing girls 
 clothed in deep black, and pitied the stern old father seated 
 opposite the memorial of the dead soldier. " Will he forgive 
 Mrs. George? " the girls said to themselves as soon as their 
 ebullition of grief was over. Much conversation passed too. 
 among the acquaintances of the Osborne family, who knew ol 
 
Widow and Mother 353 
 
 the rupture between the son and father caused by the former's 
 marriage, as to the chance of a reconciliation with the young 
 vndow. There were bets among the gentlemen both about 
 Russell Square and in the City. 
 
 If the sisters had any anxiety regarding the possible recogni- 
 tion of Amelia as a daughter of the family, it was increased pre- 
 sently, and towards the end of the autumn, by their father's 
 announcement that he was going abroad. He did not say 
 whither, but they knew at once that his steps would be turned 
 towards Belgium, and were aware that George's widow was still 
 in Brjssels. They bad pretty accurate news indeed of poor 
 Amelia from Lady Dobbin and her daughters. Our honest 
 Captain had been promoted in consequence of the death of the 
 second Major of the regiment on the field; and the brave 
 O'Dowd, who had distinguished himself greatly here, as upon all 
 occasions where he had a chance to show his coolness and valour, 
 was a Colonel and Companion of the Bath. 
 
 Very many of the brave — th, who had suffered severely upon 
 both days of action, were still at Brussels in the autumn, recover- 
 ing of their wounds. The city was a vast military hospital for 
 months after the great battles; and as men and officers began 
 to rally from their hurts, the gardens and places of pubHc resort 
 swarmed with maimed warriors, old and young, who, just 
 rescued out of death, fell to gambling, and gaiety, and love- 
 making, as people of Vanity Fair will do. Mr. Osborne found 
 out some of the — th easily. He knew their uniform quite well, 
 and had been used to follow all the promotions and exchanges 
 in the regiment, and loved to talk about it and its officers as if he 
 had been one of the number. On the day after his arrival at 
 Brussels, and as he issued from his hotel, which faced the Park, 
 he saw a soldier in the well-known facings, reposing on a stone 
 bench in the garden, and went and sate down trembUng by the 
 wounded convalescent man. 
 
 " Were you in Captain Osborne's company? " he said, and 
 added, after a pause, " He was my son, sir." 
 
 The man was not of the Captain's company, but he lifted up 
 his unwounded arm and touched his cap sadly and respectfully 
 to the haggard broken-spirited gentleman who questioned him. 
 " The whole army didn't contain a finer or a better officer," the 
 soldier said. " The Sergeant of the Captain's company (Captain 
 Raymond had it now) was in town, though, and was just well of a 
 shot in the shoulder. His honour might see him if he liked, who 
 could tell him anything he wanted to know about — about the 
 
 M 
 
3 54 Vanity Fair 
 
 — th's actions. But his honour had seen Major Dobbin, no 
 doubt, the brave Captain's great friend; and Mrs. Osborne, who 
 was here too, and had been very bad, he heard everybody say. 
 They say she was out of her mind like for six-weeks or more. 
 But your honour knows all about that — and asking your pardon " 
 — the man added. 
 
 Osborne put a guinea into the soldier's hand, and told him he 
 should have another if he would bring the Sergeant to the Hotel 
 du Pare; a promise which very soon brought the desired officer 
 to Mr. Osborne's presence. And the first, soldier went away- 
 and after telling a comrade or two how Captain Osborne's 
 father was arrived, and what a free-handed generous gentleman 
 he was, they went and made good cheer with drink and feasting, 
 as long as the guineas lasted which had come from the proud 
 purse of the mourning old father. 
 
 In the Sergeant's company, who was also just convalescent, 
 Osborne made the journey of Waterloo and Quatre Bras, a 
 journey which thousands of his countrymen were then taking. 
 He took the Sergeant with him in his carriage, and went through 
 both fields under his guidance. He saw the point of the road 
 where the regiment marched into action on the sixteenth, and 
 the slope down which they drove the French cavalry who were 
 pressing on the retreating Belgians. There was the spot where 
 the noble Captain cut dowTi the French officer who was grap- 
 pling with the young Ensign for the colours, the Colour-Sergeants 
 having been shot down. Along this road they retreated on the 
 next day, and here was the bank at which the regiment bivou- 
 acked under the rain of the night of the seventeenth. Further 
 on was the position which they took and held during the day, 
 forming time after time to receive the charge of the, enemy's 
 horsemen, and lying down under the shelter of the barik from 
 the furious French cannonade. And it was at tins declivity 
 when at evening the whole English line received the order to 
 advance, as the enemy fell back after his last charge, that the 
 Captain, hurraying and rushing down the hill waving his sword, 
 received a shot and fell dead. " It was Major Dobbin who took 
 back the Captain's body to Brussels," the Sergeant said, in a 
 low voice, " and had him buried, as your honour knows." The 
 peasants and relic-hunters about the place were screaming round 
 the pair, as the soldier told his story, offering for sale all sorts of 
 mementoes of the fight, crosses, and epaulets, and shattered 
 cuirasses, and eagles. 
 
 Osborne gave a sumptuous reward to the Sergeant when he 
 
Widow and Mother 355 
 
 jarted with him, after having visited the scenes of his son's i^t 
 'Exploits. His burial-place he had already seen. Indeed, he 
 had driven thither immediately after his arrival at Brussels. 
 George's body lay in the pretty burial-ground of Laeken, near 
 the city; in which place, having once visited it on a party of 
 pleasure, he had lightly expressed a wish to have his grave 
 made. And there the young officer was laid by his friend, 
 in the unconsecrated comer of the garden, separated by a little 
 hedge from the temples and towers and plantations of flowers 
 and shrubs, under which the Roman Catholic dead repose. 
 It seemed a humiliation to old Osborne to think that his son, an 
 English gentleman, a captain in the famous British army, should 
 not be found worthy to lie in ground where mere foreigners were 
 buried. Which of us is there can tell how much vanity lurks in_ ^ 
 our warmest Regard for others, and how selfish gur love is ? Old * 
 Osborne did^not speculate much on the mingled nature of his 
 feelings, and how his instinct and selfishness were combating 
 together. He firmly believed that everything he did was right, 
 that he ought on all occasions to have his own way — and like 
 the sting of a wasp or serpent his hatred rushed -out armed 
 and poisonous a.gainst anything like opposition. He was proud 
 of his hatred as of everything else. Always to be right, 
 always to trample forward, and never to doubt, are not these 
 the great qualities with which dulness takes the lead iai the 
 world ? 
 
 As, after the drive to Waterloo, Mr. Osborne's carriage was 
 Hearing the gates of the city at sunset, they met another open 
 barouche, in which were a couple of ladies and a gentleman, and 
 by the side of which an officer was riding. Osborne gave a start 
 back, and the Sergeant, seated with him, cast a look of surprise 
 at his neighbour, as he touched his cap to the officer, who 
 mechanically returned his salute. It was Amelia, with the lame 
 young Ensign by her side, and opposite to her her faithful friend 
 Mrs. O'Dowd. It was Amelia, but how changed from the fresh 
 and comely girl Osborne knew. Her face was white and thin. 
 Her pretty brown hair was parted under a widow's cap — the 
 poor child. Her eyes were fixed, and looking nowhere. They 
 stared blank in the face of Osborne, as the carriages crossed each 
 other, but she did not know him : nor did he recognise her, until 
 looking up, he saw Dobbin riding by her; and then he knew 
 who it was. He hated her. He did not know how much until 
 he saw her there. When her carriage had passed on, he turned 
 and stared at the Sergeant^ with a curse and defiance in his eye 
 
3*56 Vanity Fair 
 
 caiBt at his companion, who could not help looking at him — as 
 much as to say, " How dare you look at me? Damn you! I do 
 hate her. It is she who has tumbled my hopes and all my pride 
 down." " Tell the scoundrel to drive on quick/' he shouted 
 with an oath, to the lackey on the box. A minute afterwards, 
 a horse came clattering over the pavement behind Osborne's 
 carriage, and Dobbin rode up. His thoughts had been else- 
 where as the carriages passed each other, and it was not until he 
 had ridden some paces forward, that he remembered it was 
 Osborne who had just passed him. Then he turned to examine 
 if the sight of her father-in-law had made any impression on 
 Amelia, but the poor girl did not know who had passed. Then 
 William, who daily used to accompany her in her drives, taking 
 out his watch, made some excuse about an engagement which 
 he suddenly recollected, and so rode off. She did not remark 
 that either: but sate looking before her, over the homely land- 
 scape towards the woods in the distance, by which George 
 marched away. 
 
 " Mr. Osborne, Mr. Osborne! " cried Dobbin, as he rode up 
 and held out his hand. Osborne made no motion to take it, but 
 shouted out once more and with another curse to his servant to 
 drive on. 
 
 Dobbin laid his hand on the carriage side. " I will see you, 
 sir," he said. " I have a message for you." 
 
 " From that woman? " said Osborne fiercely. 
 
 " No," replied the other, " from your son; " at which Osborne 
 fell back into the comer of his carriage, and Dobbin allowing it 
 to pass on, rode close behind it, and so through the town until 
 they reached Mr. Osborne's hotel, and without a word. There 
 he followed Osborne up to his apartments. George had often 
 been in the rooms ; they were the lodgings which the Crawleys 
 had occupied during their stay in Brussels. 
 
 " Pray, have you any commands for me, Captain Dobbin, or, 
 I beg your pardon, I should say Major Dobbin, since better men 
 than you are dead, and you step into their shoes ? " said Mr. 
 Osborne, in that sarcastic tone which he sometimes was pleased 
 to assume. 
 
 " Better men are dead," Dobbin replied. " I want to speak 
 to you about one." 
 
 " Make it short, sir," said the other with an oath, scowling 
 at his visitor. 
 
 " I am here as his closest friend," the Major resumed, " and 
 the executor of his will. He made it before he went into action. 
 
Widow and Mother 3^ 
 
 Are you aware how small his means are, and of the straitened 
 circumstances of his widow? " 
 
 " I don't know his widow, sir/' Osborne said. " Let her go 
 back to her father." But the gentleman whom he addressed 
 was determined to remain in good temper, and went on with- 
 out heeding the interruption. 
 
 " Do you know, sir, Mrs. Osborne's condition? Her life and 
 her reason almost have been shaken by the blow which has 
 fallen on her. It is very doubtful whether she will rally. There 
 is a chance left for her, however, and it is about this I came to 
 speak to you. She will be a mother soon. Will you visit the 
 parent's offence upon the child's head? or will you forgive the 
 child for poor George's sake ? " 
 
 Osborne broke out into a rhapsody of self-praise and impre- 
 cations; — by the first, excusing himself to his own conscience 
 for his conduct; by the second, exaggerating the undutifulness 
 of George. No father in all England could have behaved more 
 generously to a son, who had rebelled against him v/ickedly. 
 He had died without even so much as confessing he was wrong. 
 Let him take the consequences of his undutifulness and folly. 
 As for himself, Mr. Osborne, he was a man of his word. He 
 had sworn never to speak to that woman, or to recognise her as 
 his son's wife. " And that's what you may tell her," he con- 
 cluded with an oath; " and that's what I will stick to to the last 
 day of my life." 
 
 There was no hope from that quarter then. The widow must 
 live on her slender pittance, or on such aid as Jos could give her. 
 " I might tell her, and she would not heed it," thought Dobbin 
 sadly; for the poor girl's thoughts were not here at all since her 
 catastrophe, and, stupefied under the pressure of her sorrow, 
 good and evil were alike indifferent to her. 
 
 So, indeed, were even friendship and kindness. She received 
 them both uncomplainingly, and having accepted them, relapsed 
 into her grief. 
 
 Suppose some twelve months after the above conversation 
 took place to have passed in the life of our poor Amelia. She 
 has spent the first portion of that time in a sorrow so profound 
 and pitiable, that we who have been watching and describing 
 some of the emotions of that weak and tender heart, must draw 
 back in the presence of the cruel grief under which it is bleeding. 
 Tread silently round the hapless couch of the poor prostrate 
 soul. Shut gently the door of the dark chamber wherein she 
 
^B Vanity Fair 
 
 supers, as those kind people did who nursed her through the 
 first months of her pain, and never left her until Heaven had 
 sent her consolation. A day came— of almost terrified delight 
 and wonder-— when the poor widowed girl pressed a child upon 
 her breast— a child, with the eyes of George who was gone— a 
 little boy, as beautiful as a cherub. What a miracle it was to 
 hear its first cry! How she laughed and wept over it— how 
 love, and hope, and prayer woke again in her bosom as the baby 
 nestled there. She was safe. The doctors who attended her, 
 and had feared for her Hfe or for her brain, had waited anxiously 
 for this crisis before they could pronounce that either was 
 secure. It was worth the long months of doubt and dread 
 which the persons who had constantly been with her had passed, 
 to see her eyes once more beaming tenderly upon them. 
 
 Our friend Dobbin was one of them. It was he who brought 
 her back to England and to her mother's house; when Mrs. 
 O'Dowd, receiving a peremptory summons from her Colonel, 
 had been forced to quit her patient. To see Dobbin holding 
 the infant, and to hear Amelia's laugh of triumph as she watched 
 him, would have done any man good who had a sense of humour. 
 William was the godfather of the child, and exerted his ingenuity 
 in the purchase of cups, spoons, papboats^ and corals for this 
 little Christian. 
 
 How his mother nursed him, and dressed him, and lived upon 
 him ; how she drove away all nurses, and would scarce, allow 
 any hand but her own to touch him; how she considered that 
 the greatest favour she could confer upon his godfather. Major 
 Dobbin, was to allow the Major occasionally to dandle him, 
 need not be told here. This child was her being. Her exist- 
 ence was a maternal caress. She enveloped the feeble and uii'- 
 conscious creature with love and worship. It was her life which 
 the baby drank in from her bosom. Of nights, and when alone, 
 she had stealthy and intense raptures of motherly love, such as. 
 God's marvellous care has awarded to the female instinct — 
 jo3^s how far higher and lower than reason — blind beautiful 
 devotions which only women's hearts know. It was William 
 Dobbin's task to muse upon these movements of Amelia's, and 
 to watch her heart; and if his love made him divine almost all 
 the feelings which agitated it, alas ! he could see with a fatal 
 perspicuity that there was no place there for him. And so, 
 gently, he bore his fate, knowing it, and content to bear it. 
 
 I suppose Amelia's father and mother saw through the inten- 
 laons of the Major, and were not ill-disposed to encourage him; 
 
Widow and Mother 359 
 
 for Dobbin visited their house daily^ and stayed for hours with 
 them^ or with Amelia, or with the honest landlord, Mr, Clapp, 
 and his family. He brought, on one pretext or another, presents 
 to everybody, and almost every day; and went, with the land- 
 lord's little girl, who was rather a favourite with Amelia, by 
 the name of Major Sugarplums. It was this little child who 
 connmonly acted as mistress of the ceremonies to introduce him 
 to Mrs. Osborne. She laughed one day when Major Sugar- 
 plums' cab drove up to Fulham, and he descended from it, bring- 
 ing out a wooden horse, a drum, a trumpet, atid other warlike 
 toys, for little Georgy, who was scarcely six months old, and for 
 whom the articles in question were entirely premature. 
 
 The child was asleep. " Hush! " said Amelia, annoyed, per- 
 haps, at the creaking of the Major's boots; and she held out her 
 hand; smiling because William could not take it until he had 
 rid himself of his cargo of toys. " Go downstairs, little Mary," 
 said he presently to the child, " I want to speak to Mrs. 
 Osborne." She looked up rather astonished, and laid down the 
 infant on its bed. 
 
 " I am come to say good-bye, Amelia," said he, taking her 
 slender little white hand gently. 
 
 " Good-bye? and where are you going? " 5he said, with a 
 smile. 
 
 "Send the letters to the agents," he said; ■*' they will for- 
 ward them; for you will write to me, won't you? I shall be 
 away a long time." 
 
 " I'll write to you about Georgy," she said. " Dear William, 
 how good you have been to him and to me. Look at him. 
 Isn't he like an angel ? " 
 
 The Httle pink hands of the child closed mechanically round 
 the honest soldier's finger, and Amelia looked up in his face with 
 bright maternal pleasure. The cruellest looks could not have 
 wounded him more than that glance of hopeless kindness. He 
 bent over the child and mother. He could not speak for a 
 moment. And it was only with all his strength that he could 
 force himself to say a God bless you. " God bless you," said 
 Amelia, and held up her face and kissed him. 
 
 "Hush! Don't wake Georgy!" she added, as William 
 Dobbin went to the door with heavy steps. She did not hear 
 the noise of his cab- wheels as he drove away: she was looking 
 at the child_, who was laughing in his sleep. 
 
360 Vanity Fair 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVI 
 
 HOW TO LIVE WELL ON NOTHING A YEAR 
 
 I SUPPOSE there is no man in this Vanity Fair of ours so little 
 observant as not to think sometimes about the worldly affairs 
 of his acquaintances^ or so extremely charitable as not to wonder 
 how his neighbour Jones^ or his neighbour Smithy can make both 
 ends meet at the end of the year. With the utmost regard for 
 the family^ for instance (for I dine with them twice or thrice in 
 the season), I cannot but own that the appearance of the 
 Jenkinses in the Park, in the large barouche with the grenadier- 
 footmen, will surprise and mystify me to my dying day; for 
 though I know the equipage is only jobbed, and all the Jenkins 
 people are on board wages, yet those three men and the carriage 
 must represent an expense of six hundred a year at the very 
 least — and then there are the splendid dinners, the two boys at 
 Eton, the prize governess and masters for the girls, the trip 
 abroad, or to Eastbourne or Worthing, in the autumn, the 
 annual ball with a supper from Gunter's (who by the way, sup- 
 plies most of the first-rate dinners which J. gives, as I know 
 very well, having been invited to one of them to fill a vacant 
 place, when I saw at once that these repasts are very superior 
 to the common run of entertainments for which the humbler sort 
 of J.'s acquaintances get cards) — who, I say, with the most 
 good-natured feelings in the world, can help wondering how the 
 Jenkinses make out matters ? What is Jenkins ? We all know 
 — Commissioner of the Tape and Sealing-Wax Office, with £1200 
 a year for a salary. Had his wife a private fortune ? Pooh ! — 
 Miss Flint — one of eleven children of a small squire in Bucking- 
 hamshire. All she ever gets from her family is a turkey at 
 Christmas, in exchange for which she has to board two or three 
 of her sisters in the off season; and lodge and feed her brothers 
 when they come to town. How does Jenkins balance his 
 income ? I say, as every friend of his must say. How is it that 
 he has not been outlawed long since; and that he ever came 
 back (as he did to the surprise of everybody) last year from 
 Boulogne? 
 
 " I " is here introduced to personify the world in general — 
 the Mrs. Grundy of each respected reader's private circle — 
 every one of whom can point to some families of his acquaint- 
 
How to Live Well on Nothing a Year 361 
 
 ance who live nobody knows how. Many a glass of wine have 
 we all of us drunk^ I have very little doubt, hob-and-nobbing 
 with the hospitable giver, and wondering how the deuce he paid 
 for it. 
 
 Some three or four years after his stay in Paris, when Rawdon 
 Crawley and his wife were established in a very small comfort- 
 able house in Curzon Street, Mayfair, there was scarcely one of 
 the numerous friends whom they entertained at dinner that did 
 not ask the above question regarding them. The novelist, it 
 has been said before, knows everything, and as I am in a situa- 
 tion to be able to tell the public how Crawley and his wife lived 
 without any income, may I entreat the public newspapers 
 which are in the habit of extracting portions of the various 
 periodical works now published, not to reprint the following 
 exact narrative and calculations — of which I ought, as the dis- 
 coverer (and at some expense, too), to have the benefit ? My 
 son, I would say, were I blessed with a child — you may by deep 
 inquiry and constant intercourse with him, learn how a man 
 lives comfortably on nothing a year. But it is best not to be 
 intimate with gentlemen of this profession, and to take the 
 calculations at second-hand, as you do logarithms, for to work 
 them yourself, depend upon it, will cost you something con- 
 siderable. 
 
 On nothing per annum then, and during a course of some two 
 or three years, of which we can afford to give but a very brief 
 history, Crawley and his wife lived very happily and comfort- 
 ably at Paris. It was in this period that he quitted the Guards, 
 and sold out of the army. When we find him again, his mus- 
 tachios and the title of Colonel on his card are the only relics of 
 his military profession. 
 
 It has been mentioned that Rebecca, soon after her arrival 
 in Paris, took a very smart and leading position in the society 
 of that capital, and was welcomed at some of the most distin- 
 guished houses of the restored French nobility. The English 
 men of fashion in Paris courted her, too, to the disgust of the 
 ladies their wives, who could not bear the parvenue. For some 
 months the salons of the Faubourg St. Germain, in which her 
 place was secured, and the splendours of the new Court, where 
 she was received with much distinction, delighted, and perhaps 
 a little intoxicated Mrs. Crawley, who may have been disposed 
 during this period of elation to slight the people — honest young 
 military men mostly — who formed her husband's chief society. 
 
 But the Colonel yawned sadly among the duchesses and great 
 *M ^98 
 
362 Vanity Fair 
 
 ladies of tlie Court. The old women who played ecarte made 
 stich a noise about a five-franc piece^ that it was not worth 
 Coionel Crawley's while to sit down at a card- table. The wit of 
 their conversation he could not appreciate, being ignorant of 
 their language. And what good could his wife get, he urged, 
 by making curtsies every night to a whole circle of Princesses ? 
 He left Rebecca presently to frequent these parties alone; 
 resuming his own simple pursuits and amusements amongst the 
 amiable friends of his own choice. 
 
 The truth is, when we say of a gentleman that he lives ele- 
 gantly on nothing a year, we use the word " nothing " to signify 
 something unknown; meaning, simply, that we don't know 
 how the gentleman in question defrays the expenses of his estab- 
 lishment. Now, our friend the Colonel had a great aptitude 
 for all games of chance: and exercising himself, as he continu- 
 ally did, with the cards, the dice-box, or the cue, it is natural to 
 suppose that he attained a much greater skill in the use of thes€ 
 articles than men can possess who only occasionally handle 
 them. To use a cue at billiards well is like using a pencil, or a 
 German flute, or a small-sword— you cannot master any one of 
 these implements at first, and it is only by repeated study and 
 perseverance, joined to a natural taste, that a man can excel 
 in the handling of either. Now Crawley, from being only a 
 brilliant amateur, had grown to be a consummate master of 
 billiards. Like a great general, his genius used to rise with the 
 danger, and when the luck had been unfavourable to him for a 
 v/hole game, and the bets were consequently against him, he 
 would, with consummate skill and boldness, make some prodigi- 
 ous hits which would restore the battle, and come in a victor at 
 the end, to the astonishment of everybody — of everybody, that 
 is, who was a stranger to his play. Those who were accustomed 
 to see it were cautious how they staked their money against a 
 man of such sudden resources, and brilliant and overpowering 
 skill. 
 
 At games of cards he was equally skilful; for though he 
 would constantly lose money at the commencement of an even- 
 ing, playing so carelessly and making such blunders, that new- 
 comers were often inclined to think meanly of his talent; yet 
 when roused to action, and awakened to caution by repeated 
 small losses, it was remarked that Crawley's play became quite 
 different, and that he was pretty sure of beating his enemy 
 thoroughly before the night was over. Indeed, very few men 
 could say that they ever had the better of him. 
 
How to Live Well on Nothing a Year 363 
 
 His successes were so repeated that no wonder the envious 
 and the vanquished spoke sometimes with bitterness regarding 
 them. And as the French say of the Duke of Welhngton, who 
 never suffered a defeat, that only an astonishing series of lucky 
 accidents enabled him to be an invariable winner; yet even they 
 allow that he cheated at Waterloo, and was enabled to win the 
 last great trick: — so it was hinted at headquarters in England, 
 that some foul play must have taken place in order to account 
 for the continued successes of Colonel Crawley. 
 
 Though Frascati's and the Salon were open at that time in 
 Paris, the mania for play was so widely spread, that the public 
 gambling-rooms did not suffice for the general ardour, and 
 gambling went on in private houses as much as if there had 
 been no public means for gratifying the passion. At Crawley's 
 charming little reunions of an evening this fatal amusement 
 commonly was practised — much to good-natured little Mrs. 
 Crawley's annoyance. She spoke about her husband's passion 
 for dice with the deepest grief; she bewailed it to everybody 
 who came to her house. She besought the young fellows 
 never, never to touch a box; and when young Green, of the 
 Rifles, lost a very considerable sum of money, Rebecca passed 
 a whole night in tears, as the servant told the unfortunate 
 gentleman, and actually went on her knees to her husband to 
 beseech him to remit the debt, and burn the acknowledgment. 
 How could he? He had lost just as much himself to Black- 
 stone of the Hussars, and Count Punter of the Hanoverian 
 Cavalry. Green might have any decent time; but pay.^* — of 
 course he must pay; to talk of burning I O U's was child's play. 
 
 Other officers, chiefly young — for the young fellows gathered 
 round Mrs. Crawley— came from her parties with long faces, 
 having dropped more or less money at her fatal card-tables. 
 Her house began to have an unfortunate reputation. The old 
 hands warned the less experienced of their danger. Colonel 
 O'Dowd, of the — th regiment, one of those occupying in Paris, 
 warned Lieutenant Spooney of that corps. A loud and violent 
 fracas took place between the infantry colonel and his lady, 
 who were dining at the Cafe de Paris, and Colonel and Mrs. 
 Crawley, who were also taking their meal there. The ladies 
 engaged on both sides. Mrs. O'Dowd snapped her fingers in 
 Mrs. Crawley's face, and called her husband " no betther than 
 a black-hg." Colonel Crawley challenged Colonel O'Dowd, C.B. 
 The Commander-in-Chief hearing of the dispute sent for Colonel 
 Crawley, who was getting ready the same pistols " which, he 
 
364 Vanity Fair 
 
 shot Captain Marker/' and had such a conversation with him 
 that no duel took place. If Rebecca had not gone on her knees to 
 General Tufto, Crawley would have been sent back to England, 
 and he did not play, except with civilians, for some weeks after. 
 
 But, in spite of Rawdon's undoubted skill and constant 
 successes, it became evident to Rebecca, considering these 
 things, that their position was but a precarious one, and that, 
 even although they paid scarcely anybody, their little capital 
 would end one day by dwindling into zero. " Gambling," she 
 would say, " dear, is good to help your income, but not as an 
 income itself. Some day people may be tired of play, and then 
 where are we?" Rawdon acquiesced in the justice of her 
 opinion; and in truth he had remarked that after a few nights 
 of his little suppers, etc., gentlemen were tired of play with 
 him, and, in spite of Rebecca's charms, did not present them- 
 selves very eagerly. 
 
 Easy and pleasant as their life at Paris was, it was after all 
 only an idle dalliance and amiable trifling; and Rebecca saw 
 that she must push Rawdon's fortune in their own country. 
 She must get him a place or appointment at home or in the 
 colonies ; and she determined to make a move upon England as 
 soon as the way could be cleared for her. As a first step she had 
 made Crawley sell out of the Guards, and go on half-pay. His 
 function as aide-de-camp to General Tufto had ceased pre- 
 viously. Rebecca laughed in all companies at that officer, at 
 his toupee (which he mounted on coming to Paris), at his waist- 
 band, at his false teeth, at his pretensions to be a lady-killer 
 above all, and his absurd vanity in fancying every woman whom 
 he came near was in love with him. It was to Mrs. Brent the 
 beetle-browed wife of Mr. Commissary Brent, to whom the 
 General transferred his attentions now— his bouquets, his 
 dinners at the restaurateurs', his opera-boxes, and his nick- 
 nacks. Poor Mrs. Tufto v/as no more happy than before, and 
 had still to pass long evenings alone with her daughters, knowing 
 that her General was gone off scented and curled to stand behind 
 Mrs. Brent's chair at the play. Becky had a dozen admirers in 
 his place to be sure; and could cut her rival to pieces with her 
 wit. But, as we have said, she was growing tired of this idle 
 social life: opera-boxes and restaurateur-dinners palled upon 
 her: nosegays could not be laid by as a provision for future 
 years: and she could not live upon nicknacks, laced hand- 
 kerchiefs, and kid gloves. She felt the frivolity of pleasure, and 
 longed for more substantial benefits. 
 
How to Live Well on Nothing a Year 365 
 
 At this juncture news arrived which was spread among the 
 many creditors of the Colonel at Paris, and which caused them 
 great satisfaction. Miss Crawley, the rich aunt from whom he 
 expected his immense inheritance, was dying; the Colonel must 
 haste to her bedside. Mrs. Crawley and her child would remain 
 behind until he came to reclaim them. He departed for Calais, 
 and having reached that place in safety, it might have been sup- 
 posed that he went to Dover; but instead he took the diligence 
 to Dunkirk, and thence travelled to Brussels, for which place he 
 had a former predilection. The fact is, he owed more money 
 at London than at Paris; and he preferred the quiet little 
 Belgian city to either of the more noisy capitals. 
 
 Her aunt was dead. Mrs. Crawley ordered the most intense 
 mourning for herself and little Rawdon. The Colonel was busy 
 arranging the affairs of the inheritance. They could take the 
 premier now, instead of the little entresol of the hotel which they 
 occupied. Mrs. Crawley and the landlord had a consultation 
 about the new hangings, an amicable wrangle about the carpets, 
 and a final adjustment of everything except the bill. She went 
 off in one of his carriages; her French bonne with her; the child 
 by her side; the admirable landlord and landlady smiling fare- 
 well to her from the gate. General Tufto was furious when he 
 heard she was gone, and Mrs. Brent furious with him for being 
 furious; Lieutenant Spooney was cut to the heart; and the 
 landlord got ready his best apartments previous to the return 
 of the fascinating little woman and her husband. He serred 
 the trunks which she left in his charge with the greatest care. 
 They had been especially recommended to him by Madame 
 Crawley. They were not, however, found to be particularly 
 valuable, when opened some time after. 
 
 But before she went to join her husband in the Belgic capital, 
 Mrs. Crawley made an expedition into England, leaving behind 
 her her little son upon the Continent, under the care of her 
 French maid. 
 
 The parting between Rebecca and the little Rawdon did not 
 cause either party much pain. She had not, to say truth, seen 
 much of the young gentleman since his birth. After the amiable 
 fashion of French mothers, she had placed him out at nurse in a 
 village in the neighbourhood of Paris, where little Rawdon 
 passed the first months of his life, not unhappily, with a numer- 
 ous family of foster-brothers in wooden shoes. His father 
 would ride over many a time to see him here, and the elder 
 Rawdon's paternal heart glowed to see him rosy and dirty, 
 
366 Vanity Fair 
 
 shouting lustily^ and happy in the making of ttwid- pies under 
 the superintendence of the gardener's wife^ his nurse. 
 
 Rebecca did not care much to go and see the son and heir. 
 Once he Spoiled a new dove-coloured pelisse of hers. He pre- 
 ferred his aurse's caresses to his mamma's^ and when finally he 
 quitted that jolly nurse and almost parent, he cried loudly foir 
 hours. He was only consoled by his mother's promise that he 
 should return to his nurse the next day; indeed the nurse her- 
 self^ who probably would have been pained at the parting too, 
 was told that the child would immediately be restored to her, 
 and for some time awaited quite anxiously his return. 
 
 In fact, our friends may be said to have been among the first 
 of that brood of hardy English adventurers who have subse- 
 quently invaded the Continent, and swindled in all the capitals 
 of Europe. The respect in those happy days of 181 7-18 was 
 very great for the wealth and honour of Britons. They had not 
 then learned, as I am told, to haggle for bargains with the per- 
 tinacity which now distinguishes them. The great cities of 
 Europe had not been as yet open to the enterprise of our rascals. 
 And whereas there is now hardly a town of France or Italy in 
 which you shall not see some noble countryman of our own, with 
 that happy swagger and insolence of demeanour which we carry 
 everywhere, swindling inn-landlords, passing fictitious cheques 
 upon credulous bankers, robbing coachmakers of their carriages, 
 goldsmiths of their trinkets, easy travellers Of their money at 
 cards — even public libraries of their books :^ — thirty years ago 
 you needed but to be a Milor Anglais, travelling in a private 
 carriage, and credit was at your hand wherever you chose to 
 seek it, and gentlemen, instead of cheating, were cheated. It 
 was not for some weeks after the Crawleys' departure that the 
 landlord of the hotel which they occupied during their residence 
 at Paris, found out the losses which he had sustained : not until 
 Madame Morabou, the milliner, made repeated visits with her 
 little bill for articles supplied to Madame Crawley; not until 
 Monsieur Didelot from Boule d'Or in the Palais Royal had asked 
 half-a-dozen times whether cette charfnante Miladi who had 
 bought watches and bracelets of him was de retour^ It is a fact 
 that even the poor gardener's wife, who had nursed Madame's 
 child, was never paid after the first six months for that supply 
 of the milk of human kindness with which she had furnished the 
 lusty and healthy little Rawdon. No, not even the nurse was 
 paid — the Crawleys were- in too great a hurry to remember their 
 trifling debt to her* As for the landlord of the hotel, his curses 
 
How to Live Well on Nothing a Year 367 
 
 against the English nation were violent for the rest of his natural 
 life. He asked all travellers whether they knew a certain 
 Colonel Lor Crawley — avec sa femme—une petite dame, tres 
 spirituelle, ''Ah, Monsieur!^* he would add — "Us m'ont 
 affreusement vole.'' It was. melancholy to hear his accents as he 
 spoke of that catastrophe. 
 
 Rebecca's object in her journey to London was to effect a kind 
 of compromise with her husband's numerous creditors, and by 
 offering them a dividend of ninepence or a shilling in the pound, 
 to secure a return for him into his own country. It does not 
 become us to trace tlie steps which she tqok in the conduct of 
 this most difficult negotiation ; but, having shown them to their 
 satisfaction that the sum which she was empowered to offer was 
 all her husband's available capital, and having convinced them 
 that Colonel Crawley would prefer a perpetual retirement on 
 the Continent to a residence in this country with his debts un- 
 settled; having proved to them that there was no possibility 
 of money accruing to him from other quarters, and no earthly 
 chance of their getting a larger dividend than that which she 
 was empowered to offer, she brought the Colonel's creditors 
 unanim.ously to accept her proposals, and purchased, with fifteen 
 hundred pounds of ready money, more than ten times that 
 amount of debts. 
 
 Mrs. Crawley employed no lawyer in the transaction. The 
 matter was so simple, to have or to leave, as she justly observed, 
 that she made the lawyers of the creditors themselves do the 
 business. And Mr. Lewis representing Mr. Davids, of Red Lion 
 Square, and Mr. Moss acting for Mr. Manasseh, of Cursitor 
 Street (chief creditors of the Colonel's), complimented his lady 
 upon the brilliant way in which she did business, and declared 
 that there was no professional man who could beat her. 
 
 Rebecca received their congratulations with perfect modesty; 
 ordered a bottle of sherry and a bread cake to the little dingy 
 lodgings where she dwelt, while conducting the business, to 
 treat the enemy's lawyers: shook hands with them at parting, 
 in excellent good humour, and returned straightway to the Con- 
 tinent, to rejoin her husband and son, and acquaint the former 
 with the glad news of his entire liberation. As for the latter, he 
 had been considerably neglected during his mother's absence by 
 Mademoiselle Genevieve, her French maid; for that young 
 woman, contracting an attachment for a soldier in the garrison 
 of Calais, forgot her charge in the society of this militaire, and 
 little Rawdon very narrowly escaped drowning on Calais sands 
 
368 Vanity Fair 
 
 at this period, where the absent Genevieve left and lost 
 him. 
 
 And so, Colonel and Mrs. Crawley came to London: and it is 
 at their house in Curzon Street, Mayfair, that they really showed 
 the skill which must be possessed by those who would live on 
 the resources above named.* 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVII 
 
 THE SUBJECT CONTINUED 
 
 In the first place^ and as a matter of the greatest necessity, we 
 are bound to describe how a house may be got for nothing a 
 year. These mansions are to be had either unfurnished, where, 
 if you have credit with Messrs. Gillows or Bantings, you can get 
 them splendidly montees and decorated entirely according to 
 your own fancy; or they are to be let furnished; a less trouble- 
 some and complicated arrangement to most parties. It was 
 so that Crawley and his wife preferred to hire their house. 
 
 Before Mr. Bowls came to preside over Miss Crawley's house 
 and cellar in Park Lane, that lady had had for a butler a Mr. 
 Raggles, who was bom on the family estate of Queen's Crawley, 
 and indeed was a younger son of a gardener there. By good 
 conduct, a handsome person and calves, and a grave de- 
 meanour, Raggles rose from the knifeboard to the footboard of 
 the carriage; from the footboard to the butler's pantry. When 
 he had been a certain number of years at the head of Miss 
 Crawley's establishment, where he had had good wages, fat 
 perquisites, and plenty of opportunities of saving, he announced 
 that he was about to contract a matrimonial alliance with a late 
 cook of Miss Crawley's, who had subsisted in an honourable 
 manner by the exercise of a mangle, and the keeping of a small 
 greengrocer's shop in the neighbourhood. The truth is, that the 
 ceremony had been clandestinely performed some years back; 
 although the news of Mr. Raggles' marriage was first brought 
 to Miss Crawley by a little boy and girl of seven and eight years 
 of age, whose continual presence in the kitchen had attracted 
 the attention of Miss Briggs. 
 
 Mr. Raggles then retired and personally undertook the super- 
 intendence of the small shop and the greens. He added milk 
 
How to Live Well on Nothing a Year 369 
 
 and cream, eggs, and country-fed pork to his stores, contenting 
 himself, whilst other retired butlers were vending spirits in 
 public-houses, by dealing in the simplest country produce. And 
 having a good connection amongst the butlers in the neighbour- 
 hood, and a snug back parlour where he and Mrs. Raggles 
 received them, his milk, cream, and eggs got to be adopted by 
 many of the fraternity, and his profits increased every year. 
 Year after year he quietly and modestly amassed money, and 
 when at length that snug and complete bachelor's residence at 
 No. 201 Curzon Street, May fair, lately the residence of the 
 Honourable Frederic Deuceace, gone abroad, with its rich and 
 appropriate furniture by the first makers, was brought to the 
 hammer, who should go in and purchase the lease and furniture 
 of the house but Charles Raggles? A part of the money he 
 borrowed, it is true, and at rather a high interest, from a brother 
 butler, but the chief part he paid down, and it was with no small 
 pride that Mrs. Raggles found herself sleeping in a bed of carved 
 mahogany, with silk curtains, with a prodigious cheval glass 
 opposite to her, and a wardrobe which would contain her, and 
 Raggles, and all the family. 
 
 Of course, they did not intend to occupy permanently an 
 apartment so splendid. It was in order to let the house again 
 that Raggles purchased it. As soon as a tenant was found, he 
 subsided into the greengrocer's shop once more; but a happy 
 thing it was for him to walk out of that tenement and into 
 Curzon Street, and there survey his house — his own house — ■ 
 with geraniums in the window and a carved bronze knocker. 
 The footman occasionally lounging at the area railing, treated 
 him with respect; the cook took her green stuff at his house, and 
 called him Mr. Landlord ; and there was net one thing the tenant 
 did, or one dish which they had for dinner, that Raggles might 
 not know of, if he liked. 
 
 He was a good man; good and happy. The house brought 
 him in so handsome a yearly income, that he was determined to 
 send his children to good schools, and accordingly, regardless 
 of expense, Charles was sent to boarding at Dr. Swishtail's, 
 Sugarcane Lodge, t^nd little Matilda to Miss Peckover's, 
 LaurentinuLi House, Clapham. 
 
 Raggles loved and adored the Crawley family as the author 
 of all his prosperity in life. He had a silhouette of his mistress 
 in his back shop, and a drawing of the Porter's Lodge at Queen's 
 Crawley, done by that spinster nerself in India ink — and the 
 only addition he made to the decorations of the Curzon Street 
 
37^ Vanity Fair 
 
 house was a print of Queen's Crawley in Hampshire^ the seat 
 of Sir Walpole Crawley^ Baronet, who was represented in a 
 gilded car drawn by six white horses, and passing by a lake 
 covered with swans, and barges containing ladies in hoops, and 
 musicians with flags and periwigs. Indeed, Raggles thought 
 there was no such palace in all the world, and no such august 
 family. ,. 
 
 As luck would have it, Raggles' house in Curzon Street was 
 to let when Rawdon and his wife returned to London. The 
 Colonel knew it and its owner quite well; the latter's connection 
 with the Crawley family had been kept up constantly, for 
 Raggles helped Mr. Bowls whenever Miss Crawley received 
 friends. And the old man not only let his house to the Colonel, 
 but officiated as his butler whenever he had company; Mrs. 
 Raggles operating in the kitchen below, and sending up dinners 
 of which old Miss Crawley herself might have approved. This 
 was the way, then, Crawley got his house for nothing; for though 
 Raggles had to pay taxes and rates, and the interest of the mort- 
 gage to the brother butler; and the insurance of his life; and the 
 charges for his children at school ; and the value of the meat and 
 drink which his own family — and for a time that of Colonel 
 Crawley too— consumed ; and though the poor wretch was 
 utterly ruined by the transaction, his children being flung on 
 the streets, and himself driven into the Fleet Prison: yet some- 
 body must pay even for gentlemen who live for nothing a year — 
 and so it was this unlucky Raggles was made the representative 
 of Colonel Crawley's defective capital. 
 
 I wonder how many families are driven to roguery and to ruin 
 by great practitioners in Crawley's way? — how many great 
 noblemen rob their petty tradesmen, condescend to swindle 
 their poor retainers out of wretched little sums, and cheat for a 
 few shillings ? When we read that a nobleman has left for the 
 Continent, or that another noble nobleman has an execution in 
 his house — and that one or other owes six or seven millions, the 
 defeat seems glorious even, and we respect the victim in the 
 vastness of his ruin. But who pities a poor barber who can't 
 get his m^oney for powdering the footmen's heads; or a poor 
 carpenter who has ruined himself by fixing up ornaments and 
 pavihons for my ladies' dejeuner ; or the poor devil of a tailor 
 whom the steward patronises, and who has pledged all he is 
 worth and more, to get the liveries ready, which my lord has 
 done him the honour to bespeak? — ^When the great house 
 tumbles dovm, these miserable wretches fall under it unnoticed; 
 
How to Live Well on Nothing a Year 371 
 
 as they say in the old legends^ before a man goes to the devil 
 tdmself, he sends plenty of other souls thither. 
 
 Rawdon and his wife generously gave their patronage to all 
 Such of Miss Crawley's tradesmen and purveyors as chose to 
 sefve them. Some were willing enough^ especially the poor 
 ones. It was wonderful to see the pertinacity with which 
 the washerwoman from Tooting brought the cart every 
 Saturday, and her bills week after week. Mr. Raggles him- 
 self had to supply the greengroceries. The bill for servants' 
 porter at the Fortune of War public-house is a curiosity in the 
 chronicles of beer. Every servant also was owed the greater 
 part of his wages, and thus kept up perforce an interest in the 
 li'Ouse. Nobody in fact was paid. Not the blacksmith who 
 opened the lock ; not the glazier who mended the pane ; nor the 
 jo^bber who let the carriage; nor the groom who drove it; nor 
 th« butcher who provided the leg of mutton; nor the coals 
 which roasted it; nor the cook who basted it; nor the servants 
 who ate it: and this I am given to understand is not 
 unfrequently the way in which people live elegantly on nothing 
 a year. 
 
 In a iittk town such things cannot be done without remark. 
 We know there the quantity of milk our neighbour takes, and 
 espy the joint or the fowls which are going in for his dinner. 
 So, probably, 200 and 202 in Curzon Street might know what 
 was going on in the house between them, the servants com- 
 municating through the area-railings ; but Crawley and his wife 
 and his friends did not know 200 and 202. When you came to 
 201 there was a hearty welcome, a kind smile, a good dinner, 
 and a jolly shake of the hand from the host and hostess there, 
 just for all the world as if they had been undisputed masters of 
 three or four thousand a year — ^and so they were, not in money, 
 but in produce and labour — if they did not pay for the mutton, 
 they had it; if they did not give bullion in exchange for their 
 wine, how should we know.? Never was better claret at any 
 man's table than at honest Rawdon's; dinners more gay and 
 neatly served. His drawing-rooms were the prettiest little 
 modest salons conceivable: they were decorated with the 
 greatest taste, and a thousand nicknacks from Paris, by Rebecca; 
 and when she sate at her piano trilling songs with a lightsome 
 heart, the stranger voted himself in a little paradise of domestic 
 "comfort, and agreed that, if the husband was rather stupid, the 
 wife was charming, and the dinners the pleasantest in the 
 world. 
 
372 Vanity Fair 
 
 Rebecca's wit, cleverness, and flippancy made her speedily 
 the vogue in London among a certain class. You saw demure 
 chariots at her door, out of which stepped very great people. 
 You beheld her carriage in the Park, surrounded by dandies of 
 note. The little box in the third tier of the Opera was crowded 
 with heads constantly changing; but it must be confessed that 
 the ladies held aloof from her, and that their doors were shut to 
 our little adventurer. 
 
 With regard to the world of female fashion and its customs, 
 the present writer of course can only speak at second-hand. A 
 man can no more penetrate or understand those mysteries than 
 he can know what the ladies talk about when they go upstairs 
 after dinner. It is only by inquiry and perseverance, that one 
 sometimes gets hints of those secrets ; and by a similar diligence 
 every person who treads the Pall Mall pavement and frequents 
 the clubs of this metropolis, knows, either through his own ex- 
 perience or through some acquaintance v/ith whom he plays at 
 billiard or shares the joint, something about the genteel world 
 of London, and how, as there are men (such as Rav/don Crawley, 
 whose position we mentioned before), who cut a good figure to 
 the eyes of the ignorant world and to the apprentices in the 
 Park, who behold them consorting with the most notorious 
 dandies there, so there are ladies, who may be called men's 
 women, being welcomed entirely by all the gentlemen, and cut 
 or slighted by all their wives. Mrs. Firebrace is of this sort; 
 the lady with the beautiful fair ringlets whom you see every day 
 in Hyde Park, surrounded by the greatest and most famous 
 dandies of this empire. Mrs. Rockwood is another, whose 
 parties are announced laboriously in the fashionable newspapers, 
 and with whom you see that all sorts of ambassadors and great 
 noblemen dine; and many more might be mentioned had they 
 to do with the history at present in hand. But while simple 
 folks who are out of the world, or country people with a taste 
 for the genteel, behold these ladies in their seeming glory in 
 public places, or envy them from afar off, persons who are 
 better instructed could inform them that these envied ladies 
 have no more chance of establishing themselves in " Society," 
 that the benighted squire's wife in Somersetshire, who reads of 
 their doings in the Morning Post. Men living about London 
 are aware of these awful truths. You hear how pitilessly many 
 ladies of seeming rank and wealth are excluded from this 
 " Society." The frantic efforts which they make to enter 
 this circle, the meannesses to which they submit, the insults 
 
How to Live Well on Nothing a Year 373 
 
 which they undergo, are matters of wonder to those who take 
 human or woman kind for a study; and the pursuit of fashion 
 under difficulties would be a fine theme for any very great 
 person who had the wit, the leisure, and the knowledge of the 
 English language necessary for the compiling of such a history. 
 
 Now the few female acquaintances whom Mrs. Crawley had 
 known abroad, not only declined to visit her when she came to 
 this side of the Channel, but cut her severely when they met in 
 public places. It was curious to see how the great ladies forgot 
 her, and no doubt not altogether a pleasant study to Rebecca. 
 When Lady Bareacres met her in the waiting-room at the Opera, 
 she gathered her daughters about her as if they would be con- 
 taminated by a touch of Becky, and retreating a step or two, 
 placed herself in front of them, and stared at her little enemy. 
 To stare Becky out of countenance required a severer glance 
 than even the frigid old Bareacres could shoot out of her dismal 
 eyes. When Lady de la Mole, who had ridden a score of times 
 by Becky's side at Brussels, met Mrs. Crawley's open carriage 
 in Hyde Park, her Ladyship was quite blind, and could not in 
 the least recognise her former friend. Even Mrs. Blenkinsop, 
 the banker's wife, cut her at church. Becky went regularly to 
 church now; it was edifying to see her enter there with Rawdon 
 by her side, carrying a couple of large gilt prayer-books, and 
 afterwards going through the ceremony with the gravest resig- 
 nation. 
 
 Rawdon at first felt very acutely the slights which were 
 passed upon his wife, and was inclined to be gloomy and savage. 
 He talked of calling out the husbands or brothers of every one 
 of the insolent women who did not pay a proper respect to his 
 wife ; and it was only by the strongest commands and entreaties 
 on her part, that he was brought into keeping a decent behaviour. 
 " You can't shoot me into society," she said good-naturedly. 
 " Remember, my dear, that I was but a governess, and you, 
 you poor silly old man, have the worst reputation for debt, and 
 dice, and all sorts of wickedness. We shall get quite as many 
 friends as we want by-and-by, and in the meanwhile you must 
 be a good boy, and obey your schoolmistress in everything she 
 tells you to do. When we heard that your aunt had left almost 
 everything to Pitt and his wife, do you remember what a rage 
 you were in? You would have told all Paris, if I had not 
 made you keep your temper, and where would you have been 
 now ? — in prison at Ste. Pelagie for debt, and not established in 
 London in a handsome house, with every comfort about you — 
 
J74 Vanity Fair 
 
 you were in such a fury you were ready to murder your brothe-r-^ 
 you wicked Cain you^ and what good would have come of re-^ 
 maining angry? All the rage in the world won't get us your 
 aunt's money; and it is much better that we should be friends, 
 with your brother's family than enemies^ as those foolish Butes 
 are. When your father dies. Queen's Crawley will be a pleasant 
 house for you and me to pass the winter in. If we are ruined, 
 you can carve and take charge of the stable, and I can be a 
 governess to Lady Jane's children. Ruined! fiddlededee! I 
 will get you a good place before that; or Pitt and his little boy 
 will die, and we will be Sir Rawdon and my lady. While there 
 is life, there is hope, my dear, and I intend to make a man of you 
 yet. Who sold your horses for you ? Who paid your debts for 
 you ? " Eawdon was obliged to confess that he owed all these 
 benelits to his wife, and to trust himself to her guidance for the 
 future.. 
 
 Indeed, when Miss Crawley quitted the world, and that money 
 for which all her relatives had been fighting so eagerly was 
 finally left to Pitt, Bute Crawley, who found that only five thou- 
 sand pounds had been left to him instead of the twenty upon 
 which he calculated, was in such a fury at his disappointment, 
 %hsit he vented it in savage abuse upon his nephew; and the 
 quarrel always rankling between them ended in an utter breach 
 of intercourse. Rawdon Crawley's conduct, on the other han-d, 
 who got but a hundred pounds, was such as to astonish his 
 brother and delight his sister-in-law, who was disposed to look 
 kindly upon all the members of her husband's family. He wrote 
 to his brother a very frank, manly, good-humoured letter from 
 Paris. He was aware, he said^ that by his own marriage he had 
 forfeited his aunt's favour; and though he did not disguise his 
 disappointment that, she should have been so entirely relentless 
 towards him, he was glad that the money was still kept in their 
 branch of the family, and heartily congratulated his brother on 
 his good fortune. He sent his affectionate remembrances to his 
 sister, and hoped to have her good-will for Mrs. Rawdon; and 
 the letter concluded with a postscript to Pitt in the latter lady's 
 Qwn handwriting. She, too, begged to join in her husband's 
 congratulations. She should ever remember Mr. Crawley's 
 kindness to her in early days when she was a friendless orphan, 
 the instructress of his little sisters, in whose welfare she still 
 took the tenderest interest. She wished him every happiness 
 in liis married life, and, asking his permission to offer her re- 
 membrances to Lady Jane (of whose goodness all the world 
 
How to Live Well on Nothing a Year 375 
 
 informed her), she hoped that one day she might be allowed to 
 present her little boy to his uncle and aunt, and begged to 
 bespeak for him their good-will and protection. 
 
 Pitt Crawley received this communication very graciously — 
 more graciously than Miss Crawley had received some of 
 Rebecca's previous compositions in Rawdon's handwriting; 
 and as for Lady Jane, she was so charmed with the letter, that 
 she expected her husband would instantly divide his aunt's 
 legacy into two equal portions, and send off one half to his 
 brother at Paris. 
 
 To her Ladyship's surprise, however, Pitt declined to accom- 
 modate his brother with a cheque for thirty thousand pounds. 
 But he made Rawdon a handsome offer of his hand whenever 
 the latter should come to England and choose to take it; and, 
 thanking Mrs. Crawley for her good opinion of himself and Lady 
 Jane, he graciously pronounced his wiRingness to take any 
 opportunity to serve her little boy. 
 
 Thus an almost reconciliation was brought about between the 
 brothers. When Rebecca came to town Pitt and his wife were 
 not in London. Many a time she drove by the old door in Park 
 Lane to see whether they had taken possession of Miss Crawley's 
 house there. But the new family did not make its appearance ; 
 it was only through Raggles that she heard of their movements 
 —how Miss Crawley's domestics had been dismissed with decent 
 gratuities, and how Mr. Pitt had only once made his appear- 
 ance in London, when he stopped for a few days at the house, 
 did business with his lawyers there, and sold off all Miss Crawley's 
 French novels to a bookseller out of Bond Street. Becky had 
 reasons of her own which caused her to long for the arrival of 
 her new relation. " When Lady Jane comes," thought she, 
 " she shall be my sponsor in London society; and as for the 
 women! bah! the women will ask me when they find the men 
 want to see me." 
 
 An article as necessary to a lady in this position as her 
 brougham or her bouquet, is her companion. I have always 
 admired the way in which the tender creatures, who cannot 
 exist without sympathy, hire an exceedingly plain friend of 
 their own sex from whom they are almost inseparable. The 
 sight of that inevitable woman in her faded gown seated behind 
 her dear friend in the opera-box, or occupying the back seat of 
 the barouche, is always a wholesome and moral one to me, as 
 jolly a reminder as that of the Death's-head which figured in the 
 
376 Vanity Fair 
 
 repasts of Egyptian bons vtvants, a strange sardonic memorial 
 of Vanity Fair. What? — even battered, brazen, beautiful, 
 conscienceless, heartless Mrs. Firebrace, whose father died of 
 her shame: even lovely, daring Mrs. Mantrap, who will ride at 
 any fence which any man in England will take, and who drives 
 her greys in the Park, while her mother keeps a huckster's stall 
 in Bath still; — even those v*^ho are so bold, one might fancy they 
 could face anything, dare not face the world without a female 
 friend. They must have somebody to cling to, the affectionate 
 creatures! And you will hardly see them in any public place 
 without a shabby companion in a dyed silk, sitting somewhere in 
 the shade close behind them. 
 
 " Rawdon," said Becky, very late one night, as a party of 
 gentlemen were seated round her crackling drawing-room fire 
 (for the men came to her house to finish the night; and she had 
 ice and coffee for them, the best in London): " I must have a 
 sheep-dog." 
 
 " A what? " said Rawdon, looking up from an ecarte table. 
 
 "A sheep-dog!" said young Lord Southdown. "My dear 
 Mrs. Crawley, what a fancy! Why not have a Danish dog? I 
 know of one as big as a camel-leopard, by Jove. It would 
 almost pull your brougham. Or a Persian greyhound, eh? (I 
 propose, if you please); or a little pug that would go into one of 
 Lord Ste5me's snuff-boxes? There's a man at Bayswater got 
 one with such a nose that you might, — I mark the king and play, 
 ■ — that you might hang your hat on it." 
 
 " I mark the trick," Rawdon gravely said. He attended to 
 his game commonly, and didn't much meddle with the conver- 
 sation except when it was about horses and betting. 
 
 "What can you want with a shepherd's dog?" the lively 
 little Southdown continued. 
 
 " I mean a moral shepherd's dog," said Becky, laughing, and 
 looking up at Lord Ste5me. 
 
 " What the devil's that? " said his Lordship. 
 
 " A dog to keep the wolves off me," Rebecca continued. 
 " A companion." 
 
 " Dear little innocent lamb, you want one," said the Marquis; 
 and his jaw thrust out, and he began to grin hideously, his little 
 eyes leering towards Rebecca. 
 
 The great Lord of Steyne was standing by the fire sipping 
 coffee. The fire crackled and blazed pleasantly. There was a 
 score of candles sparkling round the mantelpiece, in all sorts of 
 quaint sconces, of gilt and bronze and porcelain. They lighted 
 
How to Live Well on Nothing a Year 377 
 
 up Rebecca's figure to admiration, as she sate on a sofa covered 
 with a pattern of gaudy flowers. She was in a pink dress, that 
 looked as fresh as a rose; her dazzling white arms and shoulders 
 were half-covered with a thin hazy scarf through which they 
 sparkled; her hair hung in curls round her neck; one of her 
 little feet peeped out from the fresh crisp folds of the silk: the 
 prettiest little foot in the prettiest little sandal in the finest silk 
 stocking in the world. 
 
 The candles lighted up Lord Steyne's shining bald head, 
 which was fringed with red hair. He had thick bushy eyebrows, 
 with little twinkling bloodshot eyes, surrounded by a thousand 
 wrinkles. His jaw was underhung, and when he laughed, two 
 white buck-teeth protruded themselves and glistened savagely 
 in the midst of the grin. He had been dining with royal person- 
 ages, and wore his garter and ribbon. A short man was his 
 Lordship, broad-chested, and bow-legged, but proud of the 
 fineness of his foot and ankle, and always caressing his garter- 
 knee. 
 
 " And so the Shepherd is not enough," said he, " to defend 
 his lambkin? " 
 
 " The Shepherd is too fond, of playing at cards and going to 
 his clubs," answered Becky, laughing. 
 
 " 'Gad, what a debauched Corydon! " said my Lord — " what 
 a mouth for a pipe ! " 
 
 " I take your three to two," here said Rawdon, at the card- 
 table. 
 
 "Hark at Meliboeus," snarled the noble Marquis; *' he's 
 pastorally occupied too: he's shearing a Southdown. What an 
 innocent mutton, hey? Damme, what a snowy fleece! " 
 
 Rebecca's eyes shot out gleams of scornful humour. " My 
 Lord," she said, " you are a knight of the Order." He had the 
 collar round his neck, indeed — a gift of the restored Princes of 
 Spain. 
 
 Lord Steyne in early life had been notorious for his daring and 
 his success at play. He had sat up two days and two nights 
 with Mr. Fox at hazard. He had won money of the most august 
 personages of the realm: he had won his marquisate, it was 
 said, at the gaming-table; but he did not like an allusion to 
 those bygone fredaines. Rebecca saw the scowl gathering over 
 his heavy brow. 
 
 She rose up from her sofa, and went and took his coffee-cup 
 out of his hand with a little curtsey. " Yes," she said, " I must 
 get a watchdog. But he won't bark at you." And, going into 
 
37^ Vanity Fair 
 
 fche other drawing-room, she sate down to the piano, and began 
 to sing Httle French songs in such a charming, thrilling voice, 
 that the mollified nobleman speedily followed her into that 
 ■chamber, and might be seen nodding his head and bowing time 
 over her. 
 
 Rawdon and his friend meanwhile played ecarte until they 
 had enough. The Colonel won; but, say that he won ever so 
 much and often, nights like these, which occurred many times 
 in the week-— ^his wife having all the talk and all the admiration, 
 and he sitting silent without the circle, not comprehending a 
 word of the jokes, the allusions, the mystical language within — 
 must have been rather wearisome to the ex-dragoon. 
 
 " How is Mrs. Crawley's husband? '^ Lord Steyne used to say 
 to him by way of a good-day when they met: and indeed that 
 was now his avocation in life. He was Colonel Crawley no 
 more. He was Mrs. Crawley's husband. 
 
 About the little Rawdon, if nothing has been said all this 
 while, it is because he is hidden upstairs in a garret somewhere 
 or has crawled below into the kitchen for companionship. His 
 mother scarcely ever took notice of him. He passed the days 
 with his French bonne as long as that domestic remained in Mr. 
 Crawley's family, and when the Frenchwoman went away, the 
 little fellow, howling in the loneliness of the night, had compas- 
 sion taken on him by a housemaid, who took him out af his 
 solitary nursery into her bed in the garret hard by, and com- 
 forted him. 
 
 Rebecca, my Lord Steyne, and one or two more were in the 
 drawing-room taking tea after the Opera, when this shouting 
 was heard overhead. "It's my cherub crying for his nurse," 
 she said. She did not offer to move to go and see the child. 
 "" Don't agitate your feelinsgs by going to look for him," said 
 Lord Steyne sardonically. " Bah! " replied the other, with 
 a sort of blushj " he'll cry himself to sleep; " and they Ml to 
 talking about the Opera. 
 
 Rawdon had stolen off though, to look after his son and heir; 
 and came back to the company when he found that honest Dolly 
 was consoling the child. The Colonel's dressing-room was in 
 those upper regions. He used to see the boy there in private. 
 They had interviews together every morning when he shaved; 
 Rawdon minor sitting on a box by his father's side, and watch- 
 ing the operation with never-ceasing pleasure. He and the sire 
 were great friends. The father would bring him sweetmeats 
 
How to Live Well on Nothing a Year 379 
 
 from the dessert^ and hide them in a certain old epaulet box, 
 where the child went to see them, and laughed with joy on dis- 
 covering the treasure; laughed, but not too loud; for mamma 
 was below asleep and must not be disturbed. She did not go 
 to rest till very late, and seldom rose till after noon. 
 
 Rawdon bought the boy plenty of picture-books, and crammed 
 his nursery with toys. Its walls were covered with pictures 
 pasted up by the father's own hand, and purchased by him for 
 ready-money. When he was off duty with Mrs. Rawdon in the 
 Park, he would sit up here, passing hours with the boy; who 
 rode on his chest, who pulled his great mustachios as if they 
 were' driving-reins, and spent days with him in indefatigable 
 gambols. The room was a low room, and once, when the child 
 was not five years old, his father, who was tossing him wildly 
 up in his arms, hit the poor little chap's skull so violently against 
 the ceiling that he almost dropped the child, sa terrifie<i! was he 
 at the disaster. 
 
 Rawdon minor had made up his face for a tremendous howl 
 — the severity of the blow indeed authorised that indulgence; 
 but just as he was going to begin, the father interposed. 
 
 " For God's sake, Rawdy, don'^t wake mamma," he cried. 
 And the child, looking in a very hard and piteous way at his 
 father, bit his lips, clenched his hands, and didn't cry a bit. 
 Rawdon told that story at the clubs, at the mess, to everybody 
 m towa. " By Gad, sir," he explained to the public in general, 
 " what a good plucked one that boy of mine is — what a trump 
 he is ! I half sent his head through the ceiling, by Gad, and he 
 wouldn't cry for fear of disturbing his mother." 
 
 Sometimes — once or twice in a week — that lady visited the 
 upper regions in which the child lived. She came like a vivified 
 figure out of the Magasin des Modes — blandly smiling in the 
 most beautiful new clothes and little glaves and boots. Wonder- 
 ful scarfs, laces, and jewels glittered about her. She had always 
 a new bonnet on: and flowers bloomed perpetually in it: or 
 else magnificent curling ostrich feathers, soft and snowy as 
 camellias. She nodded twice or thrice patronisingly to the little 
 boy, who looked up from his dinner or from the pictures of 
 soldiers he was painting. When she left the room, an odour of 
 rose, or some other magical fragrance, lingered about the 
 nursery. She was an unearthly being in his eyes, superior to his 
 father — -to all the world: to be worshipped and admired at a 
 distance. To drive with that lady in the carriage was an awful 
 rite: he sate up in the back seat, and did not dare to speak: 
 
380 Vanity Fair 
 
 he gazed with all his eyes at the beautifully dressed princess 
 opposite to him. Gentlemen on splendid prancing horses came 
 up, and smiled and talked with her. How her eyes beamed 
 upon all of them! Her hand used to quiver and wave grace- 
 fully as they passed. When he went out with her he had his 
 new red dress on. His old brown holland was good enough when 
 he stayed at home. Sometimes when she was away, and Dolly 
 his maid was making his bed, he came into his mother's room. 
 It was as the abode of a fairy to him — a mystic chamber of 
 splendour and delights. There in the wardrobe hung those 
 wonderful robes — pink and blue, and many-tinted. There was 
 the jewel-case, silver-clasped: and the wondrous bronze hand 
 on the dressing-table, glistening all over with a hundred rings. 
 There was the cheval-glass, that miracle of art, in which he 
 could just see his own wondering head, and the reflection of 
 Dolly (queerly distorted, and as if up in the ceiling), plumping 
 and patting the pillows of the bed. Oh, thou poor lonely little 
 benighted boy! Mother is the name for God in the lips and 
 hearts of little children; and here was one who was worshipping 
 a stone ! 
 
 Now Rawdon Crawley, rascal as the Colonel was, had certain 
 manly tendencies of affection in his heart, and could love a child 
 and a woman still. For Rawdon minor he had a great secret 
 tenderness then, which did not escape Rebecca, though she did 
 not talk about it to her husband. It did not annoy her; she 
 was too good-natured. It only increased her scorn for him. 
 He felt somehow ashamed of this paternal softness, and hid 
 it from his wife — only indulging in it when alone with the 
 boy. 
 
 He used to take him out of mornings, when they would go to 
 the stables together and to the Park. Little Lord Southdown, 
 the best-natured of men, who would make you a present of the 
 hat from his head, and whose main occupation in life was to buy 
 nicknacks that he might give them away afterwards, bought the 
 little chap a pony not much bigger than a large rat, the donor 
 said, and on this little black Shetland pigmy young Rawdon's 
 great father was pleased to mount the boy, and to walk by his 
 side in the Park. It pleased him to see his old quarters, and his 
 old fellow-guardsmen at Knightsbridge : he had begun to think 
 of his bachelorhood with something like regret. The old 
 troopers were glad to recognise their ancient officer, and dandle 
 the little Colonel. Colonel Crawley found dining at mess and 
 with his brother-officers very pleasant. " Hang it, I ain't 
 
How to Live Well on Nothing a Year 381 
 
 clever enough for her — I know it. She won't miss me/' he used 
 to say: and he was right^, his wife did not miss him. 
 
 Rebecca was fond of her husband. She was always perfectly 
 good-humoured and kind to him. She did not even show her 
 scorn much for him ; perhaps she liked him the better for being 
 a fool. He was her upper servant and maitre d'hote!. He went 
 on her errands: obeyed her orders without question: drove in 
 the carriage in the ring with her without repining; took her to 
 the Opera-box; solaced himself at his club during the perform- 
 ance, and came punctually back to fetch her when due. He 
 would have liked her to be a little fonder of the boy : but even 
 to that he reconciled himself. " Hang it, you know, she's so 
 clever," he said, " and I'm not literary and that, you know." 
 For, as we have said before, it requires no great v/isdom to 
 be able to win at cards and billiards, and Rawdon made no 
 pretensions to any other sort of skill. 
 
 When the companion came, his domestic duties became very 
 light. His wife encouraged him to dine abroad: she would let 
 him off duty at the Opera. " Don't stay and stupefy yourself 
 at home to-night, my dear," she would say. " Some men are 
 coming who will only bore you. I would not ask them, but you 
 know it's for your good, and now I have a sheep-dog, I need not 
 be afraid to be alone." 
 
 " A sheep-dog — a companion ! Becky Sharp with a com- 
 panion! Isn't it good fun? " thought Mrs. Crawley to herself. 
 The notion tickled hugely her sense of humour. 
 
 One Sunday morning, as Rawdon Crawley, his little son, and 
 the pony were taking their accustomed walk in the Park, they 
 passed by an old acquaintance of the Colonel's, Corporal Clink, 
 of the regiment, who was in conversation with a friend, an old 
 gentleman, who held a boy in his arms about the age of little 
 Rawdon. This other youngster had seized hold of the Waterloo 
 medal wliich the Corporal wore, and was examining it with 
 delight. 
 
 " Good morning, your honour," said Clink, in reply to the 
 " How do. Clink? " of the Colonel. " This 'ere young gentle- 
 man is about the young Colonel's age, sir/' continued the 
 Corporal. 
 
 " His father was a Waterloo man, too," said the old gentle- 
 man, who carried the boy. " Wasn't he, Georgy? " 
 
 " Yes/' said Georgy. He and the little chap on the pony 
 
38a Vanity Fair 
 
 were looking at eath otiief 'V^ith -all theif might— solemnly scan- 
 ning each other as children do. 
 
 " In a line regiment/' Clink said, with a patronising air. 
 
 " He was a Captain in the — ^th regiment/' said the old gentle- 
 man rather pompously. " Captain George Osborne, sir— 
 perhaps you knew him. He died the death of a herb, sir, fighting 
 against the Corsican tyrant." 
 
 Colonel Crawley blushed quite red. " I knew him very well, 
 sir/' he said, "and his wife, his dear little wife, sir— how is 
 she?" 
 
 " She is my daughter, sir," said the old gentleman, putting 
 down the boy, and taking out a card with great solemnityj 
 which he handed to the Colonel. On it was written — 
 
 " Mr. Sedley, Sole Agent for the Black Diamond and Anti- 
 Cinder Coal Association, Blunker's Wharf, Thames Street, and 
 Anna-Maria Cottages, Fulham Road West." 
 
 Little Georgy went up and looked at the Shetland pony. 
 
 " Should you like to have a ride? " said Rawdon minor from 
 the saddle. 
 
 " Yes," said Georgy. The Colonel, who had been looking at 
 him with some interest, took up the child and put him on the 
 pony behind Rawdon minor. 
 
 " Take hold of him, Georgy," he said—" take my little boy 
 round the waist — his name is Rawdon." And both the children 
 began to laugh. 
 
 " You won't see a prettier pair, I think, this summer's day, 
 sir," said the good-natured Corporal; and the Colonel, the 
 Corporal, and old Mr. Sedley with his umbrellaj walked by the 
 side of the children. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVIII 
 
 A FAMILY IN A VERY SMALL WAY 
 
 We must suppose little George Osborne has ridden from Knights- 
 bridge towards Fulham, and will stop and make inquiries at that 
 village regarding some friends whom we have left there. How 
 is Mrs. Amelia after the storm of Waterloo ? Is she living and 
 thriving? What has come of Major Dobbin, whose cab was 
 always hankering about her premises? and is there any news 
 
A Family in a Very Small Way 383 
 
 of the- Collector of Boggley Wollah? The facts concerning the 
 latter are briefly these. 
 
 Our worthy fat friend Joseph Sedley returned to India not 
 long after his escape from Brussels. Either his furlough was 
 up^ or he dreaded to meet any witnesses of his Waterloo flight. 
 However it might be^ he went back to his duties in Benga] very 
 soon after Napoleon had taken up his residence at St. Helena^' 
 where Jos saw the ex-Emperor. To hear Mr. Sedley talk on 
 board ship you would have supposed that it was not the first 
 time he and the Corsican had met^ and that the civilian had 
 bearded the French General at Mount St. John. He had a 
 thousand anecdotes about the famous battles; he knew the 
 position of every regiment, and the loss which each had incurred. 
 He did not deny that he had been concerned in those victories— 
 that he had been with the army, and carried despatches for the 
 Duke of Wellington. And he described what the Duke did and 
 said on every conceivable moment of the day of Waterloo, with 
 such an accurate knowledge of his Grace's sentiments and pro- 
 ceedings, that it was clear he must have been by the conqueror's 
 side throughout the day; though, as a non-combatant, his name 
 was not mentioned in the public documents relative to the 
 battle. Perhaps he actually worked himself up to believe that 
 he had been engaged with the army; certain it is that he made 
 a prodigious sensation for some time at Calcutta, and was called 
 Waterloo Sedley during the whole of his soabsequent stay in 
 Bengal. 
 
 The bills which Jos- had givm for the purchase of those un- 
 lucky horses were paid without question by him and his agents. 
 He never was heard to allude to the bargain, and nobody knows 
 for a certainty what became of the horses, or how he got rid of 
 them, or of Isidor, his Belgian servant, who sold a grey horse, 
 very like the one which Jos rode, at Valenciennes some time 
 during the autumn of 1815-. 
 
 Jos's London agents had orders to pay one hundred and 
 twenty pounds yearly to his parents at Fulham. It was the 
 chief support of the old couple; for Mr. Sedley's speculations in 
 life subsequent to his bankruptcy did not by any means retrieve 
 the broken old gentleman's fortune. He tried to be a wine- 
 merchant, a coal-merchant, a commission lottery agent, etc., 
 etc. He sent round prospectuses to his friends whenever he 
 took a new trade,^ and ordered a new brass plate for the dOor, 
 and talked pompously about making his fortune still. But 
 i Fortune never came back to the feeble and stricken old man. 
 
384 Vanity Fair 
 
 One by one his friends dropped off, and were weary of bujdng 
 dear coals and bad wine from him; and there was only his wife 
 in all the world who fancied, when he tottered off to the City of 
 a morning, that he was still doing any business there. At even- 
 ing he crawled slowly back; and he used to go of nights to a 
 little club at a tavern, where he disposed of the finances of the 
 nation. It was wonderful to hear him talk about millions, and 
 agios, and discounts, and what Rothschild was doing, and Baring 
 Brothers. He talked of such vast sums that the gentlemen of 
 the club (the apothecary, the undertaker, the great carpenter 
 and builder, the parish clerk, who was allowed to come stealthily, 
 and Mr. Clapp, our old acquaintance), respected the old gentle- 
 man. " I was better off once, sir," he did not fail to tell every- 
 body who " used the room." " My son, sir, is at this minute 
 chief magistrate of Ramgunge in the Presidency of Bengal, and 
 touching his four thousand rupees per mensem. My daughter 
 might be a Colonel's lady if she liked. I might draw upon my 
 son, the first magistrate, sir, for two thousand pounds to- 
 morrow, and Alexander would cash my bill, down sir, down on 
 the counter, sir. But the Sedleys were always a proud family." 
 You and I, my dear reader, may drop into this condition one 
 day: for have not many of our friends attained it? Our luck 
 may fail: our powers forsake us: our place on the boards be 
 taken by better and younger mimes — the chance of life roll 
 away and leave us shattered and stranded. Then men will 
 walk across the road when they meet you — or, worse still, hold 
 you out a couple of fingers and patronise you in a pitying way — 
 then you will know, as soon as your back is turned, that your 
 friend begins with a " Poor Devil, what imprudences he has 
 committed, what chances that chap has thrown away ! " Well, 
 well — a carriage and three thousand a year is not the summit 
 of the reward nor the end of God's judgment of men. If quacks 
 prosper as often as they go to the wall — if zanies succeed and 
 knaves arrive at fortune, and, vice versa, sharing ill-luck and 
 prosperity for all the world like the ablest and most honest 
 amongst us — I say, brother, the gifts and pleasures of Vanity 
 Fair ca nnot be held of any great account, and that it is prob- 
 able . . . But we are wandering out of the domain of the 
 story. 
 
 Had Mrs. Sedley been a woman of energy, she would have 
 exerted it after her husband's ruin, and, occupying a large house, 
 would have taken in boarders. The broken Sedley would have 
 acted well as the boarding-house landlady's husband; the 
 
A Family in a Very Small Way 385 
 
 Munoz of private life; the titular lord and master: the carver, 
 house-steward, and humble husband of the occupier of the dingy 
 throne. I have seen men of good brains and breeding, and of 
 good hopes and vigour once, who feasted squires and kept 
 hunters in their youth, meekly cutting up legs of mutton for 
 rancorous old harridans, and pretending to preside over their 
 dreary tables — but Mrs. Sedley, we say, had not spirit enough 
 to bustle about for " a few select inmates to join a cheerful 
 musical family," such as one reads of in the Times. She was 
 content to lie on the shore where Fortune had stranded her — and 
 you could see that the career of this old couple was over. 
 
 I don't think they were unhappy. Perhaps they were a 
 little prouder in their downfall than in their prosperity. Mrs. 
 Sedley was always a great person for her landlady, Mrs. 
 Clapp, when she descended and passed many hours with her 
 in the basement or ornamented kitchen. The Irish maid Betty 
 Flanagan's bonnets and ribbons, her sauciness, her idleness, her 
 reckless prodigality of kitchen candles, her consumption of tea 
 and sugar, and so forth, occupied and amused the old lady almost 
 as much as the doings of her former household, when she had 
 Sambo and the coachman, and a groom, and a footboy, and a 
 housekeeper with a regiment of fem.ale domestics — her former 
 household, about which the good lady talked a hundred times 
 a day. And besides Betty Flanagan, Mrs. Sedley had all the 
 maids-of-all-work in the street to superintend. She knew how 
 each tenant of the cottages paid or owed his little rent. She 
 stepped aside when Mrs. Rougemont the actress passed with her 
 dubious family. She flung up her head when Mrs. Pestler, the 
 apothecary's lady, drove by in her husband's professional one- 
 horse chaise. She had colloquies with the greengrocer about 
 the pennorth of turnips which Mr. Sedley loved: she kept an 
 eye upon the milkman and the baker's boy; and made visita- 
 tions to the butcher, who sold hundreds of oxen very likely with 
 less ado than was made about Mrs. Sedley's loin of mutton: and 
 she counted the potatoes under the joint on Sundays, on which 
 days, drest in her best, she went to church twice, and read Blair's 
 Sermons in the evening. 
 
 On that day, for " business " prevented him on week-days 
 from taking such a pleasure, it was old Sedley's delight to take 
 out his little grandson Georgy to the neighbouring Parks or 
 Kensington Gardens, to see the soldiers or to feed the ducks. 
 Georgy loved the redcoats, and his grandpapa told him how his 
 father had been a famous soldier, and introduced him to many 
 N298 
 
386 Vanity Fair 
 
 sergeants and others with Waterloo medals on their breasts^ to 
 whom the old grandfather pompously presented the child as 
 the son of Captain Osborne of the — th, who died gloriously on 
 the glorious eighteenth. He has been known to treat some of 
 these non-commissioned gentlemen to a glass of porter, and^ 
 indeed, in their first Sunday walks was disposed to spoil little 
 Georgy, sadly gorging the boy with apples and parhament, to 
 the detriment of his health — until Amelia declared that George 
 should never go out with his grandpapa, unless the latter 
 promised solemnly, and on his honour, not to give the child 
 any cakes, lollipops, or stall-produce whatever. 
 
 Between Mrs. Sedley and her daughter there was a sort of 
 coolness about this boy, and a secret jealousy — for one evening 
 in George's very early days, Amelia, who had been seated at 
 work in their little parlour, scarcely remarking that the old 
 lady had quitted the room, ran upstairs instinctively to the 
 nuisery at the cries of the child, who had been asleep until that 
 moment — and there found Mrs. Sedley in the act of surrepti- 
 tiously administering Daffy's Elixir to the infant. Amelia, the 
 gentlest and sweetest of every-day mortals, when she found 
 this meddling with her maternal authority, thrilled and trembled 
 all over with anger. Her cheeks, ordinarily pale, now flushed 
 up, until they were as red as they used to be when she was a 
 child of twelve years old. She seized the baby out of her 
 mother's arms, and then grasped at the bottle, leaving the old 
 lady gaping at her, furious, and holding the guilty tea-spoon. 
 
 Amelia flung the bottle crashing into the fireplace. " I will 
 not have baby poisoned, mamma," cried Emmy, rocking the 
 infant about violently with both her arms round him^ and turn- 
 ing with flashing eyes at her mother. 
 
 "Poisoned, Amelia!" said the old lady; "this language to 
 me?" 
 
 " He shall not have any medicine but that which Mr. Pestler 
 sends for him. He told me that Daffy's Elixir was poison." 
 
 " Very good: you think I'm a murderess then," replied Mrs. 
 Sedley. " This is the language you use to your mother. I have 
 met with misfortunes: I have sunk low in life: I have kept my 
 carriage, and now walk on foot: but I did not know I was a 
 murderess before, and thank you for the news." 
 
 " Mamma," said the poor girl, who was always ready for 
 tears — " you shouldn't be hard upon me. I — I didn't mean — 
 I mean, I did not wish to say you would do any wrong to this 
 dear child: only" 
 
A Family in a Very Small Way 387 
 
 " Oh, no, my love, — only that I was a murderess ; in which 
 case, I had better go to the Old Bailey. Though I didn't 
 poison you when you were a child; but gave you the best of 
 education, and the most expensive masters money could pro- 
 cure. Yes; I've nursed five children, and buried three: and 
 the one I loved the best of all, and tended through croup, and 
 teething, and measles, and hooping-cough, and brought up with 
 foreign masters, regardless of expense, and with accomplish- 
 ments at Minerva House — which I never had when I was a girl 
 — when I was too glad to honour my father and mother, that I 
 might live long in the land, and to be useful, and not to mope 
 all day in my room and act the fine lady — says I'm a murderess. 
 Ah, Mrs. Osborne! may you never nourish a viper in your 
 bosom, that's my prayer." 
 
 "Mamma, mamma!" cried the bewildered girl: and the 
 child in her arms set up a frantic chorus of shouts. 
 
 " A murderess, indeed ! Go down on your knees and pray 
 to God to cleanse your wicked ungrateful heart, Amefia, and 
 may He forgive you as I do; " and Mrs. Sedley tossed out of the 
 room, hissing out the word poison once more, and so ending her 
 charitable benediction. 
 
 Till the termination of her natural life, this breach between 
 Mrs. Sedley and her daughter was never thoroughly mended. 
 The quarrel gave the elder lady numberless advantages, which 
 she did not fail to turn to account with female ingenuity and 
 perseverance. For instance, she scarcely spoke to Amelia for 
 many weeks afterwards. She warned the domestics not to 
 touch the child, as Mrs. Osborne might be offended. She asked 
 her daughter to see and satisfy herself that there was no poison 
 prepared in the Httle daily messes that were concocted for 
 Georgy. When neighbours asked after the boy's health, she 
 referred them pointedly to Mrs. Osborne. She never ventured 
 to ask whether the baby was well or not. She would not touch 
 the child although he was her grandson, and own precious 
 darling, for she was not used to children, and might kill it. 
 And whenever Mr. Pestler came upon his healing inquisition, 
 she received the Doctor with such a sarcastic and scornful 
 demeanour, as made the surgeon declare that not Lady Thistle- 
 wood herself, whom he had the honour of attending profession- 
 ally, could give herself greater airs than old Mrs. Sedley, from 
 whom he never took a fee. And very Ukely Emmy was jealous 
 too, upon her own part, as what mother is not, of those who 
 would manage her children for her, or become candidates for 
 
388 Vanity Fair 
 
 the first place in their affections ? It is certain that when any- 
 body nursed the child, she was uneasy^ and that she would no 
 more allow Mrs. Clapp or the domestic to dress or tend him, 
 than she would have let them wash her husband's miniature 
 which hung up over her little bed: — the same little bed from 
 which the poor girl had gone to his; and to which she retired 
 now for many long, silent, tearful, but happy years. 
 
 In this room was all Amelia's heart and treasure. Here it 
 was that she tended her boy, and watched him through the 
 many ills of childhood, with a constant passion of love. The 
 elder George returned in him somehow, only improved, and as 
 if come back from heaven. In a hundred little tones, looks, 
 and movements, the child was so like his father, that the widow's - 
 heart thrilled as she held him to it; and he would often ask the 
 cause of her tears. It was because of his likeness to his father, 
 she did not scruple to tell him. She talked constantly to him 
 about his dead father, and spoke of her love for George to the 
 innocent and wondering child; much more than she ever had 
 done to George himself, or to any confidante of her youth. To 
 her parents she never talked about this matter; shrinking from 
 baring her heart to them. Little George very likely could under- 
 stand no better than they; but into his ears she poured her 
 sentimental secrets unreservedly, and into his only. The very 
 joy of this woman was a sort of grief, or so tender, at least, that 
 its expression was tears. Her sensibilities were so weak and 
 tremulous, that perhaps they ought not to be talked about in a 
 book. I Was told by Dr. Pestler (now a most flourishing lady's 
 physician, with a sumptuous dark green carriage, a prospect of 
 speedy knighthood, and a house in Manchester Square), that 
 her grief at weaning the child was a sight that would have un- 
 manned a Herod. He was very soft-hearted many years ago, 
 and his wife was mortally jealous of Mrs. Amelia, then and long 
 afterwards. 
 
 Perhaps the Doctor's Lady had good reason for her jealousy: 
 m.ost women shared it, of those who formed the small circle of 
 Amelia's acquaintance, and were quite angry at the enthusiasm 
 with which the other sex regarded her. For almost all men 
 who came near her loved her; though no doubt they would be 
 at a loss to tell you why. She was not brilliant, nor witty, nor 
 wise over much, nor extraordinarily handsome. But wherever 
 she went she touched and charmed every one of the male sex, 
 as invariably as she awakened the scorn and incredulity of her 
 own sisterhood. I think it was her weakness which was her 
 
A Family in a Very Small Way 389 
 
 principal charm: — a kind of sweet submission and softness, 
 which seemed to appeal to each man she met for his sympathy 
 and protection. We have seen how in the regiment, though 
 she spoke but to few of George's comrades there, all the swords 
 of the young fellows at the mess-table would have leapt from 
 their scabbards to fight round her; and so it was in the little 
 narrow lodging-house and circle at Fulham, she interested and 
 pleased everybody. If she had been Mrs. Mango herself, of the 
 great house of Mango, Plantain & Co., Crutched Friars, and the 
 magnificent proprietress of the Pineries, Fulham, who gave 
 summer dejeuners frequented by Dukes and Earls, and drove 
 about the parish with magnificent yellow liveries and bay 
 horses, such as the royal stables at Kensington themselves 
 could not turn out — I say, had she been Mrs. Mango herself, or 
 her son's wife. Lady Mary Mango (daughter of the earl of Castle- 
 mouldy, who condescended to marry the head of the firm), the 
 tradesmen of the neighbourhood could not pay her more honour 
 than they invariably showed to the gentle young widow, when 
 she passed by their doors, or made her humble purchases at 
 their shops. 
 
 Thus it was not only Mr. Pestler, the medical man, but Mr. 
 Linton, the young assistant, who doctored the servant-maids 
 and small tradesmen, and might be seen any day reading the 
 Times in the surgery, who openly declared himself the slave of 
 Mrs. Osborne. He was a personable young gentleman, more 
 welcome at Mrs. Sedley's lodgings than his principal; and if any- 
 thing went wrong with Georgy, he would drop in twice or thrice 
 in the day to see the little chap, and without so much as the 
 thought of a fee. He would abstract lozenges, ta,marinds, and 
 other produce from the surgery drawers for little Georgy' s benefit, 
 and compounded draughts and mixtures for him of miraculous 
 sweetness, so that it was quite a pleasure to the child to be ailing. 
 He and Pestler, his chief, sate up two whole nights by the boy in 
 that momentous and awful week when Georgy had the measles ; 
 and when you would have thought, from the mother's terror, 
 that there had never been measles in the world before. Would 
 they have done as much for other people ? Did they sit up for 
 the folks at the Pineries, when Ralph Plantagenet, and Gwen- 
 doline, and Guinever Mango had the same juvenile complaint? 
 Did they sit up for little Mary Clapp, the landlord's daughter, 
 who actually caught the disease off Httle Georgy.? Truth com- 
 pels one to say, no. They slept quite undisturbed, at least as 
 far as she was concerned — pronounced hers to be a slight case, 
 
3 go Vanity Fair 
 
 which would almost cure itself, sent her in a draught or two, and 
 threw in bark when the child rallied, with perfect indifference, 
 and just for form's sake. 
 
 Again, there was the little French chevalier opposite, who 
 gave lessons in his native tongue at various schools in the neigh- 
 bourhood, and who might be heard in his apartment of nights 
 playing tremulous old gavottes and minuets, on a wheezy old 
 fiddle. Whenever this powdered and courteous old man, who 
 never missed a Sunday at the convent chapel at Hammersmith, 
 and who was in all respects, thoughts, conduct, and bearing, 
 utterly unhke the bearded savages of his nation, who curse 
 perfidious Albion, and scowl at you from over their cigars, in 
 the Quadrant arcades at the present day — whenever the old 
 Chevaher de Talonrouge spoke of Mistress Osborne, he would 
 first finish his pinch of snuff, flick away the remaining particles 
 of dust with a graceful wave of his hand, gather up his fingers 
 again into a bunch, and, bringing them up to his mouth, blow 
 them open with a kiss, exclaiming Ah ! la divine creature 1 He 
 vowed and protested that when Amelia walked in the Brompton 
 lanes flowers grew in profusion under her feet. He called little 
 Georgy Cupid, and asked him news of Venus, his mamma; and 
 told the astonished Betty Flanagan that she was one of the 
 Graces, and the favourite attendant of the Reine des Amours. 
 
 Instances might be multiphed of this easily gained and un- 
 conscious popularity. Did not Mr. Binny, the mild and genteel 
 curate of the district chapel, which the family attended, call 
 assiduously upon the widow, dandle the little boy on his knee, 
 and offer to teach him Latin, to the anger of the elderly virgin, 
 his sister, who kept house for him? " There is nothing in her, 
 Beilby," the latter lady would say. " When she comes to 
 tea here she dees not speak a word during the whole evening. 
 She is but a poor lackadaisical creature, and it is my belief has 
 no heart at all. It is only her pretty face which all you gentle- 
 men admire so. Miss Grits, who has five thousand pounds, and 
 expectations besides, has twice as much character, and is a 
 thousand times more agreeable to my taste; and if she were 
 good-looking I know that you would think her perfection." 
 
 Very likely Miss Binny was right to a great extent. It is the 
 pretty face which creates sympathy in the hearts of men, those 
 wicked rogues. A woman may possess the wisdom and chastity 
 of Minerva, and we give no heed to her, if she has a plain face. 
 W^hat folly will not a pair of bright eyes make pardonable? 
 What dulness may not red lips and sweet accents render pleasant ? 
 
A Family in a Very Small Way 391 
 
 And so, with their usual sense of justice, ladies argue that be- 
 cause a woman is handsome, therefore she is a fool. ladies, 
 ladies! there are some of you who are neither handsome nor 
 wise. 
 
 These are but trivial incidents to recount in the life of our 
 heroine. Her tale does not deal in wonders, as the gentle reader 
 has already no doubt perceived; and if a journal had been kept 
 of her proceedings during the seven years after the birth of her 
 son, there would have been found few incidents more remark- 
 able in it than that of the measles, recorded in the foregoing 
 page. Yes, one day, and greatly to her wonder, the Reverend 
 Mr. Binny, just mentioned, asked her to change her name of 
 Osborne for his own; when, with deep blushes, and tears in her 
 eyes and voice, she thanked him for his regard for her, expressed 
 gratitude for his attentions to her and to her poor little boy, but 
 said that she never, never could think of any but — but the 
 husband whom she had lost. 
 
 On the twenty-fifth of April, and the eighteenth of June, the 
 days of marriage and widowhood, she kept her room entirely, 
 consecrating them (and we do not know how many hours of 
 sohtary night-thought, her little boy sleeping in his crib by her 
 bedside) to the memory of that departed friend. During the 
 day she was more active. She had to teach George to read and 
 to write, and a Lttle to draw. She read books, in order that 
 she might tell him stories from them. As his eyes opened, and 
 his mind expanded, under the influence of the outward nature 
 round about him, she taught the child, to the best of her humble 
 power, to acknowledge the Maker of ail; and every night and 
 every morning he and she — (in that awful and touching com- 
 munion which I think must bring a thrill to the heart of every 
 man who witnesses or who remembers it) — the mother and the 
 little boy — prayed to Our Father together, the m Dther pleading 
 with all her gentle heart, the child lisping after her as sh^ spoke. 
 And each time they prayed to God to bless dear papa, as if he 
 were alive and in the room with them. 
 
 To wash and dress this young gentleman — to take him for a 
 run of the mornings, before breakfast, and the retreat of grand- 
 papa for " business " — to make for him the most wonderful and 
 ingenious dresses, for which end the thrifty widow cut up and 
 altered every available httle bit of finery which she possessed 
 out of her wardrobe during her marriage — for Mrs. Osborne her- 
 self (greatly to her mother's vexation, who preferred fine clothes, 
 especially since her misfortune) always wore a black gown, and 
 
392 Vanity Fair 
 
 a straw bonnet with a black ribbon — occupied her many hours 
 of the day. Others she had to spare, at the service of her 
 mother and her old father. She had taken the pains to learn, 
 and used to play cribbage with this gentleman on the nights 
 when he did not go to his club. She sang for him when he was so 
 minded, and it was a good sign, for he invariably fell into a com- 
 fortable sleep during the music. She wrote out his numerous 
 memorials, letters, prospectuses, and projects. It was in her 
 handwriting that most of the old gentleman's former acquain- 
 tances were informed that he had become an agent for the Black 
 Diamond and Anti-Cinder Coal Company, and could supply 
 his friends and the public with the best coals at — s. per chal- 
 dron. All he did was to sign the circulars with his flourish and 
 signature, and direct them in a shaky, clerk-like hand. One of 
 
 these papers was sent to Major Dobbin, Regt., care of 
 
 Messrs. Cox & Greenwood; but the Major being in Madras at 
 the time, had no particular call for coals. He knew, though, 
 the hand which had written the prospectus. Good God ! what 
 would he not have given to hold it in his own! A second 
 prospectus came out, informing the Major that J. Sedley & 
 Company, having established agencies at Oporto, Bordeaux, 
 and St. Mar5'''s, were enabled to offer to their friends and the 
 public generally, the finest and most celebrated growths of 
 ports, sherries, and claret wines at reasonable prices, and under 
 extraordinary advantages. Acting upon this hint, Dobbin 
 furiously canvassed the governor, the commander-in-chief, the 
 judges, the regiments, and everybody whom he knew in the 
 Presidency, and sent home to Sedley & Co. orders for wine which 
 perfectly astonished Mr. Sedley and Mr. Clapp, who was the Co. 
 in the business. But no more orders came after that first burst 
 of good fortune, on which poor old Sedley was about to build a 
 house in the City, a regiment of clerks, a dock to himself, and 
 correspondents all over the world. The old gentleman's former 
 taste in wine had gone: the curses of the mess-room assailed 
 Major Dobbin for the vile drinks he had been the means of in- 
 troducing there; and he bought back a great quantity of the 
 wine, and sold it at public outcry, at an enormous loss to him- 
 self. As for Jos, who was by this time promoted to a seat at the 
 Revenue Board at Calcutta, he was wild with rage when the post 
 brought him out a bundle of these Bacchanalian prospectuses, 
 with a private note from his father, telling Jos that his senior 
 counted upon him in this enterprise, and had consigned a quan- 
 tity of select wines to him, as per invoice, drawing bills upon him 
 
A Family in a Very Small Way 393 
 
 for the amount of the same. Jos, who would no more have it 
 supposed that his father, Jos Sedley's father, of the Board of 
 Revenue, was a wine-merchant asking for orders, than that he 
 was Jack Ketch, refused the bills with scorn, wrote back con- 
 tumeliously to the old gentleman, bidding him to mind his own 
 affairs ; and the protested paper coming back, Sedley & Co. had 
 to take it up, with the profits which they had made out of the 
 Madras venture, and with a little portion of Emmy's savings. 
 
 Besides her pension of fifty pounds a year, there had been 
 five hundred pounds, as her husband's executor stated, left in 
 the agent's hands at the time of Osborne's demise, which sum, 
 as George's guardian, Dobbin proposed to put out at 8 per cent, 
 in an Indian house of agency. Mr. Sedley, v/ho thought the 
 Major had some roguish intentions of his own about the money, 
 was strongly against this plan; and he v/ent to the agents to 
 protest personally against the employment of the money in 
 question, when he learned, to his surprise, that there had been 
 no such sum in their hands, that all the late Captain's assets did 
 not amount to a hundred pounds, and that the five hundred 
 pounds in question must be a separate sum, of which Major 
 Dobbin knew the particulars. More than ever convinced that 
 there was some roguery, old Sedley pursued the Major. As his 
 daughter's nearest friend, he demanded with a high hand, a 
 statement of the late Captain's accounts. Dobbin's stammer- 
 ing, blushing, and awkwardness added to the other's convictions 
 that he had a rogue to deal with; and in a majestic tone he told 
 that officer a piece of his mind, as he called it, simply stating his 
 belief that the Major was unlawfully detaining his late son-in- 
 law's money. 
 
 Dobbin at this lost all patience, and if his accuser had not been 
 so old and so broken, a quarrel might have ensued between them 
 at the Slaughters' Coffee-house, in a box of which place of enter- 
 tainment the gentlemen had their colloquy. " Come upstairs, 
 sir," lisped out the Major. " I insist on your coming up the 
 stairs, and I will show which is the injured party, poor George or 
 I;" and, dragging the old gentleman up to his bedroom, he 
 produced from his desk Osborne's accounts, and a bundle of 
 I U's which the latter had given, who, to do him justice, was 
 always ready to give an I U. " He paid his bills in England," 
 Dobbin added, " but he had not a hundred pounds in the world 
 when he fell. I and one or two of his brother officers made up 
 the little sum, which was all that we could spare, and you dare 
 tell us that we are trying to cheat the widow and the orphan." 
 
 *N298 
 
394 - Vanity Fair 
 
 Sedley was very contrite and humbled, though the fact is, that 
 William Dobbin had told a great falsehood to the old gentleman; 
 having himself given every shilling of the money, having buried 
 his friend, and paid all the fees and charges incident upon the 
 calamity and removal of poor Amelia. 
 
 About these expenses old Osborne had never given himself 
 any trouble to think, nor any other relative of Amelia, nor Amelia 
 herself, indeed. She trusted to Major Dobbin as an accountant, 
 took his somewhat confused calculations for granted : and never 
 once susp^ected how much she was in his debt. 
 
 Twice or thrice in the year, according to her promise, she 
 wrote him letters to Madras, letters all about little Georgy. 
 How he treasured these papers! Whenever Amelia wrote he 
 answered, and not until then. But he sent over endless remem- 
 brances of himself to his godson and to her. He ordered and 
 sent a box of scarfs, and a grand ivory set of chessmen from 
 China. The pawns were little green and white men, with real 
 swords and shields; the knights were on horseback, the cAStles 
 were on the backs of elephants. " Mrs. Mango's own set at the 
 Pineries was not so fine," Mr. Pestler remarked. These chess- 
 men, were the delight of Georgy's life, who printed his first letter 
 in acknowledgment of this gift of his godpapa. He sent over 
 preserves and pickles, which latter the young gentleman tried 
 surreptitiously in the sideboard, and half-killed himself with 
 eating. He thought it was a judgment upon him for stealing, 
 they were so hot. Emmy wrote a comical little account of this 
 mishap to the Major: it pleased him to think that her spirits 
 were rallying, and that she could be merry sometimes now. 
 He sent over a pair of shawls, a white one for her, and a black 
 one with palm-leaves for her mother, and a pair of red scarfs, 
 as winter wrappers, for old Mr. Sedley and George. The shawls 
 were v/orth fifty guineas apiece at the very least, as Mrs. Sedley 
 knew. She wore hers in state at church at Brompton, and was 
 congratulated by her female friends upon the splendid acquisi- 
 tion. Emmy's, too, became prettily her modest black gown. 
 " What a pity it is she won't think of him! " Mrs. Sedley re- 
 marked to Mrs. Clapp, and to all her friends of Brompton. 
 " Jos never sent us such presents, I am sure, and grudges us 
 everything. It is evident that the Major is over head and ears 
 in love with her: and yet, whenever I so much as hint it, she 
 turns red and begins to cry, and goes and sits upstairs with her 
 miniature. I'm sick of that miniature. I wish we had never 
 seen those odious purse-proud Osbornes." 
 
A Family in a Very Small Way 395 
 
 Amidst such humble scenes and associates Georo^e's early 
 youth was passed, and the boy grew up delicate, sehslti ve^ im- 
 perious, woman-bred— domineering the gentle mother whom he 
 loved with passionate affection. He ruled all the rest of the 
 little world round about him. As he grew, the elders were 
 amazed at his haughty manner and his constant likeness to his 
 father. He asked questions about everything, as inquiring 
 youth will do. The profundity of his remarks and interroga- 
 tories astonished his old grandfather, who perfectly bored the 
 club at the tavern with stories about the little lad's learning and 
 genius. He suffered his grandmother with a good-humoured 
 indifference. The small circle round about him believed that 
 the equal of the boy did not exist upon the earth. Georgy 
 inherited his father's pride, and perhaps thought they were not 
 wrong. 
 
 When he grew to be about six years old, Dobbin began to 
 write to him very much. The Major wanted to hear that 
 Georgy was going to a school, and hoped he would acquit him- 
 self with credit there: or would he have a good tutor at home? 
 it was time that he should begin to learn; and his godfather and 
 guardian hinted that he hoped to be allowed to defray the 
 charges of the boy's education, which would fall heavily upon 
 his mother's straitened income. The Major, in a word, was 
 always thinking about Amelia and her little boy, and by orders 
 to his agents kept the latter provided with picture-books, paint- 
 boxes, desks, and all conceivable implements of amusement 
 and instruction. Three days before George's sixth birthday a 
 gentleman in a gig, accompanied by a servant, drove up to Mr. 
 Sedley's house, and asked to see Master George Osborne: it 
 was Mr, Woolsey, mihtary tailor, of Conduit Street, who came 
 at the Major's order to measure the young gentleman for a suit 
 of clothes. He had had the honour of maldng for the Captain, 
 the young gentleman's father. Sometimes, too, and by the 
 Major's desire no doubt, his sisters, the Misses Dobbin, would 
 call in the family carriage to take Amelia and the Httle boy a 
 drive if they were so inclined. The patronage and kindness of 
 these ladies was very uncomfortable to Amelia, but she bore it 
 meekly enough, for her nature was to yield; and, besides, the 
 carriage and its splendours gave little Georgy immense pleasure. 
 The ladies begged occasionally that the child might pass a day 
 with them, and he was always glad to go to that fine garden- 
 house K[ Denmark Hill, where they lived, and where there were 
 such fine grapes in the hothouses and peaches on the walls. 
 
396 
 
 Vanity Fair 
 
 One day they kindly came over to Amelia with news which 
 they were sure would delight her — something very interesting 
 about their dear William. 
 
 "What was it: was he coming home?" she asked with 
 pleasure beaming in her eyes. 
 
 Oh^ no — not the least — but they had very good reason to 
 believe that dear William was about to be married — and to a 
 relation of a very dear friend of Amelia's — to Miss Glorvina 
 O'Dowd, Sir Michael O'Dowd's sister who had gone out to join 
 Lady O'Dowd at Madras — a very beautiful and accomplished 
 girl, everybody said. 
 
 Amelia said "Oh!" Amelia was very very happy indeed. 
 But she supposed Glorvina could not be like her old acquain- 
 tance, who was most kind — but — but she was very happy in- 
 deed. And by some impulse of which I cannot explain the 
 meaning, she took George in her arms and kissed him with an 
 extraordinary tenderness. Her eyes were quite moist when she 
 put the child down; and she scarcely spoke a word during the 
 whole of the drive — though she was so very happy indeed. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIX 
 
 A CYNICAL CHAPTER 
 
 Our duty now takes us back for a brief space to some old Hamp- 
 shire acquaintances of ours, whose hopes respecting the disposal 
 of their rich kinswoman's property were so wofully disappointed. 
 After counting upon thirty thousand pounds from his sister, it 
 was a heavy blow to Bute Crawley to receive but five; out of 
 which sum, when he had paid his own debts and those of Jim, 
 his son at college, a very small fragment remained to portion 
 off his four plain daughters. Mrs. Bute never knew, or at least 
 never acknowledged, how far her own tyrannous behaviour had 
 tended to ruin her husband. All that woman could do, she 
 vowed and protested she had done. Was it her fault if she 
 did not possess those sycophantic arts which her hypocritical 
 nephew, Pitt Crawley, practised ? She wished him a^llthe happi- 
 ness which he merited out of his ill-gotten gains. At least 
 the money will remain in the family," she said charitably. 
 " Pitt will never spend it, my dear, that is quite certain; for a 
 
A Cynical Chapter 397 
 
 greater miser does- not exist in England, and he is as odious, 
 : though in a different way, as his spendthrift brother, the aban- 
 doned Rawdon." 
 
 So Mrs. Bute, after the first shock of rage and disappointment, 
 began to accommodate herself as best she could to her altered 
 fortunes, and to save and retrench with all her might. She 
 instructed her daughters how to bear poverty cheerfully, and 
 invented a thousand notable methods to conceal or evade it. 
 She took them about to balls and public places in the neigh- 
 bourhood, with praiseworthy energy; nay, she entertained her 
 friends in a hospitable comfortable manner at the Rectory, and 
 mjich more frequently than before dear Miss Crawley's legacy 
 had fallen in. From her outward bearing nobody would have 
 supposed that the family had been disappointed in their expecta- 
 tions: or have guessed from her frequent appearance in public 
 how she. pinched and starved at home. Her girls had more 
 milliners' furniture than they had ever enjoyed before. They 
 appeared perseveringly at the Winchester and Southampton 
 assemblies; they penetrated to Cowes for the race-balls and 
 regatta-gaieties there ; and their carriage, with the horses taken 
 from the plough, was at work perpetually, until it began almost 
 to be believed that the four sisters had had fortunes left them 
 by their aunt, whose name the family never mentioned in public 
 but with the most tender gratitude and regard. I know no sort 
 of lying which is more frequent in Vanity Fair than this; and 
 it may be remarked how people who practise it take credit to 
 themselves for their hypocrisy, and fancy that they are exceed- 
 ingly virtuous and praiseworthy, because they are able to de- 
 ceive the world with regard to the extent of their means. 
 
 Mrs. Bute certainly thought herself one of the most virtuousr 
 women in England, and the sight of her happy family was an 
 edifying one to strangers. They were so cheerful, so loving, so 
 well-educated, so simple! Martha painted flowers exquisitely, 
 and furnished half the charity bazaars in the county. Emma 
 was a regular County Bulbul, and her verses in the " Hampshire 
 Telegraph " were the glory of its Poet's Corner. Fanny and 
 Matilda sang duets together, mamma playing the piano, and 
 the other two sisters sitting with their arms round each 
 other's waists, and listening affectionately. Nobody saw the 
 poor girl3 drumming at the duets in private. No one saw 
 mamma drilling them rigidly hour after hour. In a word, Mrs. 
 Bute put a good face against fortune, and kept up appearances 
 in the most virtuous manner. ~'" »~^.- 
 
398 Vanity P'air 
 
 Everything that a good and respectable mother could do 
 Mrs. Bate did. She got over yachting men from Southampton. 
 parsons from the Cathedral Close at Winchester, and officers 
 from the barracks there. She tried to inveigle the young bar- 
 risters at assizes, and encouraged Jim to bring home friends with 
 whom he went out hunting with the H. H. What will not a 
 mother do for the benefit of her beloved ones ? 
 
 Between such a woman and her brother-in-law, the odious 
 Baronet at the Hall, it is manifest that there could be very little 
 in common. The rupture between Bute and his brother Sir 
 Pitt was complete: indeed, between Sir Pitt and the whole 
 county, to which the old man was a scandal. His dislike for 
 respectable society increased with age, and the lodge-gates had 
 not opened to a gentleman's carriage- wheels since Pitt and 
 Lady Jane came to pay their visit of duty after their marriage. 
 
 That was an awful and unfortunate visit, never to be thought 
 of by the family without horror. Pitt begged his wife, with a 
 ghastly countenance, never to speak of it; and it was only 
 through Mrs. Bute herself, who still knew everything which took 
 place at the Hall, that the circumstances of Sir Pitt's reception 
 of his son and daughter-in-law were ever known at all. 
 
 As they drove up the avenue of the park in their neat and well- 
 appointed carriage, Pitt remarked with dismay and wrath great 
 gaps among the trees — his trees, — which the old Baronet was 
 felling entirely without Hcence. The park wore an aspect of 
 utter dreariness and ruin. The drives were ill kept, and the 
 neat carriage splashed and floundered in muddy pools along 
 the road. The great sweep in front of the terrace and entrance 
 stair was black and covered with mosses; the once trim flower- 
 beds rank and weedy. Shutters were up along almost the whole 
 line of the house; the great hall door was unbarred after much 
 ringing of the bell; an individual in ribbons was seen flitting up 
 the black oak stair, as Horrocks at length admitted the heir of 
 Queen's Crawley and his bride into the halls of their fathers. 
 He led the way into Sir Pitt's " Library," as it was called, the 
 fumes of tobacco growing stronger as Pitt and Lady Jane ap- 
 proached that apartment. " Sir Pitt ain't very well/' Horrocks 
 remarked apologetically, and hinted that his master was afflicted 
 with lumbago. 
 
 The library looked out on the front walk and park, , Sir Pitt 
 had opened one of the windows, and was bawling om;*tnence to 
 the postillion and Pitt's servant, who seemed to be about to take 
 the baggage down. 
 
A Cynical Chapter 399 
 
 " Don't move none of them trunks," he cried, pointing with 
 a pipe which he held in his hand. " It's only a morning visit, 
 Tucker, you fool. Lor, what cracks that off hoss has in his heels ! 
 Ain't there no one at the King's Head to rub 'em a little.? How 
 do, Pitt? How do, my dear.? Come to see the old man, hey? 
 'Gad — you've a pretty face, too. You ain't like that old horse- 
 godmother, your mother. Come and give old Pitt a kiss, like a 
 good little gal." 
 
 The embrace disconcerted the daughter-in-law somewhat, as 
 the caresses of the old gentleman, unshorn and perfumed with 
 tobacco, might well do. But she remembered that her brother 
 Southdown had mustachios, and smoked cigars, and submitted 
 to the Baronet with a tolerable grace. 
 
 " Pitt has got vat," said the Baronet, after this mark of affec- 
 tion. " Does he read ee very long zermons, my dear? Hun- 
 dredth Psalm, Evening Hymn, hey, Pitt? Go and get a glass 
 of Malmsey and a cake for my Lady Jane, Horrocks, you great 
 big booby, and don't stand stearing there like a fat pig. I 
 won't ask you to stop, my dear; you'll find it too stoopid, and 
 so should I too along a Pitt. I'm an old man now, and hke my 
 own ways, and my pipe and backgammon of a night." 
 
 " I can play at backgammon, sir," said Lady Jane, laughing. 
 " I used to play with Papa and Miss Crawley, didn't I, Mr. 
 Crawley? " 
 
 " Lady Jane can play, sir, at the game to which you state that 
 you are so partial," Pitt said haughtily. 
 
 " But she wawn't stop for all that, Naw, naw, goo back to 
 Mudbury, and give Mrs. Rincer a benefit: or drive down to the 
 Rectory, and ask Buty for a dinner. He'll be charmed to see 
 you, you know; he's so much obliged to you for gettin' the old 
 woman's money. Ha, ha ! Some of it will do to patch up the 
 Hall when I'm gone." 
 
 " I perceive, sir," said Pitt, with a heightened voice, " that 
 your people will cut down the timber." 
 
 " Yees, yees, very fine weather and seasonable for the time of 
 year," Sir Pitt answered, who had suddenly grown deaf. " But 
 I'm gittin' old, Pitt, now. Law bless you, you ain't far from 
 fifty yourself. But he wears well, my pretty Lady Jane, don't 
 he ? It's all godliness, sobriety, and a moral fife. Look at me, 
 I'm not very fur from fowr-score — he, he; " and he laughed, and 
 took snuff, and leered at her and pinched her hand. 
 
 Pitt once more brought the conversation back to the timber: 
 but the Baronet was deaf again in an instant. 
 
 •% 
 
400 Vanity Fair 
 
 " I'm gittin' very old, and have been cruel bad this year with 
 the lumbago. I shan't be here now for long; but I'm glad ee've 
 come, daughter-in-law. I like your face. Lady Jane: it's got 
 none of the damned high-boned Binkie look in it; and I'll give 
 ee something pretty, my dear, to go to Court in." And he 
 shuffled across the room to a cupboard, from which he took a 
 little old case containing jewels of some value. '* Take that," 
 said he, " my dear; it belonged to my mother, and afterwards 
 to the first Lady Crawley. Pretty pearls — never gave 'em the 
 ironmonger's daughter. No, no. Take 'em and put 'em up 
 quick," said he, thrusting the case into his daughter's hand, and 
 clapping the door of the cabinet to, as Horrocks entered with a 
 salver and refreshments. 
 
 "What have you a been and given Pitt's wife? " said the 
 individual in ribbons, when Pitt and Lady Jane had taken leave 
 of the old gentleman. It was Miss Horrocks, the butler's 
 daughter — the cause of the scandal throughout the county — 
 the lady who reigned now almost supreme at Queen's Crawley. 
 
 The rise and progress of those Ribbons had been marked with 
 dismay by the county and family. The Ribbons opened an 
 account at the Mudbury Branch Savings Bank; the Ribbons 
 drove to church, monopolising the pony-chaise, which was for 
 the use of the servants at the Hall. The domestics were dis- 
 missed at her pleasure. The Scotch gardener, who still lingered 
 on the premises, taking a pride in his walls and hot-houses, and 
 indeed making a pretty good livelihood by the garden, which he 
 farmed, and of which h^. sold the produce at Southampton, 
 found the Ribbons eating peaches on a sunshiny morning at the 
 south wall, and had his ears boxed when he remonstrated about 
 this attack on his property. He and his Scotch wife and his 
 Scotch children, the only respectable inhabitants of Queen's 
 Crawley, were forced to migrate, with their goods and their 
 chattels, and left the stately comfortable gardens to go to waste, 
 and the fiower-beds to run to seed. Poor Lady Crawley's rose- 
 garden became the dreariest wilderness. Only two or three 
 domestics shuddered in the bleak old servants' hall. The stables 
 and offices were vacant, and shut up, and half ruined. Sir Pitt 
 lived in private, and boozed nightly with Horrocks, his butler or 
 house-steward (as he now began to be called), and the abandoned 
 Ribbons. The times were very much changed since the period 
 when she drove to Mudbury in the spring-cart, and called the 
 small tradesmen " Sir." It may have been shame, or it may 
 have been dislike of his neighbours, but the old Cynic of Queen's 
 
A Cynical Chapter 401 
 
 Crawley hardly issued from his park-gates at all now. He 
 quarrelled with his agents, and screwed his tenants by letter. 
 His days were passed in conducting his own correspondence; 
 the lawyers and farm-bailiffs who had to do business with him^ 
 could not reach him but through the Ribbons^ who received 
 them at the door of the housekeeper's room^ which commanded 
 the back entrance by which they were admitted; and so the 
 Baronet's daily perplexities increased^ and his embarrassments 
 multiplied round him. 
 
 The horror of Pitt Crawley may be imagined, as these reports 
 of his father's dotage reached the most exemplary and correct 
 of gentlemen. He trembled daily lest he should hear that the 
 Ribbons was proclaimed his second legal mother-in-law. After 
 that first and last visit, his father's name was never mentioned 
 in Pitt's polite and genteel establishment. It was the skeleton in 
 his house, and all the family walked by it in terror and silence. 
 The Countess Southdown kept on dropping per coach at the lodge- 
 gate the most exciting tracts, tracts which ought to frighten 
 the hair off your head. Mrs. Bute at the Parsonage nightly 
 looked out to see if the sky was red over the elms behind which 
 the Hall stood, and the mansion was on fire. Sir G. Wapshot 
 and Sir H. Fuddleston, old friends of the house, wouldn't sit on 
 the Bench with Sir Pitt at Quarter Sessions, and cut him dead 
 in the High Street of Southampton, where the reprobate stood 
 offering his dirty old hands to them. Nothing had any effect 
 upon him; he put his hands into his pockets, and burst out 
 laughing, as he scrambled into the carriage and four; he used 
 to burst out laughing at Lady Southdown's tracts ; and he 
 laughed at his sons, and at the world, and at the Ribbons when 
 she was angry, which was not seldom. 
 
 Miss Plorrocks was installed as housekeeper at Queen's 
 Crawley, and ruled all the domestics there with great majesty 
 and rigour. All the servants were instructed to address her as 
 " Mum," or " Madam," — and there was one little maid, on her 
 promotion, who persisted in calling her " My Lady," without 
 any rebuke on the part of the housekeeper. " There has been 
 better ladies, and there has been worser, Hester," was Miss 
 Horrocks' reply to this compliment of her inferior : so she ruled, 
 having supreme power over all except her father, whom, however, 
 she treated with considerable haughtiness, warning him not to 
 be too familiar in his behaviour to one " as was to be a Baronet's 
 lady." Indeed, she rehearsed that exalted part in life with 
 great satisfaction to herself, and to the amusement of old Sir 
 
402 Vanity Fair 
 
 Pitt, who chuckled at her airs and graces, and would laugh by 
 the hour together at her assumptions of dignity and imitations 
 of genteel life. He swore it was as good as a play to see her in 
 the character of a fine dame, and he made her put on one of the 
 first Lady Crawley's Court dresses, swearing (entirely to Miss 
 Horrocks' own concurrence), that the dress became her pro- 
 digiously, and threatening to drive her off that very instant to 
 Court in a coach-and-four. She had the ransacking of the 
 wardrobes of the tv/o defunct ladies, and cut and hacked their 
 posthumous finery so as to suit her own tastes and figure. And 
 she would have liked to take possession of their jewels and 
 trinkets too; but the old Baronet had locked them away in his 
 private cabinet, nor could she coax or wheedle him out of the 
 keys. And it is a fact, that some time after she left Queen's 
 Crawley a copy-book belonging to this lady was discovered, 
 which showed that she had taken great pains in private to learn 
 the art of writing in general, and especially of writing her own 
 name as Lady Crawley, Lady Betsy Horrocks, Lady Elizabeth 
 Crawley, etc. 
 
 Though the good people of the Parsonage never went to the 
 Hall, and shunned the horrid old dotard its owner, yet they kept 
 a strict knowledge of all that happened there, and were looking 
 out every day for the catastrophe for which Miss Horrocks was 
 also eager. But Fate intervened enviously, and prevented her 
 from receiving the reward due to such imm^aculate love and 
 virtue. 
 
 One day the Baronet surprised " her Ladyship," as he jocu- 
 larly called her, seated at that old and tuneless piano in the 
 drawing room, which had scarcely been touched since Becky 
 Sharp played quadrilles upon it — seated at the piano with the 
 utmost gravity, and squalling to the best of her power in imita- 
 tion of the music which she had sometimes heard. The little 
 kitchen-maid on her promotion was standing at her mistress's 
 side, quite delighted during the operation, and wagging her head 
 up and down, and cr}dng, " Lor, Mum, 'tis bittiful," — just like 
 a genteel sycophant in a real drawing-room. 
 
 Tliis incident made the old Baronet roar with laughter, as 
 usual. He narrated the circumstance a dozen times to Horrocks 
 in the course of the evening, and greatly to the discomfiture of 
 Miss Horrocks. He thrummed on the table as if it had been a 
 musical instrument, and squalled in imitation of her manner of 
 singing. He vowed that such a beautiful voice ought to be 
 cultivated_, and declared she ought to have singing-masters^ in 
 
A Cynical Chapter 403 
 
 which proposals she saw nothing ridiculous. He was in great 
 spirits that night; and drank with his friend and butler an extra- 
 ordinary quantity of rum-and-water. At a very late hour the 
 faithful friend and domestic conducted his master to his bedroom. 
 
 Half-an-hour afterwards there was a great hurry and bustle 
 in the house. Lights went about from window to window in 
 the lonely desolate old Hall, whereof but two or three rooms 
 were ordinarily occupied by its owner. Presently, a boy on a 
 pony went galloping off to Mudbury, to the Doctor's house 
 there. And in another hour (by which fact we ascertain how 
 carefully the excellent Mrs. Bute Crawley had always kept up 
 an understanding with the great house), that lady in her clogs 
 and calash, the Reverend Bute Crawley, and James Crawley her 
 son, had walked over from the Rectory through the park_, and 
 had entered the mansion by the open hall door. 
 
 They passed through the hall and the small oak parlour, on 
 the table of which stood the three tumblers and the empty rum- 
 bottle which had served for Sir Pitt's carouse, and through that 
 apartment into Sir Pitt's study, where they found Miss Horrocks, 
 of the guilty ribbons, with a wild air, trying at the presses and 
 escritoires with a bunch of keys. She dropped them with a 
 scream of terror, as little Mrs. Bute's eyes flashed out at her 
 from under her black calash. 
 
 " Look at that, James and Mr. Crawley," cried Mrs. Bute, 
 pointing at the scared figure of the black-eyed, guilty wench. 
 
 " He gave 'em me; he gave 'em me ! " she cried. 
 
 " Gave them you, you abandoned creature! " screamed Mrs. 
 Bute. " Bear witness, Mr. Crawley, we found this good-for- 
 nothing woman in the act of stealing your brother's property; 
 and she will be hanged, as I always said she would." 
 
 Betsy Horrocks, quite daunted, flung herself down on her 
 knees, bursting into tears. But those who know a really good 
 woman are aware that she is not in a hurry to forgive, and that 
 the humihation of an enemy is a triumph to her soul. 
 
 " Ring the bell_, James," Mrs. Bute said. " Go on ringing 
 it till the people come." The three or four domestics resident 
 in the deserted old house came presently at that jangling and 
 continued summons. 
 
 " Put that woman in the strong-room," she said. " We 
 caught her in the act of robbing S'r Pitt. Mr. Crawley, you'll 
 make out her committal — and, Beddoes, you'll drive her over 
 in the spring-cart^ in the morningj to Southampton Gaol." 
 
404 Vanity Fair 
 
 " My dear," interposed the Magistrate and Rector — " she's 
 only " 
 
 "Are there no handcuffs? " Mrs. Bute continued, stamping 
 in her clogs. " There used to be handcuffs. Where's the 
 creature's abominable father? " 
 
 " He did give 'em me/' still cried poor Betsy; " didn't he, 
 Hester? You saw Sir Pitt — you know you did — give 'em me, 
 ever so long ago — the day after Mudbury fair : not that I want 
 'em. Take 'em if you think they ain't mine." And here the 
 unhappy wretch pulled out from her pocket a large pair of paste 
 shoe-buckles which had excited her admiration, and which she 
 had just appropriated out of one of the bookcases in the study, 
 where they had lain. 
 
 " Law, Betsy, how could you go for to tell such a wicked 
 story!" said Hester, the little kitchenmaid late on her pro- 
 motion — " and to Madame Crawley, so good and kind, and his 
 Rev'rince (with a curtsey); and you may search all my boxes. 
 Mum, I'm sure, and here's my keys, as I'm an honest girl though 
 of pore parents and workhouse bred — and if you find so much as 
 a beggarly bit of lace or a silk stocking out of all the gownds as 
 you've had the picking of may I never go to church agin." 
 
 " Give up your keys, you hardened hussy," hissed out the 
 virtuous little lady in the calash. 
 
 " And here's a candle. Mum, and if you please. Mum, I can 
 show you her room. Mum, and the press in the housekeeper's 
 room. Mum, where she keeps heaps and heaps of things. Mum," 
 cried out the eager little Hester with a profusion of curtseys. 
 
 " Hold your tongue, if you please. I know the room which 
 the creature occupies perfectly well. Mrs. Brown, have the 
 goodness to come with me, and Beddoes, don't you lose sight 
 of that woman," said Mrs. Bute, seizing the candle. " Mr. 
 Crawley, you had better go upstairs, and see that they are not 
 murdering your unfortunate brother " — and the calash, escorted 
 by Mrs. Brown, walked away to the apartment which, as she 
 said truly, she knew perfectly well. 
 
 Bute went upstairs, and found the Doctor from Mudbury, 
 with the frightened Horrocks over his master in a chair. They 
 were trying to bleed Sir Pitt Crawley. 
 
 With the early morning an express was sent off to Mr. Pitt 
 Crawley by the Rector's lady, who assumed the command of 
 everything, and had watched the old Baronet through the night. 
 He had been brought back te a sort of life; he could not speak, 
 
Becky is Recognised by the Family 405 
 
 but seemed to recognise people. Mrs. Bute kept resolutely by 
 his bedside. She never seemed to want to sleep^ that little 
 woman, and did not close her fiery black eyes once, though the 
 Doctor snored in the arm-chair. Horrocks made some wild 
 efforts to assert his authority and assist his master; but Mrs. 
 Bute called him a tipsy old wretch, and bade him never show his 
 face again in that house, or he should be transported like his 
 abominable daughter. 
 
 Terrified by her manner, he slunk down to the oak parlour 
 where Mr. James was, who, having tried the bottle standing 
 there and found no liquor in it, ordered Mr. Horrocks to get 
 another bottle of rum, which he fetched, with clean glasses, and 
 to which the Rector and his son sat down: ordering Horrocks 
 to put down the keys at that instant and never to show his face 
 again. Cowed by this behaviour, Hon'ocks gave up the keys; 
 and he and his daughter slunk off silently through the night, and 
 gave up possession of the house of Queen's Crawley, 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 IN WHICH BECKY IS RECOGNISED BY THE FAMILY 
 
 The heir of Crawley arrived at home, in due time, after this 
 catastrophe, and henceforth may be said to have reigned 
 in Queen's Crawley. For though the old Baronet survived 
 many months, he never recovered the use of his intellect or his 
 speech completely, and the government of the estate devolved 
 upon his elder son. In a strange condition Pitt found it. Sir 
 Pitt was always buying and mortgaging; he had twenty rrcn 
 of business, and quarrels with each; quarrels with all his tenants, 
 and lawsuits with them; lawsuits with the lawyers; lawsuits 
 with the Mining and Dock Companies in which he was pro- 
 prietor; and with every person with whom he had business. 
 To unravel these difficulties, and to set the estate clear, was 
 a task worthy of the orderly and persevering diplomatist of 
 Pumpernickel: and he set himself to work with prodigious 
 assiduity. His whole family, of course, was transported to 
 Queen's Crawley, whither Lady Southdown, of course, came 
 too; and she set about converting the parish under the Rectors' 
 nose, and brought down her irregular clergy, to the dismay of 
 
4o6 Vanity Fair 
 
 the angry Mrs. Bute. Sir Pitt had concluded no bargain for 
 the sale of the living of Queen's Crawley; when it should drop, 
 her Ladyship proposed to take the patronage into her own 
 hands, and present a young protege to the Rectory; on which 
 subject the diplomatic Pitt said nothing. 
 
 Mrs. Bute's intentions with regard to Miss Betsy Horrocks 
 were not carried into effect; and she paid no visit to Southamp- 
 ton Gaol. She and her father left the Hall, when the latter 
 took possession of the Crawley Arms in the village, of which he 
 had got a lease from Sir Pitt. The ex-butler had obtained a 
 small freehold there likewise, which gave him a vote for the 
 borough. The Rector had another of these votes, and these 
 and four others formed the representative body which returned 
 the two members for Queen's Crawley. 
 
 There was a show of courtesy kept up between the Rectory 
 and the Hall ladies, between the younger ones at least, for Mrs. 
 Bute and Lady Southdown never could meet without battles, 
 and gradually ceased seeing each other. Her Ladyship kept 
 her room when the ladies from the Rectory visited their cousins 
 at the Hall. Perhaps Mr. Pitt was not very much displeased 
 at these occasional absences of his mamma-in-law. He believed 
 the Binkie family to be the greatest and wisest, and most in- 
 teresting in the world, and her Ladyship and his aunt had long 
 held ascendency over him; but sometimes he felt that she com- 
 manded him too much. To be considered young was compli- 
 mentary doubtless; but at six-and-forty to be treated as a boy 
 was sometimes mortif^dng. Lady Jane yielded up everything, 
 however, to her mother. She was onl}^ fond of her children in 
 private; and it was lucky for her that Lady Southdow^n's 
 multifarious business, her conferences with ministers, and her 
 correspondence with all the missionaries of Africa, Asia, Austral- 
 asia, etc., occupied the venerable Countess a great deal, so that 
 she had but little time to devote to her granddaughter, the little 
 Matilda, and her grandson. Master Pitt Crawley. The latter 
 was a feeble child : and it was only by prodigious quantities of 
 calomel that Lady Southdown was able to keep him in life at all. 
 
 As for Sir Pitt, he retired into those very apartments where 
 Lady Crawley had been previously extinguished, and here was 
 tended by Miss Hester, the girl upon her promotion, with con- 
 stant care and assiduity. What love, what fidelity, what con- 
 stancy is there equal to that of a nurse with good wages } They 
 smooth pillows: and make arrowroot: they get up at nights: 
 they' bear complaints and querulousness : they see the sun shin- 1 
 
Becky is Recognised by the Family 407 
 
 ing out of doors and don't want to go abroad : they sleep on ann- 
 chairs^ and eat their meals in solitude: they pass long long 
 evenings doing nothings watching the embers, and the patient's 
 drink simmering in the jug: they read the weekly paper the 
 whole week through : and Law's Serious Call or the Whole Duty 
 of Man suffices them for literature for the year — and we quarrel 
 with them because, when their relations come to see them once 
 a week, a little gin is smuggled in in their linen basket. Ladies, 
 what man's love is there that would stand a year's nursing of 
 the object of his affection ? Whereas a nurse will stand by you 
 for ten pounds a quarter, and we think her too highly paid. 
 At least Mr. Crawley grumbled a good deal about paying half 
 as much to Miss Hester for her constant attendance upon the 
 Baronet his father. 
 
 Of sunshiny days this old gentleman was taken out in a chair 
 on the terrace — the very chair which Miss Crawley haxi had at 
 Brighton, and which had been transported thence with a 
 number of Lady Southdown's effects to Queen's Crawley. Lady 
 Jane always walked by the old man; and was an evident 
 favourite with him. He used to nod many times to her and 
 smile when she came in, and utter inarticulate deprecatory 
 moans when she was going away. When the door shut upon 
 her he would cry and sob — whereupon Hester's face and manner, 
 which was always exceedingly bland and gentle while her lady 
 was present, would change at once, and she would make faces 
 at him and clench her fist, and scream out, " Hold your tongue, 
 you stcopid old fool," and twirl away his chair from the fire 
 which he loved to look at — ^at which he would cry more. For 
 this was all that was left after more than seventy years of cun- 
 ning and struggling, and drinking, and scheming, and sin and 
 selfishness — a whimpering old idiot put in and out of bed and 
 cleaned and fed like a baby. 
 
 At last a day came when the nurse's occupation was over. 
 Early one morning, as Pitt Crawley was at his steward's and 
 bailiff's books in the study, a knock came to the door, and 
 Hester presented herself dropping a curtsey, and said — 
 
 " If you please. Sir Pitt, Sir Pitt died this morning, Sir Pitt. 
 I was a-making of his toast. Sir Pitt, for his gruel, Sir Pitt, which 
 he took every morning regular at six, Sir Pitt, and — I thought I 
 
 heard a moan-like, Sir Pitt — ^and — and — and " She dropped 
 
 another curtsey. 
 
 What was it that made Pitt's pale face flush quite red ? Was 
 it because he was Sir Pitt at last, with a seat in Parliament, and 
 
4o8 Vanity Fair 
 
 perhaps future honours in prospect? " I'll clear the estate now 
 with the ready money," he thought, and rapidly calculated its 
 incumbrances, and the improvements which he would make. 
 He would not use his aunt's money previously lest Sir Pitt should 
 recover and his outlay be in vain. 
 
 All the blinds were pulled down at the Hall and Rectory : the 
 church bell was tolled, and the chancel hung in black; and Bute 
 Crawley didn't go to a coursing meeting, but went and dined 
 quietly at Fuddleston, where they talked about his deceased 
 brother and young Sir Pitt over their port. Miss Betsy, who 
 was by this time married to a saddler at Mudbury, cried a good 
 deal. The family surgeon rode over and paid his respectful 
 compliments, and inquiries for the health of their ladysliips. 
 The death was talked about at Mudbury and at the Crawley 
 Arms; the landlord whereof had become reconciled with the 
 Rector of late, who was occasionally known to step into the 
 parlour and taste Mr. Horrocks' mild beer. 
 
 " Shall I write to your brother — or will you? " asked Lady 
 Jane of her husband. Sir Pitt. 
 
 " I will write of course," Sir Pitt said, " and invite him to 
 the funeral; it will be but becoming." 
 
 " And — and — Mrs. Rawdon," said Lady Jane timidly. 
 
 " Jane ! " said Lady Southdown, " how can you think of such 
 a thing?" 
 
 " Mrs. Rawdon must of course be asked," said Sir Pitt 
 resolutely. 
 
 " Not whilst I am in the house! " said Lady Southdown. 
 
 " Your Ladyship will be pleased to recollect that I am the 
 head of this family," Sir Pitt replied. " If you please. Lady 
 Jane, you will write a letter to Mrs. Rawdon Crawley, requesting 
 her presence upon this melancholy occasion." 
 
 " Jane, I forbid you to put pen to paper! " cried the Countess. 
 
 " I believe I am the head of this family," Sir Pitt repeated; 
 " and however much I may regret any circumstance which may 
 lead to your Ladyship quitting this house, must, if you please, 
 continue to govern it as I see fit." 
 
 Lady Southdown rose up as magnificent as Mrs. Siddons in 
 Lady Macbeth, and ordered that horses might be put to her 
 carriage. If her son and daughter turned her out of their house 
 she would hide her sorrows somewhere in loneliness, and pray 
 for their conversion to better thoughts. 
 
 " We don't turn you out of our house, mamma," said the 
 timid Lady Jane imploringly. 
 
Becky is Recognised by the Family 409 
 
 " You invite such company to it as no Christian lady should 
 meet, and I will have my horses to-morrow morning." 
 
 " Have the goodness to write, Jane, under my dictation/' 
 said Sir Pitt, rising, and throwing himself into an attitude of 
 command, like the portrait of a Gentleman in the Exhibition, 
 " and begin: ' Queen's Crawley, September 14, 1822. — My dear 
 brother ' "— 
 
 Hearing these decisive and terrible words, Lady Macbeth, 
 who had been waiting for a sign of weakness or vacillation on 
 the part of her son-in-law, rose, and with a scared look, left the 
 library. Lady Jane looked up to her husband as if she would 
 fain follow and soothe her mamma: but Pitt forbade his wife to 
 move. 
 
 " She won't go away," he said. " She has let her house at 
 Brighton, and has spent her last half-year's dividends. A 
 Countess living at an inn is a ruined woman. I have been wait- 
 ing long for an opportunity to take this — this decisive step, my 
 love ; for, as you must perceive, it is impossible that there should 
 be two chiefs in a family: and now, if you please, we will resume 
 the dictation. ' My dear brother, the melancholy intelligence 
 which it is my duty to convey to my family must have been 
 long anticipated by,' " etc. 
 
 In a word, Pitt having come to his kingdom, and having by 
 good luck, or desert rather, as he considered, assumed almost 
 all the fortune which his other relatives had expected, was 
 determined to treat his family kindly and respectably, and make 
 a house of Queen's Crawley once more. It pleased him to think 
 that he should be its chief. He proposed to use the vast in- 
 fluence that his commanding talents and position must speedily 
 acquire for him in the country to get his brother placed and his 
 cousins decently provided for, and perhaps had a little sting of 
 repentance as he thought that he v/as the proprietor of all that 
 they had hoped for. In the course of three or four days' reign 
 his bearing was changed, and his plans quite fixed: he deter- 
 mined to rule justly and honestly, to depose Lady Southdown, 
 and to be on the friendhest possible terms with all the relations 
 of his blood. 
 
 So he dictated a letter to his brother Pvawdon — a solemn and 
 elaborate letter, containing the profoundest observations, 
 couched in the longest words, and filling with wonder the simple 
 little secretary, who wrote under her husband's order. " What 
 an orator this will be," thought she, " when he enters the House 
 of Commons " (on which pointy and on the tyranny of Lady 
 
41 o Vanity Fair 
 
 Southdown^ Pitt had sometimes dropped hints to his wife in 
 bed); " how wise and good, and what a genius my husband is! 
 I fancied him a httle cold; but how good^ and what a genius! " 
 
 The fact is, Pitt Crawley had got every word of the letter by 
 heart and had studied it, with diplomatic secrecy, deeply and 
 perfectly, long before he thought fit to communicate it to his 
 astonished wife. 
 
 This letter, with a huge black border and seal, was accordingly 
 despatched by Sir Pitt Crawley to his brother the Colonel, in 
 London. Rawdon Crawley was but half-pleased at the receipt 
 of it. " What's the use of going down to that stupid place? " 
 thought he. " I can't stand being alone with Pitt after dinner, 
 and horses there and back will cost us twenty pounds." 
 
 He carried the letter, as he did all difficulties, to Beck}^, 
 upstairs in her bedroom — with her chocolate, which he always 
 made and took to her of a morning. 
 
 He put the tray with the breakfast and the letter on the dress- 
 ing-table, before which Becky sate combing her yellow liair. 
 She took up the black-edged missive, and having read it, she 
 jumped up from the chair, crying " Hurray! " and waving the 
 note round her head. 
 
 "Hurray?" said Rawdon, wondering at the little figure 
 capering about in a streaming flannel dressing-gown, with tawny 
 locks dishevelled. " He's not left us anything, Becky. I had 
 my share when I came of age." 
 
 " You'll never be of age, you silly old m.an," Becky replied. 
 " Run out now to Madame Brunoy's, for I must have some 
 mourning : and get a crape on your hat and a black waistcoat — 
 I don't think you've got one; order it to be brought home 
 to-morrow, so that we may be able to start on Thursday." 
 
 " You don't mean to go? " Rawdon interposed. 
 
 " Of course I mean to go. I mean that Lady Jane shall pre- 
 sent me at Court next year. I mean that your brother shall 
 give you a seat in Parliament, you stupid old creature. I mean 
 that Lord Steyne shall have your vote and his, my dear old silly 
 man ; and that you shall be an Irish Secretary, or a West Indian 
 Governor: or a Treasurer, or a Consul, or some such thing." 
 
 " Posting will cost a dooce of a lot of money," grumbled 
 Rawdon. 
 
 " We might take Southdown's carriage, which ought to be 
 present at the funeral, as he is a relation of the family: but, no 
 — I intend that we shall go by the coach. They'll like it better. 
 It seems more humble " 
 
Becky is Recognised by the Family 411 
 
 "Rawdy goes, of course?" the Colonel asked. 
 
 '^No such thing; why pay an extra place? He's too big to 
 travel bodkin between you and me. Let him stay here in the 
 nursery, and Briggs can make him a black frock. Go you and 
 do as I bid you. And you had best tell Sparks, your man, that 
 old Sir Pitt is dead, and that you will come in for something 
 considerable when the affairs are arranged. He'll tell this to 
 Raggles, who has been pressing for money, and it will console 
 poor Raggles." And so Becky began sipping her chocolate. 
 
 When the faithful Lord Steyne arrived in the evening, he 
 found Becky and her companion, who was no other than our 
 friend Briggs, busy cutting, ripping, snipping, and tearing all 
 sorts of black stuffs available for the melancholy occasion. 
 
 " Miss Briggs and I are plunged in grief and despondency for 
 the death of our papa," Rebecca said. *' Sir Pitt Crawley is 
 dead, my Lord. We have been tearing our hair all the morning, 
 and now we are tearing up our old clothes." 
 
 " Rebecca, how can you " — was all that Briggs could say, 
 as she turned up her eyes. 
 
 " Rebecca, how can you " — echoed my Lord. " So that 
 old scoundrel's dead, is he? He might have been a Peer if he 
 had played his cards better. Mr. Pitt had very nearly made 
 him; but he ratted always at the wrong time. What an old 
 Silenus it was! " 
 
 *' I might have been Silenus's widow," said Rebecca. " Don't 
 you remember, Miss Briggs, how you peeped in at the door, and 
 saw old Sir Pitt on his knees to me? " Miss Briggs, our old 
 friend, blushed very much at this reminiscence; and was glad 
 when Lord Steyne ordered her to go downstairs and make him 
 a cup of tea. 
 
 Briggs was the house-dog whom Rebecca had provided as 
 guardian of her innocence and reputation. Miss Crav/ley had 
 left her a little annuity. She would have been content to 
 remain in the Crawley family with Lady Jane, who was good to 
 her and to everybody: but Lady Southdown dismissed poor 
 Briggs as quickly as decency permitted; and Mr. Pitt (who 
 thought himself much injured by the uncalled-for generosity 
 of his deceased relative towards a lady who had only been Miss 
 Crawley's faithful retainer a score of years) made no objection 
 to that exercise of the Dowager's authority. Bowls and Firkin 
 likewise received their legacies, and their dismissals; and 
 married and set up a lodging-house^ according to the custom 
 of their kind. 
 
412 Vanity Fair 
 
 Briggs tried to live with her relations in the country, but 
 found that attempt was vain after the better society to which 
 she had been accustomed. Briggs's friends, small tradesmen, 
 in a country town, quarrelled over Miss Briggs's forty pounds 
 a year, as eagerly and more openly than Miss Crawley's kinsfolk 
 had for that lady's inheritance. Briggs's brother, a radical 
 hatter and grocer, called his sister a purse-proud aristocra't, 
 because she would not advance a part of her capital to stock 
 his shop : and she would have done so most likely, but that their 
 sister, a dissenting shoemaker's lady, at variance with the hatter 
 and grocer, who went to another chapel, showed how their 
 brother was on the verge of bankruptcy, and took possession of 
 Briggs for a while. The dissenting shoemaker wanted Miss 
 Briggs to send his son to college, and make a gentleman of him. 
 Between them the two families got a great portion of her private 
 savings out of her: and finally she fled to London followed by 
 the anathemas of both, and determined to seek for servitude 
 again as infinitely less onerous than liberty. And advertising 
 in the papers that a " Gentlewoman of agreeable manners, and 
 accustomed to the best society, was anxious to," etc., she took 
 up her residence with Mr. Bowls in Half Moon Street, and waited 
 the result of the advertisement. 
 
 So it was that she fell in with Rebecca. Mrs. Rawdon's 
 dashing little carriage and ponies was whirling down the street 
 one day, just as Miss Briggs, fatigued, had reached Mr. Bowls's 
 door, after a weary walk to the Times office in the City, to 
 insert her advertisement for the sixth time. Rebecca was 
 driving, and at once recognised the gentlewoman with agreeable 
 manners, and being a perfectly good-humoured woman, as we 
 have seen, and having a regard for Briggs, she pulled up the 
 ponies at the doorsteps, gave the reins to the groom, and jump- 
 ing out, had hold of both Briggs's hands, before she of the agree- 
 able manners had recovered from the shock of seeing an old 
 friend. 
 
 Briggs cried, and Becky laughed a great deal, and kissed the 
 gentlewoman as soon as they got into the passage; and thence 
 into Mrs. Bowls's front parlour, with the red moreen curtains, and 
 the round looking-glass, with the chained eagle above, gazing 
 upon the back of the ticket in the window which announced 
 " Apartments to Let." 
 
 Briggs told all her history amidst those perfectly uncalled-for 
 sobs and ejaculations of wonder with which women of her soft 
 nature salute an old acquaintance, or regard a rencontre in the 
 
Becky is Recognised by the Family 413 
 
 street; for though people meet other people every day, yet some 
 there are who insist upon discovering miracles; and women, 
 even though they have disliked each other, begin to cry when 
 they meet, deploring and remembering the time when they 
 last quarrelled. So, in a word, Briggs told all her history, and 
 Becky gave a narrative of her own life, with her usual artlessness 
 and candour. 
 
 Mrs. Bowls, late Firkin, came and listened grimly in the 
 passage to the hysterical sniffing and giggling which went on in 
 the front parlour. Becky had never been a favourite of hers. 
 Since the establishment of the married couple in London they 
 had frequented their former friends of the house of Raggles, and 
 did not like the latter's account of the Colonel's menage. " I 
 wouldn't trust him, Ragg, my boy," Bowls remarked: and his 
 wife, when Mrs. Rawdon issued from the parlour, only saluted 
 the lady with a very sour curtsey: and her jSngers were like so 
 many sausages, cold and lifeless, when she held them out in 
 deference to Mrs. Rawdon, who persisted in shaking hands with 
 the retired lady's maid. She whirled away into Piccadilly, 
 nodding with the sweetest of smiles towards Miss Briggs, who 
 hung nodding at the window close under the advertisement card, 
 and at the next moment was in the Park with a half-dozen of 
 dandies cantering after her carriage. 
 
 When she found how her friend was situated, and how, having 
 a snug legacy from Miss Crawley, salary was no object to our 
 gentlewoman, Becky instantly formed some benevolent little 
 domestic plans concerning her. This was just such a com- 
 panion as would suit her establishment, and she invited Briggs 
 to come to dinner with her that ver}^ evening, when she should 
 see Becky's dear little darling Rawdon. 
 
 Mrs. Bowls cautioned her lodger against venturing into the 
 lion's den, " wherein you will rue it. Miss B., mark my words, 
 and as sure as my name is Bowls." And Briggs promised to be 
 very cautious. The upshot of which caution was that she went 
 to hve with Mrs. Rawdon the next week, and had lent Rawdon 
 Crawley six hundred pounds upon annuity before six months 
 were over^ 
 
414 Vanity Fair 
 
 CHAPTER XLI 
 
 IN WHICH BECKY REVISITS THE HALLS OF HER ANCESTORS 
 
 So the mourning being ready^ and Sir Pitt Crawley warned of 
 their arrival, Colonel Crawley and his wife took a couple of 
 places in the same old Highflyer coach, by which Rebecca had 
 travelled in the defunct Baronet's company, on her first journey 
 into the world some nme years before. How well she remem- 
 bered the inn-yard, and the ostler to whom she refused money, 
 and the insinuating Cambridge lad who wrapped her in his coat 
 on the journey! Rawdon took his place outside, and would 
 have liked to drive, but his grief forbade him. He sat by the 
 coachman, and talked about horses and the road the whole way; 
 and who kept the inns, and who horsed the coach by which he 
 had travelled so many a time, when he and Pitt were boys going 
 to Eton. At Mudbury a carriage and a pair of horses received 
 them, with a coachman in black. " It's the old drag, Rawdon," 
 Rebecca said as they got in. " The worms have eaten the cloth 
 a good deal — there's the stain which Sir Pitt — ha! I see 
 Dawson the ironmonger has his shutters up — which Sir Pitt 
 made such a noise about. It was a bottle of cherry brandy he 
 broke which we went to fetch for your aunt from Southampton. 
 How time flies, to be sure ! that can't be Polly Talboys, that 
 bouncing girl standing by her mother at the cottage there. I 
 remember her a mangy little urchin picking weeds in the 
 garden." 
 
 " Fine gal," said Rawdon, returning the salute which the 
 cottage gave him, by two fingers applied to his crape hat- band. 
 Becky bowed and saluted, and recognised people here and there 
 graciously. These recognitions were inexpressibly pleasant to 
 her. It seemed as if she was not an impostor any more, and 
 was coming to the home of her ancestors. P^awdon was rather 
 abashed and cast down, on the other hand. What recollections 
 of boyhood and innocence might have been flitting across his 
 brain .f* What pangs of dim remorse and doubt and shame? 
 
 " Your sisters must be young women now," Rebecca said, 
 thinking of those girls for the first time perhaps since she had 
 left them. 
 
 "Don't know. I'm shaw," replied the Colonel. "Hullo! 
 here's old Mother Lock. How-dy-do, Mrs. Lock.? Remember 
 
Becky Revisits Her Ancestral Halls 415 
 
 me, don't you? Master Rawdon, hey? Dammy, how those 
 old women last; she was a hundred when I was a boy." 
 
 They were going through the lodge gates kept by old Mrs.: 
 Lock, whose hand Rebecca insisted upon shaking, as she flung 
 open the creaking old iron gate, and the carriage passed between 
 the two moss-grown pillars surmounted by the dove and serpent. 
 
 " The governor has cut into the timber," Rawdon said, look- 
 ing about, and then was silent — so was Becky. Both of them 
 were rather agitated, and thinking of old times. He about 
 Eton, and his mother, whom he remembered, a frigid demure 
 woman, and a sister who died, of whom he had been passionately 
 fond; and how he used to thrash Pitt; and about little Rawdy 
 at home. And Rebecca thought about her own youth and the 
 dark secrets of those early tainted days; and of her entrance 
 into life by yonder gates; and of Miss Pinkerton, and Joe, and 
 Amelia. 
 
 The gravel walk and terrace had been scraped quite clean. 
 A grand painted hatchment was already over the great entrance, 
 and two very solemn and tall personages in black flung open 
 each a leaf of the door as the carriage pulled up at the familiar 
 steps. Rawdon turned red, and Becky somewhat pale, as they 
 passed through the old hall arm-in-arm. She pinched her 
 husband's arm as they entered the oak parlour, where Sir Pitt 
 and his wife were ready to receive themx. Sir Pitt in black. 
 Lady Jane in black, and my Lady Southdown with a large black 
 headpiece of bugles and feathers, which waved on her ladyship's 
 head like an undertaker's tray. 
 
 Sir Pitt had judged correctly, that she would not quit the 
 premises. She contented herself by preserving a solemn and 
 stony silence, when in company of Pitt and his rebellious wife, 
 and by frightening the children in the nursery by the ghastly 
 gloom of her demeanour. Only a very faint bending of the 
 head-dress and plumes welcomed Rawdon and his wife, as those 
 prodigals rieturned to their family. 
 
 To say the truth, they were not affected very much one way 
 or other by this coolness. Her Ladyship was a person only of 
 secondary consideration in their minds just then — they were 
 intent upon the reception which the reigning brother and sister 
 would afford them. 
 
 Pitt, with rather a heightened colour, went up and shook 
 his brother by the hand, and saluted Rebecca with a hand- 
 shake and a very low bow. But Lady Jane took both the 
 hands of her sister-in-law, and kissed her affectionately. The 
 
41 6 Vanity Fair 
 
 embrace somehow brought tears into the eyes of the little 
 adventuress — which ornaments, as we know, she wore very 
 seldom. The artless mark of kindness and confidence touched 
 and pleased her: and Rawdon, encouraged by this demonstra- 
 tion on his sister's part, twirled up his mustachios, and took 
 leave to salute Lady Jane with a kiss, which caused her Lady- 
 ship to blush exceedingly. 
 
 " Dev'lish nice little woman, Lady Jane," was his verdict, 
 when he and his wife were together again. " Pitt's got fat, too, 
 and is doing the thing handsomely." " He can afford it," said 
 Rebecca, and agreed in her husband's further opinion, " that the 
 mother-in-law was a tremendous old guy — ^and that the sisters 
 were rather well-looking young women." 
 
 They, too, had been summoned from school to attend the 
 funeral ceremonies. It seemed Sir Pitt Crawley, for the dignity 
 of the house and family, had thought right to have about the 
 place as many persons in black as could possibly be assembled. 
 All the men and maids of the house, the old women of the Alms- 
 house, whom the elder Sir Pitt had cheated out of a great 
 portion of their due, the parish clerk's family, and the special 
 retainers of both Hall and Rectory, were habited in sable; 
 added to these, the undertaker's men, at least a score, with 
 crapes and hat-bands, and who made a goodly show when the 
 great burying show took place — but these are mute personages 
 in our drama; and having nothing to do or say, need occupy a 
 very little space here. 
 
 With regard to her sisters-in-law Rebecca did not attempt to 
 forget her former position of governess towards them, but re- 
 called it frankly and kindly, and asked them about their studies 
 with great gravity, and told them that she had thought of them 
 many and many a day, and longed to know of their welfare. In 
 fact, you would have supposed that ever since she had left them 
 she had not ceased to keep them uppermost in her thoughts, and 
 to take the tenderest interest in their welfare. So supposed 
 Lady Crawley herself and her young sisters. 
 
 " She's hardly changed since eight years," said Miss Rosalind 
 to Miss Violet, as they were preparing for dinner. 
 
 " Those red-haired women look wonderfully well," replied 
 the other. 
 
 " Hers is much darker than it was; I think she must dye 
 it," Miss Rosalind added. " She is stouter too, and altogether 
 improved," continued Miss Rosalind, who was disposed to be 
 very fat. 
 
Becky Revisits Her Ancestral Halls 417 
 
 " At least she gives herself no airs, and remembers that she 
 was our governess once/' Miss Violet said, intimating that it 
 befitted all governesses to keep their proper place, and for- 
 getting altogether that she was granddaughter not only of Sir 
 Walpole Crawley, but of Mr. Dawson of Mudbury, and so had 
 a coal-scuttle in her scutcheon. There are other very well- 
 meaning people whom one meets every day in Vanity Fair, who 
 are surely equally obhvious. 
 
 " It can't be true what the girls at the Rectory said, that her 
 mother was an opera-dancer " 
 
 " A person can't help their birth," Rosalind replied with great 
 liberality. " And I agree with our brother, that as she is in the 
 family, of course we are bound to notice her. I am sure Aunt 
 Bute need not talk : she wants to marry Kate to young Hooper, 
 the wine-merchant, and absolutely asked him to come to the 
 Rectory for orders." 
 
 " I wonder whether Lady Southdown will go away; she 
 looked very glum upon Mrs. Rawdon," the other said. 
 
 " I wish she would. / won't read the ' Washerwoman of 
 Finchley Common,' " vowed Violet: and so saying, and avoid- 
 ing a passage at the end of which a certain coffin was placed 
 with a couple of watchers, and lights perpetually burning in 
 the closed room, these young women came down to the family 
 dinner, for which the bell rang as usual. 
 
 But before this. Lady Jane conducted Rebecca to the apart- 
 ments prepared for her, which, with the rest of the house, had 
 assumed a ver}^ much improved appearance of order and 
 comfort during Pitt's regency, and here, beholding that Mrs. 
 Rawdon's modest little trunks had arrived, and were placed in 
 the bedroom and dressing-room adjoining, helped her to take 
 off her neat black bonnet and cloak, and asked her sister-in-law 
 in what more she could be useful. 
 
 " What I should like best," said Rebecca, " would be to go 
 to the nursery, and see your dear little children." On which 
 the two ladies looked very kindly at each other, and went to 
 that apartment hand-in-hand. 
 
 Becky admired little Matilda, who was not quite four years 
 old, as the most charming little love in the world; and the boy, 
 a Httle fellow of two years — pale, heavy-eyed, and large-headed, 
 she pronounced to be a perfect prodigy in point of size, intelli- 
 gence, and beauty. 
 
 " I wish mamma would not insist on giving him so much 
 medicine," Lady Jane said with a sigh. " I often think we 
 o 398 
 
41 8 Vanity Fair 
 
 should all be better without it." And then Lady Jane and her 
 new-found friend had one of those confidential medical conversa- 
 tions about the children^ which all mothers, and most women, 
 as I am given to understand, delight in. Fifty years ago, and 
 when the present writer, being an interesting little boy, was 
 ordered out of the room with the ladies after dinner, I remember 
 quite well that their talk was chiefly about their ailments; and 
 putting this question directly to two or three since, I have 
 always got from them the acknowledgment that times are not 
 changed. Let my fair readers remark for themselves this very 
 evening when they quit the dessert-table, and assemble to 
 celebrate the drawing-room mysteries. Well — in half-an-hour 
 Becky and Lady Jane were close and intimate friends — and in 
 the course of the evening her Ladyship informed Sir Pitt that 
 she thought her new sister-in-law was a kind, frank, unaffected, 
 and affectionate young woman. 
 
 And so having easily won the daughter's good-will, the inde- 
 fatigable little woman bent herself to conciliate the august Lady 
 Southdown. As soon as she found her Ladyship alone, Rebecca 
 attacked her on the nursery question at once, and said that her 
 own little boy was saved, actually saved, by calomel, freely ad- 
 ministered, when all the physicians in Paris had given the dear 
 child up. And then she mentioned how often she had heard 
 of Lady Southdown from that excellent man the Reverend 
 Lawrence Grills, minister of the chapel in Mayfair which she 
 frequented; and how her views were very much changed by 
 circumstances and misfortunes; and how she hoped that a past 
 life spent in worldliness and error might not incapacitate her 
 from more serious thought for the future. She described how 
 in former days she had been indebted to Mr. Crawley for 
 religious instruction, touched upon the " Washerwoman of 
 Finchley Common," which she had read with the greatest profit, 
 and asked about Lady Emily, its gifted author, now Lady Emily 
 Homblower, at Cape Town, where her husband had strong hopes 
 of becoming Bishop of Caffraria. 
 
 But she crowned all, and confirmed herself in Lady South- 
 down's favour, by feeling very much agitated and unwell after 
 the funeral, and requesting her Ladyship's medical advice, 
 which the Dowager not only gave, but, wrapped up in a bed- 
 gown, and looking more like Lady Macbeth than ever, came 
 privately in the night to Becky's room, with a parcel of favourite 
 tracts, and a medicine of her own composition, v/hich she 
 insisted that Mrs, Rawdon should take. 
 
Becky Revisits Her Ancestral Halls 419 
 
 Becky first accepted the tracts^ and began to examine them 
 with great interest, engaging the Dowager in a conversation 
 concerning them and the welfare of her soul, by which means 
 she hoped that her body might escape medication. But after 
 the religious topics were exhausted. Lady Macbeth would not 
 quit Becky's chamber until her cup of night-drink was emptied 
 too; and poor Mrs. Rawdon was compelled actually to assume 
 a look of gratitude, and to swallow the medicine under the 
 unyielding old Dowager's nose, who left her victim finally with 
 a benediction. 
 
 It did not much comfort Mrs. Rawdon; her countenance was 
 very queer when Rawdon came in and heard what had happened; 
 and his explosions of laughter were as loud as usual, when Becky, 
 with a fun which she could not disguise, even though it was at 
 her own expense, described the occurrence, and how she had 
 been victimised by Lady Southdown. Lord Steyne, and her 
 son in London, had many a laugh over the story, when Rawdon 
 and his wife returned to their quarters in Mayfair. Becky acted 
 the whole scene for them. She put on a nightcap and gown. 
 She preached a great semion in the true serious manner; she 
 lectured on the virtue of the medicine which she pretended to 
 administer, with a gravity of imitation so perfect, that you 
 would have thought it was the Countess's own Roman nose 
 through which she snuffled. " Give us Lady Southdown and 
 the black dose," was a constant cry amongst the folks in Becky's 
 little drawing-room in Mayfair. And for the first time in her 
 life the Dowager Countess of Southdown was made amusing. 
 
 Sir Pitt remembered the testimonies of respect and veneration 
 which Rebecca had paid personally to himself in early days, 
 and was tolerably well disposed towards her. The marriage, 
 ill-advised as it was, had improved Rawdon very much — that 
 was clear from the Colonel's altered habits and demeanour — 
 and had it not been a lucky union as regarded Pitt himself? 
 The cunning diplomatist smiled inwardly as he owned that he 
 owed his fortune to it, and acknowledged that he at least ought 
 not to cry out against it. His satisfaction was not removed by 
 Rebecca's own statements, behaviour, and conversation. 
 
 She doubled the deference which before had charmed him, 
 calling out his conversational powers in such a manner as quite 
 to surprise Pitt himself, who, always inclined to respect his own 
 talents, admired them the more when Rebecca pointed them 
 out to him. With her sister-in-law, Rebecca was satisfactorily 
 able to prove, that it was Mrs.. Bute Crawley who brought about 
 
42 o Vanity Fair 
 
 the marriage which she afterwards so calumniated : that it was 
 Mrs. Bute's avarice — who hoped to gain all Miss Crawley's 
 fortune, and deprive Rawdon of his aunt's favour — which caused 
 and invented all the wicked reports against Rebecca. " She 
 succeeded in making us poor/' Rebecca said, with an air of 
 angelical patience; '* but how can I be angry with a woman who 
 has given me one of the best husbands in the world? And has 
 not her own avarice been sufficiently punished by the ruin of her 
 own hopes, and the loss of the property by which she set so 
 much store? Poor! " she cried. " Dear Lady Jane, what care 
 we for poverty? I am used to it from childhood, and I am 
 often thankful that Miss Crawley's money has gone to restore 
 the splendour of the noble old family of which I am so proud to 
 be a member. I am sure Sir Pitt will make a much better use 
 of it than Rawdon could." 
 
 All these speeches were reported to Sir Pitt by the most faith- 
 ful of wives, and increased the favourable impression which 
 Rebecca made; so m.uch so, that when on the third day after 
 the funeral the family party were at dinner. Sir Pitt Crawley, 
 carving fowls at the head of the table, actually said to Mrs. 
 Rawdon, " Ahem ! Rebecca, may I give you a wing? " — a speech 
 which made the little woman's eyes sparkle with pleasure. 
 
 While Rebecca was prosecuting the above schemes and hopes, 
 and Pitt Crawley arranging the funeral ceremonial and other 
 matters connected with his future progress and dignity, and 
 Lady Jane busy with her nurser)^, as far as her mother would let 
 her, and the sun rising and setting, and the clock-tower bell of 
 the Hall ringing to dinner and to prayers as usual, the body of 
 the late owner of Queen's Crawley lay in the apartment which 
 he had occupied, watched unceasingly by the professional 
 attendants who were engaged for that rite. A woman or two, 
 and three or four undertaker's men, the best whom Southampton 
 could furnish, dressed in black, and of a proper stealthy and 
 tragical demeanour, had charge of the remains, which they 
 watched turn about, having the housekeeper's room for their 
 place of rendezvous when off duty, where they played at cards in 
 privacy and drank their beer. 
 
 The members of the family and servants of the house kept 
 away from the gloomy spot, where the bones of the descendant 
 of an ancient line of knights and gentlemen lay, awaiting their 
 final consignment to the family crypt. No regrets attended 
 them, save those of the poor woman who had hoped to be Sir 
 Pitt's wife and widow, and who had fled in disgrace from the 
 
Becky Revisits Her Ancestral Halls 421 
 
 Hall over which she had so nearly been a ruler. Beyond her and 
 a favourite old pointer he had^ and between whom and himself 
 an attachment subsisted during the period of his imbecility, the 
 old man had not a single friend to mourn him, having indeed, 
 during the whole course of his life, never taken the least pains to 
 secure one. Could the best and kindest of us who depart from 
 the earth, have an opportunity of revisiting it, I suppose he or 
 she (assuming that any Vanity Fair feehngs subsist in the sphere 
 whither we are bound) would have a pang of mortification at 
 finding how soon our survivors were consoled. And so Sir 
 Pitt was forgotten — like the kindest and best of us — only a few 
 weeks sooner. 
 
 Those who will may follow his remains to the grave, whither 
 they were borne on the appointed day, in the most becoming 
 manner, the family in black coaches, with their handkerchiefs 
 up to their noses, ready for the tears which did not come: the 
 undertaker and his gentlemen in deep tribulation: the select 
 tenantry mourning out of compliment to the new landlord: 
 the neighbouring gentry's carriages at three miles an hour, 
 empty, and in profound affliction : the parson speaking out the 
 formula about " our dear brother departed." As long as we 
 have a man's body, we play our Vanities upon it, surrounding 
 it with humbug and ceremonies, laying it in state, and packing 
 it up in gilt nails and velvet: and we finish our duty by placing 
 over it a stone, written all over with lies. Bute's curate, a smart 
 young fellow from Oxford, and Sir Pitt Crawley, composed be- 
 tween them an appropriate Latin epitaph for the late lamented 
 Baronet: and the former preached a classical sermon, exhorting 
 the survivors not to give way to grief, and informing them in the 
 most respectful terms that they also would be one day called 
 upon to pass that gloomy and mysterious portal which had just 
 closed upon the remains of their lamented brother. Then the 
 tenantry mounted on horseback again, or stayed and refreshed 
 themselves at the Crawley Arms. Then, after a lunch in the 
 servants' hall at Queen's Crawley, the gentry's carriages wheeled 
 off to their different destinations: then the undertaker's men, 
 taking the ropes, palls, velvet, ostrich feathers, and other mortu- 
 ary properties, clambered up on the roof of the hearse, and rode 
 off to Southampton. Their faces relapsed into a natural ex- 
 pression as the horses, clearing the lodge gates, got into a brisker 
 trot on the open road ; and squads of them might have been seen, 
 speckling with black the public-house entrances, with pewter- 
 pots flashing in the sunshine. Sir Pitt's invalid -chair was 
 
422 Vanity Fair 
 
 wheeled away into a tool-house in the garden: the old pointer 
 used to howl sometimes at first, but these were the only accents 
 of grief which were heard in the Hall of which Sir Pitt Crawley, 
 Baronet, had been master for some threescore years. 
 
 As the birds were pretty plentiful, and partridge-shooting is 
 as it were the duty of an English gentleman of statesmanlike 
 propensities. Sir Pitt Crawley, the first shock of grief over, went 
 out a little and partook of that diversion in a white hat with 
 crape round it. The sight of those fields of stubble and turnips, 
 now his own, gave him many secret joys. Sometimes, and with 
 an exquisite humility, he took no gun, but went out with a peace- 
 ful bamboo cane; Rawdon, his big brother, and the keepers 
 blazing away at his side. Pitt's money and acres had a great 
 effect upon his brother. The penniless Colonel became quite 
 obsequious and respectful to the head of his house, and despised 
 the milksop Pitt no longer. Rawdon listened with S3nTipathy to 
 his senior's prospects of planting and draining: gave his advice 
 about the stables and cattle, rode over to Mudbury to look at a 
 mare, which he thought would carry Lady Jane, and offered to 
 break her, etc. : the rebellious dragoon was quite humbled and 
 subdued, and became a most creditable younger brother. He 
 had constant bulletins from Miss Briggs in London respecting 
 little Rawdon, who was left behind there: who sent messages 
 of his own. " I am very well," he wrote. " I hope you are 
 very well. I hope Mamma is very well. The pony is very well. 
 Grey takes me to ride in the Park. I can canter. I met the 
 little boy who rode before. He cried when he cantered. I do 
 not cry." Rawdon read these letters to his brother, and Lady 
 Jane, who was delighted with them. The Baronet promised 
 to take charge of the lad at school; and his kind-hearted wife 
 gave Rebecca a bank-note, begging her to buy a present with it 
 for her little nephew. 
 
 One day followed another, and the ladies of the house passed 
 their life in those calm pursuits and amusements which satisfy 
 country ladies. Bells rang to meals, and to prayers. The 
 young ladies took exercise on the pianoforte every morning 
 after breakfast, Rebecca giving them the benefit of her instruc- 
 tion. Then they put on thick shoes and walked in the park or 
 shrubberies, or beyond the palings into the village, descending 
 upon the cottages, with Lady Southdown's medicine and tracts 
 for the sick people there. Lady Southdown drove out in a 
 pony-chaise, when Rebecca would take her place by the 
 
Becky Revisits Her Ancestral Halls 423 
 
 Dowager's side, and listen to her solemn talk with the utmost 
 interest. She sang Handel and Haydn to the family of evenings, 
 and engaged in a large piece of worsted work, as if she had been 
 born to the business, and as if this kind of life was to continue 
 with her until she should sink to the grave in a polite old age, 
 leaving regrets and a great quantity of Consols behind her— as 
 if there were not cares and duns, schemes, shifts, and poverty, 
 waiting outside the park gates, to pounce upon her when she 
 issued into the world again. 
 
 " It isn't difficult to be a country gentleman's wife," Rebecca 
 thought. " I think I could be a good woman if I had five 
 thousand a year. I could dawdle about in the nursery, and 
 count the apricots on the wall. I could water plants in a green- 
 house, and pick off dead leaves from the geraniums. I could ask 
 old women about their rheumatisms, and order half-a-crown's 
 worth of soup for the poor. I shouldn't miss it much out of five 
 thousand a year. I could even drive out ten miles to dine at a 
 neighbour's, and dress in the fashions of the year before last. 
 I could go to church and keep awake in the great family pew : 
 or go to sleep behind the curtains, with my veil down, if I only 
 had practice. I could pay everybody, if I had but the money. 
 This is what the conjurors here pride themselves upon doing. 
 They look down with pity upon us miserable sinners who have 
 none. They think themselves generous if they give our children 
 a five-pound note, and us contemptible if we are without one." 
 And who knows but Rebecca was right in her speculations — 
 and that it was only a question of money and fortune which 
 made the difference between her and an honest woman? If 
 you take temptations into account, who is to say that he is 
 better than his neighbour ? A comfortable career of prosperity, 
 if it does not make people honest, at least keeps them so. An 
 alderman coming from a turtle feast will not step out of his 
 carriage to steal a leg of mutton; but put him to starve, and 
 see if he will not purloin a loaf. Becky consoled herself by so 
 balancing the chances and equalising the distribution of good and 
 evil in the world. 
 
 The old haunts, the old fields and woods, the copses, ponds, 
 and gardens, the rooms of the old house where she had spent a 
 couple of years seven years ago, were all carefully revisited by 
 her. She had been young there, or comparatively so, for she 
 forgot the time when she ever was young — but she remembered 
 her thoughts and feelings seven years back, and contrasted them 
 with those which she had at present, now that she had seen the 
 
424 Vanity Fair 
 
 world and lived with great people, and raised herself far beyond 
 her original humble station. 
 
 " I have passed beyond it, because I have brains/' Becky 
 thought, " and almost all the rest of the world are fools. I could 
 not go back, and consort with those people now, whom I used 
 to meet in my father's studio. Lords come up to my door with 
 stars and garters, instead of poor artists with screws of tobacco 
 in their pockets. I have a gentleman for my husband, and an 
 Earl's daughter for my sister, in the very house where I was 
 little better than a servant a few years ago. But am I much 
 better to do now in the world than I was when I was the poor 
 painter's daughter, and wheedled the grocer round the corner 
 for sugar and tea ? Suppose I had married Francis, who was so 
 fond of me — I couldn't have been much poorer than I am now. 
 Heigho! I wish I could exchange my position in society, and 
 all my relations, for a snug sum in the Three per Cent. Consols; " 
 for so it was that Becky felt the Vanity of human affairs, and it 
 was in those securities that she would have liked to cast anchor. 
 
 It may, perhaps, have struck her that to have been honest and 
 humble, to have done her duty, and to have marched straight- 
 forward on her way, would have brought her as near happiness 
 as that path by which she was striving to attain it. But, — just 
 as the children at Queen's Crawley went round the room, where 
 the body of their father lay; — if ever Becky had these thoughts, 
 she was accustomed to walk round them, and not look in. She 
 eluded them, and despised them — or at least she was committed 
 to the other path, from which retreat was now impossible. And 
 for my part I believe that remorse is the least active of all a man's 
 moral senses — the very easiest to be deadened when wakened: 
 and in some never wakened at all. 
 
 We grieve at being found out, and at the idea of shame or 
 punishment; but the mere sense of wTong makes very few people 
 unhappy in Vanity Fair. 
 
 So Rebecca, during her stay at Queen's Crawley, made as 
 many friends of the Mammon of Unrighteousness as she could 
 possibly bring under control. Lady Jane and her husband bade 
 her farewell with the warmest demoubtrations of good-will. 
 They looked forward with pleasure to the time when, the family 
 house in Gaunt Street being repaired and beautified, they were 
 to meet again in London. Lady Southdown made her up .a 
 packet of medicine, and sent a letter by her to the Rev. Lawrence 
 Grills, exhorting that gentleman to save the brand who 
 " honoured " the letter from the burning. Pitt accompanied 
 
The Osborne Family 425 
 
 them with four horses in the carriage to Mudbury, having sent 
 on their baggage in a cart previously, accompanied with loads of 
 game. 
 
 " How happy you will be to see your da,rling little boy again ! '* 
 Lady Crawley said, taking leave of her kinswoman. 
 
 " Oh, so happy! " said Rebecca, throwing up the green eyes. 
 She was immensely happy to be free of the place, and yet loth 
 to go. Queen's Crawley was abominably stupid; and yet the 
 air there was somehow purer than that which she had been 
 accustomed to breathe. Everybody had been dull, but had been 
 kind in their way. " It is all the influence of a long course of 
 Three per Cents.," Becky said to herself, and was right very 
 likely. 
 
 However, the London lamps flashed joyfully as the stage rolled 
 into Piccadilly, and Briggs had made a beautiful fire in Curzon 
 Street, and little Rawdon was up to welcome back his papa and 
 mamma. 
 
 CHAPTER XLII 
 
 WHICH TREATS OF THE OSBORNE FAMILY 
 
 Considerable time has elapsed since we have seen our respect- 
 able friend, old Mr. Osborne of Russell Square. He has not been 
 the happiest of mortals since last we met him. Events have 
 occurred which have not improved his temper, and in mor^ 
 instances than one he has not been allowed to have his own 
 way. To be thwarted in this reasonable desire was always very 
 injurious to the old gentleman; and resistance became doubly 
 exasperating when gout, age, loneliness, and the force of many 
 disappointments combined to weigh him down. His stiff black 
 hair began to grow quite white soon after his son's death; his 
 face grew redder; his hands trembled more and more as he 
 poured out his glass of port wine. He led his clerks a dire life 
 in the City: his family at home were not much happier. I 
 doubt if Rebecca, whom we have seen piously praying for Consols, 
 would have exchanged her poverty and the dare-devil excitement 
 and chances of her life, for Osborne's money and the humdrum 
 gloom which enveloped him. He had proposed for Miss Swartz, 
 but had been rejected scornfully by the partisans of that lady, 
 who married her to a young sprig of Scotch nobility. He was a 
 
426 Vanity Fair 
 
 man to have married a woman out of low life, and bullied her 
 dreadfully afterwards: but no person presented herself suitable 
 to his taste; and instead, he tyrannised over his unmarried 
 daughter at home. She had a fine carriage and fine horses, and 
 sate at the head of a table loaded with the grandest plate. She 
 had a cheque-book, a prize footman to follow her when she 
 walked, unlimited credit, and bows and compliments from all 
 the tradesmen, and all the appurtenances of an heiress ; but she 
 spent a woful time. The little charity-girls at the Foundling, 
 the sweeperess at the crossing, the poorest under-kitchenmaid 
 in the servants' hall, was happy compared to that unfortunate 
 and now middle-aged young lady. 
 
 Frederick Bullock, Esq., of the house of Bullock, Hulker & 
 Bullock, had married Maria Osborne, not without a great deal 
 of difficulty and grumbling on Mr. Bullock's part. George being 
 dead and cut out of his father's will, Frederick insisted that the 
 half of the old gentleman's property should be settled upon his 
 Maria, and indeed, for a long time, refused " to come to the 
 scratch " (it was Mr. Frederick's own expression) on any other 
 terms. Osborne said Fred had agreed to take his daughter with 
 twenty thousand, and he should bind himself to no more. 
 " Fred might take it, and welcome, or leave it, and go and be 
 hanged." Fred, whose hopes had been raised when George had 
 been disinherited, thought himself infamously swindled by the 
 old merchant, and for some time made as if he would break 
 off the match altogether. Osborne withdrew his account from 
 Bullock & Hulker's, went on 'Change with a horsewhip which 
 he swore he would lay across the back of a certain scoundrel that 
 should be nameless, and demeaned himself in his usual violent 
 manner. Jane Osborne condoled with her sister Maria during, 
 this family feud. " I always told you, Maria, that it was your 
 money he loved, and not you," she said soothingly. 
 
 " He selected me and my money, at any rate : he didn't choose 
 you and yours," replied Maria, tossing up her head. 
 
 The rupture was, however, only temporary. Fred's father 
 and senior partners counselled him to take Maria, even with the 
 twenty thousand settled, half down, and half at the death of Mr. 
 Osborne, with the chances of the further division of the property. 
 So he " knuckled down," again to use his own phrase; and sent 
 old Hulker with peaceable overtures to Osborne. It was his 
 father, he said, who would not hear of the match, and had made 
 the difficulties; he was most anxious to keep the engagement. 
 The excuse was sulkily accepted by Mr. Osborne. Hulker and 
 
The Osborne Family 427 
 
 Bullock were a high family of the city aristocracy^ and connected 
 with the *' nobs " at the West End. It was something for the 
 old man to be able to say, " My son, sir, of the house of Huiker, 
 Bullock & Co., sir; my daughter's cousin, Lady Mary Mango, sir, 
 daughter of the Right Hon. the Earl of Castlemouldy." In his 
 imagination he saw his house peopled by the '' nobs." So he 
 forgave young Bullock, and consented that the marriage should 
 take place. 
 
 It was a grand affair — the bridegroom's relatives giving the 
 breakfast, their habitations being near St. George's, Hanover 
 Square, where the business took place. The *' nobs of the West 
 End " were invited, and many of them signed the book. Mr. 
 Mango and Lady Mary Mango were there, with the dear young 
 Gwefidoline and Guinever Mango as bridesmaids; Colonel 
 Bludyer of the Dragoon Guards (eldest son of the house of 
 Bludyer Brothers, Mincing Lane), another cousin of the bride- 
 groom, and the honourable Mrs. Bludyer; the Honourable 
 George Boulter, Lord Levant's son, and his lady. Miss Mango 
 that was; Lord Viscount Castletoddy; Honourable James M'Mull 
 and Mrs. M'Mull (formerly Miss Swartz), and a host of fashion- 
 ables, who have all married into Lombard Street, and done a 
 great deal to ennoble Cornhill. 
 
 The 3-oung couple had a house near Berkeley Square, and a 
 small villa at Roehampton, among the banking colony there. 
 Fred was considered to have made rather a mesalliance by the 
 ladies of his family, whose grandfather had been in a Charity 
 School, and who were allied through the husbands with some 
 of the best blood in England. And Maria was bound, by 
 superior pride and great care in the composition of her visiting- 
 book, to make up for the defects of birth ; and felt it her duty to 
 see her father and sister as Httle as possible. 
 
 That she should utterly break with the old man, who had still 
 so many scores of thousand pounds to give away, is absurd to 
 suppose. Fred Bullock v/ould never allow her to do that. But 
 she was still young and incapable of hiding her feelings : and by 
 inviting her papa and sister to her third-rate parties, and beha\dng 
 very coldly to them when they came, and by avoiding Russell 
 Square, and indiscreetly begging her father to quit that odious 
 vulgar place ; she did more harm than all Frederick's diplomacy 
 could repair, and perilled her chance of her inheritance like a 
 giddy heedless creature as she was. 
 
 '' So Russell Square is not good enough for Mrs. Maria, hey? " 
 said the old gentleman, rattling up the carriage- windows, as he 
 
428 Vanity Fair 
 
 and his daughter drove away one night from Mrs. Frederick 
 Bullock's after dinner. " So she invites her father and sister to 
 a second day's dinner (if those sides, or ontrys, as she calls 'em, 
 
 weren't served yesterday, I'm d d), and to meet City folks 
 
 and littery men, and keeps the Earls and the Ladies and the 
 Honourables to herself? Honourables? Damn Honourables. 
 I am a plain British merchant, I am; and could buy the beggarly 
 hounds over and over. Lords, indeed ! — why, at one of her 
 swarreys I saw one of 'em speak to a dam fiddler — a fellar I 
 despise. And they won't come to Russell Square, won't they? 
 Why, I'll lay my life I've got a better glass of wine, and pay a 
 better figure for it, and can show a handsomer service of silver, 
 and can lay a better dinner on my mahogany, than ever they 
 see on theirs — the cringing, sneaking, stuck-up fools. Drive on 
 quick, James : I want to get back to Russell Square — ha, ha ! " 
 and he sank back into the comer with a furious laugh. With 
 such reflections on his own superior merit, it was the custom of 
 the old gentleman not unfrequently to console himself. 
 
 Jane Osborne could not but concur in these opinions respecting 
 her sister's conduct; and when Mrs. Frederick's first-bom, 
 Frederick Augustus Howard Stanley Devereux Bullock, was 
 bom, old Osborne, who was in^ated to the christening, and to be 
 godfather, contented himself with sending the child a gold cup, 
 with twenty guineas inside it for the nurse. " That's more than 
 any of your Lords will give, /'// warrant," he said, and. refused 
 to attend at the ceremony. 
 
 The splendour of the gift, however, caused great satisfaction 
 to the house of Bullock. Maria thought that her father was 
 very much pleased with her, and Frederick augured the best 
 for his Httle son and heir. 
 
 One can fancy the pangs with which Miss Osborne in her 
 solitude in Russell Square read the Morning Post, where her 
 sister's name occurred every now and then, in the articles 
 headed " Fashionable Reunions," and where she had an oppor- 
 tunity of reading a description of Mrs. F. Bullock's costume, 
 when presented at the drawing-room by Lady Frederica Bullock. 
 Jane's own life, as we have said, admitted of no such grandeur. 
 It was an awful existence. She had to get up of black winter's 
 mornings to make breakfast for her scowling old father, who 
 would have turned the whole house out of doors if his tea had 
 not been ready at half-past eight. She remained silent opposite 
 to him, listening to the urn hissing, and sitting in tremor while 
 the parent read his paper, and consumed his accustomed portion 
 
The Osborne Family 429 
 
 of muffins and tea. At half-past nine he rose and went to the 
 City^ and she was almost free till dinner-time, to make visita- 
 tions in the kitchen, and to scold the servants: to drive abroad 
 and descend upon the tradesmen, who were prodigiously re- 
 spectful: to leave her cards and her papa's at the great glum 
 respectable houses of their City friends; or to sit alone in the 
 large drawing-room, expecting visitors; and working at a huge 
 piece of worsted by the fire, on the sofa, hard by the great Iphi- 
 genia clock, which ticked and tolled with mournful loudness in 
 the dreary room. The great glass over the mantelpiece, faced 
 by the other great console glass at the opposite end of the room, 
 increased and multiplied between them the brown holland bag 
 in which the chandeHer hung; until you saw these brown 
 holland bags fading away in endless perspectives, and this apart- 
 ment of Miss Osborne's seemed the centre of a system of drawing- 
 rooms. When she removed the cordovan leather from the 
 grand piano, and ventured to play a few notes on it, it sounded 
 with a mournful sadness, startling the dismal echoes of the house. 
 George's picture was gone, and laid upstairs in a lumber-room in 
 the garret; and though there was a consciousness of him, and 
 father and daughter often instinctively knew that they were 
 thinking of him, no mention was ever made of the brave and 
 once darling son. 
 
 At five o'clock Mr. Osborne came back to his dinner, which 
 he and his daughter took in silence (seldom broken, except when 
 he swore and was savage, if the cooking was not to his liking), 
 or which they shared twice in a month with a party of dismal 
 friends of Osborne's rank and age. Old Dr. Gulp and his lady 
 from Bloomsbury Square: old Mr. Frowser, the attorney, from 
 Bedford Row, a very great man, and from his business, hand-in- 
 glove with the " nobs at the West End; " old Colonel Livermore, 
 of the Bombay Army, and Mrs. Livermore, from Upper Bedford 
 Place: old Serjeant Toffy and Mrs. Toffy; and sometimes old 
 Sir Thomas Coffin and Lady Coffin, from Bedford Square. Sir 
 Thomas was celebrated as a hanging judge, and the particular 
 tawny port was produced when he dined with Mr. Osborne. 
 
 These people and their like gave the pompous Russell Square 
 merchant pompous dinners back again. They had solemn 
 rubbers of whist, when they went upstairs after drinking, and 
 their carriages were called at half-past ten. Many rich people, 
 whom we poor devils are in the habit of envying, lead con- 
 tentedly an existence like that above described. Jane Osborne 
 scarcely ever met a man under sixty, and almost the only 
 
430 Vanity Fair 
 
 bachelor who appeared in their society was Mr. Smirk, the 
 celebrated ladies' doctor. 
 
 I can't say that nothing had occurred to disturb the mono- 
 tony of this awful existence : the fact is, there had been a secret 
 in poor Jane's life which had made her father more savage and 
 morose than even nature, pride, and over-feeding had made him. 
 This secret was connected with Miss Wirt, who had a cousin an 
 artist, Mr. Smee, very celebrated since as a portrait-painter and 
 R.A., but who once was glad enough to give drawing lessons to 
 ladies of fashion. Mr. Smee has forgotten where Russell Square 
 is now, but he was glad enough to visit it in the year 1818, when 
 Miss Osborne had instruction from him. 
 
 Smee (formerly a pupil of Sharpe of Frith Street, a dissolute, 
 irregular, and unsuccessful man, but a man with great know- 
 ledge of his art) being the cousin of Miss Wirt, we say, and intro- 
 duced by her to Miss Osborne, whose hand and heart were still 
 free after various incomplete love affairs, felt a great attachment 
 for this lady, and it is believed inspired one in her bosom. Miss 
 Wirt was the confidante of this intrigue. I know not whether 
 she used to leave the room where the master and his pupil were 
 painting, in order to give them an opportunity for exchanging 
 those vows and sentiments which cannot be uttered advantage- 
 ously in the presence of a third party: I know not whether she 
 hoped that should her cousin succeed in carrying off the rich 
 merchant's daughter, he would give Miss Wirt a portion of the 
 wealth which she had enabled him to win — all that is certain is, 
 that Mr. Osborne got some hint of the transaction, came back 
 from the City abruptly, and entered the drawing-room with his 
 bamboo cane; found the painter, the pupil, and the companion 
 all looking exceedingly pale there; turned the former out of 
 doors with menaces that he would break every bone in his skin, 
 and half-an-hour afterwards dismissed Miss Wirt likewise, kick- 
 ing her trunks down the stairs, trampling on her bandboxes, and 
 shaking his fist at her hackney-coach, as it bore her away. 
 
 Jane Osborne kept her bedroom for many days. She was not 
 allowed to have a companion afterwards. Her father swore to 
 her that she should not have a shilling of his money if she made 
 any match without his concurrence; and as he wanted a woman 
 to keep his house, he did not choose that she should marry: so 
 that she was obliged to give up all projects with which Cupid 
 had any share. During her papa's life, then, she resigned her- 
 self to the manner of existence here described, and was content 
 to be an Old Maid. Her sister, meanwhile, was having children 
 
The Osborne Family 431 
 
 with finer names every year — and the intercourse between the 
 two grew fainter continually. " Jane and I do not move in the 
 same sphere of Hfe/'-Mrs. Bullock said. "I regard her as a 
 sister, of course " — which means — what does it mean when a 
 lady says that she regards Jane as a sister ? 
 
 It has been described how the Misses Dobbin lived with their 
 father at a fine villa at Denmark Hill, where there were beautiful 
 graperies and peach-trees which delighted little Georgy Osborne. 
 The Misses Dobbin, who drove often to Brompton to see our dear 
 Amelia, came sometimes to Russell Square too, to pay a visit to 
 their old acquaintance Miss Osborne. I believe it was in con- 
 sequence of the commands of their brother the Major in India 
 (for whom their papa had a prodigious respect), that they paid 
 attention to Mrs. George; for the Major, the godfather and 
 guar-dian of Amelia's little boy, still hoped that the child's grand- 
 father might be induced to relent towards him, and acknow- 
 ledge him for the sake of his son. The Misses Dobbin kept Miss 
 Osborne acquainted with the state of Amelia's affairs ; how she 
 was living with her father and mother; how poor they were; 
 how they wondered what men, and such men as their brother 
 and dear Captain Osborne, could find in such an insignificant 
 little chit; how she was still, as heretofore, a namby-pamby 
 milk-and-water affected creature — but how the boy was really 
 the noblest little boy ever seen — for the hearts of all women 
 warm towards young children, and the sourest spinster is kind 
 to them. 
 
 One day, after great . entreaties on the part of the Misses 
 Dobbin, Amelia allowed little George to go and pass a day with 
 them at Denmark Hill — a part of which day she spent herself in 
 writing to the Major in India. She congratulated him on the 
 happy news which his sisters had just conveyed to her. She 
 prayed for his prosperity, and that of the bride he had chosen. 
 She thanked him for a thousand thousand kind offices and 
 proofs of steadfast friendship to her in her affliction. She told 
 him the last news about little Georgy, and how he was gone to 
 spend that very day with his sisters in the country. She under- 
 lined the letter a great deal, and she signed herself affectionately 
 his friend, Amelia Osborne. She forgot to send any message of 
 kindness to Lady O'Dowd, as her wont was — and did not men- 
 tion Glorvina by name, and only in italics, as the Major's bride, 
 for whom she begged blessings. But the news of the marriage 
 removed the reserve which she had kept up towards him. She 
 
43^ Vanity Fair 
 
 was glad to be able to own and feel how warmly and gratefully 
 she regarded him — and as for the idea of being jealous of 
 Glorvina (Glorvina^, indeed!)^ Amelia woiild have scouted it, if 
 an angel from heaven had hinted it to her. 
 
 That night, when Georgy came back in the pony-carriage in 
 which he rejoiced, and in which he was driven by Sir William. 
 Dobbin's old coachman, he had round his neck a fine gold chain 
 and watch. He said an old lady, not pretty, had given it to him, 
 who cried and kissed him a great deal. But he didn't like her. 
 He liked grapes very much. And he only liked his mamma. 
 AmeUa shrank and started : the timid soul felt a presentiment 
 of terror when she heard that the relations of the child's father 
 had seen him. 
 
 Miss Osborne came back to give her father his dinner. He 
 had made a good speculation in the City, and was rather in a 
 good humour that day, and chanced to remark the agita- 
 tion under which she laboured. " What's the matter, Miss 
 Osborne? " he deigned to say. 
 
 The woman burst into tears. " O sir," she said, " I've seen 
 little George. He is as beautiful as an angel — and so like him ! " 
 The old man opposite to her did not say a word, but flushed up, 
 and began to tremble in every limb. 
 
 CHAPTER XLin 
 
 IN WHICH THE READER HAS TO DOUBLE THE CAPE 
 
 The astonished reader must be called upon to transport himself 
 ten thousand miles to the military station of Bundlegunge, in the 
 Madras division of our Indian Empire, where our gallant old 
 friends of the — th regiment are quartered under the command 
 of the brave Colonel, Sir Michael O'Dowd. Time has dealt 
 kindly with that stout officer, as it does ordinarily with men who 
 have good stomachs and good tempers, and are not perplexed 
 over much by fatigue of the brain. The Colonel plays a good 
 knife and fork at tifhn, and resumes those weapons with great 
 success at dinner. He smokes his hookah after both meals, 
 and puffs as quietly while his wife scolds him, as he did under 
 the fire of the French at Waterloo. Age and heat have not 
 diminished the activity or the eloquence of the descendant of 
 
The Reader Has to Double the Cape 433 
 
 the Malonys and the Molloys. Her Ladyship, our old acquaint- 
 ance, is as much at home at Madras as at Brussels — in the can- 
 tonment as under the tents. On the march you saw her at the 
 head of the regiment seated on a royal elephant, a noble sight. 
 Mounted on that beast, she has been into action with tigers in 
 the jungle: she has been received by native princes, who have 
 welcomed her and Glorvina into the recesses of their zenanas 
 and offered her shawls and jewels which it went to her heart to 
 refuse. The sentries of all arms salute her wherever she makes 
 her appearance : and she touches her hat gravely to their saluta- 
 tion. Lady O'Dowd is one of the greatest ladies in the Presi- 
 dency of Madras— her quarrel with Lady Smith, wife of Sir 
 Minos Smith the puisne judge, is still remembered by some at 
 Madras, when the Colonel's lady snapped her fingers in the 
 Judge's lady's face, and said she'd never walk behind ever a 
 beggarly civilian. Even now, though it is five-and-twenty years 
 ago, people remember Lady O'Dowd performing a jig at Govern- 
 ment House, where she danced down two Aides-de-Camp, a 
 Major of Madras Cavalry, and two gentlemen of the Civil Ser- 
 vice; and, persuaded by Major Dobbin, C.B., second in com- 
 mand of the — th, to retire to the supper-room, lassata nondum 
 satiata recessit. 
 
 Peggy O'Dowd is indeed the same as ever: kind in act and 
 thought: impetuous in temper: eager to command: a tyrant 
 over her Michael: a dragon amongst all the ladies of the regi- 
 ment: a mother to all the young men, whom she tends in their 
 sickness, defends in all their scrapes, and with whom Lady 
 Peggy is immensely popular. But the Subalterns' and Cap- 
 tains' ladies (the Major is unmarried) cabal against her a good 
 deal. They say that Glorvina gives herself airs, and that Peggy 
 herself is intolerably domineering. She interfered with a little 
 congregation which Mrs. Kirk had got up, and laughed the young 
 men away from her sermons, stating that a soldier's wife had 
 no business to be a parson: that Mrs. Kirk would be much 
 better mending her husband's clothes: and, if the regiment 
 wanted sermons, that she had the finest in the world, those 
 of her uncle the Dean. She abruptly put a termination to a 
 flirtation which Lieutenant Stubble of the regiment had com- 
 menced with the Surgeon's wife^ threatening to come down upon 
 Stubble for the money which he had bon-owed from her (for the 
 young fellow was still of an extravagant turn) unless he broke 
 off at once and went to the Cape, on sick leave. On the other 
 Land; she housed and sheltered Mrs. Posky} who fled from her 
 
434 Vanity Fair 
 
 bungalow one nighty pursued by her infuriated husband^ wielding 
 his second brandy bottle, and actually carried Posky through 
 the delirium tremens, and broke him off the habit of drinking, 
 which had grown upon that officer, as all evil habits will grow 
 upon men. In a word, in adversity she was the best of com- 
 forters, in good fortune the most troublesome of friends ; having 
 a perfectly good opinion of herself always, and an indomitable 
 resolution to have her own way. 
 
 Among other points, she had made up her mind that Glorvina 
 should marry our old friend Dobbin. Mrs. O'Dowd knew the 
 Major's expectations and appreciated his good qualities, and the 
 high character which he enjoyed in his profession. Glorvina, a 
 very handsome, fresh-coloured, black-haired, blue-eyed young 
 lady, who could ride a horse, or play a sonata with any girl out 
 of the County Cork, seemed to be the very person destined to 
 ensure Dobbin's happiness — much more than that poor good 
 little weak-spur'ted Amelia, about whom he used to take on so. 
 — -" Look at Glorvina enter a room," Mrs. O'Dowd would say, 
 " and compare her with that poor Mrs. Osborne, who couldn't 
 say, bo to a goose. She'd be worthy of you, Major — you're a 
 quiet man yourself, and want some one to talk for ye. And 
 though she does not come of such good blood as the Malonys or 
 Molloys, let me tell ye, she's of an ancient family that any noble- 
 man might be proud to marry into." 
 
 But before she had come to such a resolution, and determined 
 to subjugate Major Dobbin by her endearments, it must be 
 owned that Glorvina had practised them a good deal elsewhere. 
 She had had a season in Dublin, and who knows how many in 
 Cork, Killarney, and Mallow? She had flirted with all the 
 marriageable officers whom the depots of her country afforded, 
 and all the bachelor squires who seemed eligible. She had been 
 engaged to be married a half-score times in Ireland, besides the 
 clergyman at Bath who used her so ill. She had flirted all the 
 way to Madras with the captain and chief mate of the Ram- 
 chunder East Indiaman, and had a season at the Presidency 
 with her brother and Mrs. O'Dowd, who was staying there, 
 while the Major of the regiment was in command at the station. 
 Everybody admired her there: everybody danced with her: 
 but no one proposed who was worth the marrying; one or two 
 exceedingly young subalterns sighed after her, and a beardless 
 civilian or two; but she rejected these as beneath her pre- 
 tensions; and other and younger virgins than Glorvina were 
 married before her. There are women, and handsome women 
 
The Reader Has to Double the Cape 435 
 
 too, who have this fortune in Hfe. They fall in love with the 
 utmost generosity; they ride and walk with half the Army-Ust, 
 though they draw near to forty, and yet the Misses O'Grady are 
 the Misses O'Grady still: Glorvina persisted that but for Lady 
 O'Dowd's unlucky quarrel with the Judge's Lady, she would 
 have made a good match at Madras, where old Mr. Chutney, 
 who was at the head of the Civil Service (and who afterwards 
 married Miss Dolby, a young lady only thirteen years of age, 
 who had just arrived from school in Europe), was just at the 
 point of proposing to her. 
 
 Well, although Lady O'Dowd and Glorvina quarrelled a great 
 number of times every day, and upon almost every conceivable 
 subject — indeed, if Mick O'Dowd had not possessed the temper 
 of an angel two such women constantly about his ears would 
 have, driven him out of his senses — yet they agreed between 
 themselves on this point, that Glorvina should marry Major 
 Dobbin, and were determined that the Major should have no 
 rest until the arrangement was brought about. Undismayed 
 by forty or fifty previous defeats, Glorvina laid siege to him. 
 She sang Irish melodies at him unceasingly. She asked him so 
 frequently and pathetically, Will ye come to the bower?, that it 
 is a wonder how any man of feeling could have resistea the in- 
 vitation. She was never tired of inquiring, if Sorrow had his 
 young days faded; and was ready to listen and weep like 
 Desdemona at the stories of his dangers and his campaigns. It 
 has been said that our honest and dear old friend used to per- 
 form on the flute in private: Glorvina insisted upon ha\ang 
 duets with him, and Lady O'Dowd would rise and artlessly quit 
 the room, when the young couple were so engaged. Glorvina 
 forced the Major to ride with her of mornings. The whole 
 cantonment saw them set out and return. She was constantly 
 writing notes over to him at his house, borrowing his books, and 
 scoring with her great pencil-marks such passages of sentiment 
 or humour as awakened her sympathy. She borrowed his 
 horses, his servants, his spoons, and palankin; — no wonder 
 that public rumour assigned her to him, and that the Major's 
 sisters in England should fancy they were about to have a sister- 
 in-law. 
 
 Dobbin, who was thus vigorously besieged, was in the mean- 
 while in a state of the most odious tranquillity. He used to 
 laugh when the young fellows of the regiment joked him about 
 Glorvina's manifest attentions to him. " Bah! " said he, " she 
 is only keeping her hand in — she practises upon me as she does 
 
436 Vanity Fair 
 
 upon Mrs. Tozer's piano, because it's the most handy instru- 
 ment in the station. I am much too battered and old for such 
 a fine young lady as Glorvina." And so he went on riding with 
 her;, and copying music and verses into her albums, and playing 
 at chess with her very submissively; for it is with these simple 
 amusements that some officers in India are accustomed to while 
 away their leisure moments; while others of a less domestic turn 
 hunt hogs, and shoot snipes, or gamble and smoke cheroots, and 
 betake themselves to brandy and water. As for Sir Michael 
 O'Dowd, though his lady and her sister both urged him to call 
 upon the Major to explain himself, and not keep on torturing 
 a poor innocent girl in that shameful way, the old soldier re- 
 fused point-blank to have anything to do with the conspiracy. 
 '' Faith, the Major's big enough to choose for himself,'' Sir 
 Michael said; " he'll ask ye when he wants ye; " — or else he 
 would turn the matter off jocularly, declaring that " Dobbin 
 was too young to keep house, and had written home to ask lave 
 of his mamma." Nay, he went farther, and in private com- 
 munications with his Major, would caution and rally him — 
 crying, "Mind your oi. Dob, my boy, them girls is bent on 
 mischief — me Lady has just got a box of gowns from Europe, 
 and there's a pink satin for Glorvina, which will finish ye, Dob, 
 if it's in the power of woman or satin to move ye." 
 
 But the truth is, neither beauty nor fashion could conquer 
 him. Our honest friend had but one idea of a woman in his 
 head, and that one did not in the least resemble Miss Glorvina 
 O'Dowd in pink satin. A gentle little woman in black, with 
 large eyes and brown hair, seldom speaking, save when spoken 
 to, and then in a voice not the least resembling Miss Glorvina's 
 — a soft young m^other tending an infant and beckoning the 
 Major up with a smile to look at him — a rosy-cheeked lass com- 
 ing singing into the room in Russell Square or hanging on George 
 Osborne's arm, happy and loving — there was but this image that 
 filled our honest Major's mind by day and by night, and reigned 
 over it always. Very likely Amelia was not like the portrait the 
 Major had formed of her: there was a figure in a book of fashions 
 which his sisters had in England, and with which William had 
 made away privately, pasting it into the lid of his desk, and 
 fancying he saw some resemblance to Mrs. Osborne in the print, 
 whereas I have seen it, and can vouch that it is but the picture 
 of a high-waisted gown with an impossible doll's face simpering 
 over it — and, perhaps, Mr. Dobbin's sentimental Amelia was 
 no more like the real one than this absurd little print which he 
 
The Reader Has to Double the Cape 437 
 
 cherished. But what man in love, of us, is better informed ? — 
 or is he much happier when he sees and owns his delusion? 
 Dobbin was under this spell. He did not bother his friends and 
 the pubhc much about his feelings, or indeed lose his natural 
 rest or appetite on account of them. His head has grizzled 
 since we saw him last: and a line or two of silver may be seen in 
 the soft brown hair likewise. But his feelings are not in the 
 least changed or oldened; and his love remains as fresh as a 
 man's recollections of boyhood are. 
 
 We have said how the two Misses Dobbin and Amelia, the 
 Major's correspondents in Europe, wrote him letters from Eng- 
 land; Mrs. Osborne congratulating him with great candour and 
 cordiahty upon his approaching nuptials with Miss O'Dowd. 
 
 " Your sister has just kindly visited me," Amelia wrote in her 
 letter, " and informed me of an interesting event, upon which I 
 beg to offer my most sincere congratulations. I hope the young 
 lady to whom I hear you are to be united will in every respect 
 prove worthy of one who is himself all kindness and goodness. 
 The poor widow has only her prayers to offer, and her cordial 
 cordial wishes for your prosperity I Georgy sends his love to his 
 dear godpapa, and hopes that you will not forget him. I tell 
 him that you are about to form other ties, with one who I am 
 sure merits all your affection, but that, although such ties must 
 of course be the strongest and most sacred, and supersede all 
 others, yet that I am sure the widow and the child whom you 
 have ever protected and loved will always have a corner in your 
 heart.'' The letter, which has been before alluded to, went on 
 in this strain, protesting throughout as to the extreme satis- 
 faction of the writer. 
 
 This letter, which arrived by the same ship which brought 
 out Lady O'Dowd's box of millinery from London (and which 
 you may be sure Dobbin opened before any one of the ether 
 packets which the mail brought him), put the receiver into such 
 a state of mind that Glorvina, and her pink satin, and everything 
 belonging to her, became perfectly odious to him. The Major 
 cursed the talk of women; and the sex in general. Everything 
 annoyed him that day — the parade was insufferably hot and 
 wearisome. Good heavens ! was a man of intellect to waste his 
 life, day after day, inspecting crossbelts, and putting fools 
 through their manoeuvres ? The senseless chatter of the young 
 men at mess was more than ever jarring. What cared he, a 
 man on the high road to forty, to. know how many snipes Lieu- 
 tenant Smith had shot, or what were the performances of 
 
43^ Vanity Fair 
 
 Ensign Brown's mare? The jokes about the table filled him 
 with shame. He was too old to listen to the banter of the 
 assistant surgeon and the slang of the youngsters, at which old 
 ^ O'Dowd, with his bald head and red face, laughed quite easily. 
 The old man had listened to those jokes any time these thirty 
 years — Dobbin himself had been fifteen years hearing them. 
 And after the boisterous dulness of the mess- table, the quarrels 
 and scandal of the ladies of the regiment ! It was unbearable, 
 shameful. " Amelia, Amelia," he thought, " you to whom 
 I have been so faithful — you reproach me ! It is because you 
 cannot feel for me, that I drag on this wearisome life. And you 
 reward me after years of devotion by giving me your blessing 
 upon my marriage, forsooth, with this flaunting Irish girl ! " 
 Sick and sorry felt poor WilHam : more than ever wretched and 
 lonely. He would like to have done with life and its vanity 
 altogether — so bootless and unsatisfactory the struggle, so 
 cheerless and dreary the prospect seemed to him. He lay all 
 that night sleepless, and yearning to go home. Amelia's letter 
 had fallen as a blank upon him. No fidelity, no constant truth 
 and passion, could move her into warmth. She would not see 
 that he loved her. Tossing in his bed, he spoke out to her. 
 " Good God, Amelia! " he said, " don't you know that I only 
 love you in the world — you, who are a stone to me — you, whom 
 I tended through months and months of illness and grief, and 
 who bade me farewell with a smile on your face, and forgot me 
 before the door shut between us ! " The native servants l>'ing 
 outside his verandahs beheld with wonder the Major, so cold 
 and quiet ordinarily, at present so passionately moved and cast 
 down. Would she have pitied him had she seen him? He 
 read over and over all the letters which he ever had from her — 
 letters of business relative to the little property which he had 
 made her beHeve her husband had left to her — brief notes of 
 invitation — every scrap of writing that she had ever sent to him 
 — how cold, how kind, how hopeless, how selfish they were ! 
 
 Had there been some kind gentle soul near at hand who could 
 read and appreciate this silent generous heart, who knows but 
 that the reign of Amelia might have been over, and that friend 
 William's love might have flowed into a kinder channel? But 
 there was only Glorvina of the jetty ringlets with whom his 
 intercourse was familiar, and this dashing young woman was 
 not bent upon loving the Major, but rather on making the Major 
 admire her — a most vain and hopeless task, too, at least con- 
 sidering the means that the poor girl possessed to carry it out. 
 
The Reader Has to Double the Cape 439 
 
 She curled her hair and showed her shoulders at him, as much 
 as to say, Did ye ever see such jet ringlets and such a com- 
 plexion? She grinned at him so that he might see that every 
 tooth in her head was sound — and he never heeded all these 
 charms. Very soon after the arrival of the box of millinery, and 
 perhaps indeed in honour of it, Lady O'Dowd and the ladies of 
 the King's Regiment gave a ball to the Company's Regiments and 
 the civilians at the station. Glorvina sported the killing pink 
 frock, and the Major, who attended the party and walked very 
 ruefully up and down the rooms, never so much as perceived the 
 pink garment. Glorvina danced past him in a fury with all the 
 young subalterns of the station, and the Major was not in the 
 least jealous of her performance, or angry because Captain 
 Bangles of the Cavalry handed her to supper. It was not 
 jealousy, or frocks or shoulders, that could move him, and 
 Glorvina had nothing more. 
 
 So these two were each exeniplif}ang the Vanity of this life, 
 and each longing for what he or she could not get. Glorvina 
 cried with rage at the failure. She had set her mind on the 
 Major " more than on any of the others," she owned, sobbing. 
 " He'll break my heart, he will, Peggy," she would whimper to 
 her sister-in-law when they were good friends; " sure every one 
 of roe frocks must be taken in —it's such a skeleton I'm growing." 
 Fat or thin, laughing or melancholy, on horseback or the music- 
 stool, it was all the same to the Major. And the Colonel, puffing 
 his pipe and listening to these complaints, would suggest that 
 Glory should have some black frocks out in the next box from 
 London, and told a mysterious story of a lady in Ireland who 
 died of grief for the loss of her husband before she got ere a one. 
 
 While the Major was goin^ on in this tantalising way, not pro- 
 posing, and declining to fall in love, there came another ship 
 from Europe bringing letters on board, and amongst them some 
 more for the heartless man. These were home letters bearing 
 an earlier post-mark than that of the former packets, and as 
 Major Dobbin recognised among his the handwriting of his 
 sister, who always crossed and recrossed her letters to her 
 brother, — gathered together all the possible bad news which 
 she could collect, abused him and read him lectures with sisterly 
 frankness, and always left him miserable for the day after 
 " dearest Wilham " had achieved the perusal of one of her 
 epistles — the truth must be told that dearest William did not 
 hurry himself to break the seal of Miss Dobbin's letter, but 
 waited for a particularly favourable day and mood for doing so. 
 
440 Vanity Fair 
 
 A fortnight before^ moreover, he had written to scold her for 
 telhng those absurd stories to Mrs, Osborne, and had despatched 
 a letter in reply to that lady, undeceiving her with respect to 
 the reports concerning him, and assuring her that " he had no 
 sort of present intention of altering his condition." 
 
 Two or three nights after the arrival of the second package 
 of letters, the Major had passed the evening pretty cheerfully 
 at Lady O'Dowd's house, where Glorvina thought that he 
 listened with rather more attention than usual to the Meeting 
 of the Wathcrs, the Minsthrel Boy, and one or two other speci- 
 mens of ?ong with which she favoured him (the truth is, he was 
 no more listening to Glorvina than to the howling of the jackals 
 in the moonlight outside, and the delusion was hers as usual), and 
 having played his game of chess with her (cribbage with the 
 Surgeon was Lady O'Dowd's favourite evening pastime). Major 
 Dobbin took leave of the Colonel's family at his usual hour, and 
 retired to his own house. 
 
 There, on his table, his sister's letter lay reproaching him. 
 He took it up, ashamed rather of his negligence regarding it, 
 and preparing himself for a disagreeable hour's communing with 
 that crabbed-handed absent relative. ... It may have been 
 an hour after the Major's departure from the Colonel's house — 
 Sir Michael was sleeping the sleep of the just; Glorvina had 
 arranged her black ringlets in the innumerable little bits of 
 paper, in which it was her habit to confine themx; Lady O'Dowd, 
 too, had gone to her bed in the nuptial cham.ber, on the ground 
 floor, and had tucked her mosquito curtains round her fair form, 
 when the guard at the gates of the commanding-officer's com- 
 pound beheld Major Dobbin, in the moonlight, rushing towards 
 the house with a swift step and a very agitated countenance, 
 and he passed the sentinel and went up to the windows of the 
 Colonel's bedchamber. 
 
 "O'Dowd — Colonel! said Dobbin, and kept up a great 
 shouting. 
 
 " Heavens, Meejor! " said Glorvina of the curl-papers, putting 
 out her head too from her window. 
 
 " What is it, Dob, me boy ? said the Colonel, expecting there 
 was a fire in the station, or that the route had come from head- 
 quarters. 
 
 " I — I must have leave of absence. I must go to England — 
 on the most urgent private affairs," Dobbin said. 
 
 " Good heavens, what has happened ! " thought Glorvina, 
 trembling with all the papillotes. 
 
Between London and Hampshire 441 
 
 " I want to be off — now — to-night," Dobbin continued; and 
 the Colonel getting up, came out to parley with him. 
 
 In the' postscript of Miss Dobbin's cross-letter, the Major 
 had just come upon a paragraph to the following eftect: — ■" I 
 drove yesterday to see your old acquaintance, Mrs. Osborne. 
 The wretched place they live at, since they were bankrupts, you 
 know — Mr. S., to judge from a brass-plate on the door of his hut 
 (it is little better) is a coal-merchant. The little boy, your god- 
 son, is certainly a fine child, though forward, and inclined to 
 be saucy and self-willed. But we have taken notice of him 
 as you wish it, and have introduced him to his aunt. Miss 0., 
 who was rather pleased with him. Perhaps his grandpapa — not 
 the bankrupt one, who is almost doting — but Mr. Osborne, of 
 Russell Square, may be induced to relent towards the child of 
 your friend, his erring and self-willed son. And Amelia will not 
 be ill-disposed to give him up. The widow is consoled, and is 
 about to marry a reverend gentleman, the Rev. Mr. Binny, one 
 of the curates of Brompton. A poor match. But Mrs. 0. is 
 getting old, and I sav/ a great deal of grey in her hair — she was 
 in very good spirits ; and your little godson over-ate himself at 
 our house. Mamma sends her love, with that of your affec- 
 tionate, Ann Dobbin." 
 
 CHAPTER XLIV 
 
 A ROUNDABOUT CHAPTER BETWEEN LONDON AND 
 HAMPSHIRE 
 
 Our old friends the Crawleys' family house, in Great Gaunt 
 Street, still bore over its front the hatchment which had been 
 placed there as a token of mourning for Sir Pitt Crawley's 
 demise, yet this heraldic emblem was in itself a very splendid 
 and gaudy piece of furniture, and all the rest of the mansion 
 became more brilliant than it had ever been during the late 
 baronet's reign. The black outer-coating of the bricks was 
 removed, and they appeared with a cheerful, blushing face 
 streaked with white: the old bronze lions of the knocker were 
 gilt handsomely, the railings painted, and the dismallest house 
 in Great Gaunt Street became the smartest in the whole quarter, 
 before the green leaves in Hampshire had replaced those 
 
442 Vanity Fair 
 
 yellowing ones which were on the trees in Queen's Crawley 
 avenue when old Sir Pitt Crawley passed under them for the 
 last time. 
 
 A little woman, with a carriage to correspond, was perpetually 
 seen about this mansion; an elderly spinster, accompanied by 
 a little boy, also might be remarked coming thither daily. It 
 was Miss Briggs and little Rawdon, whose business it was to see 
 to the inward renovation of Sir Pitt's house, to superintend the 
 female band engaged in stitching the blinds and hangings, to 
 poke and rummage in the drawers and cupboards crammed 
 with the dirty relics and congregated trumperies of a couple of 
 generations of Lady Crawleys, and to take inventories of the 
 china, the glass, and other properties in the closets and store- 
 rooms. 
 
 Mrs. Rawdon Crav/ley was general-in-chief over these arrange- 
 ments, with full orders from Sir Pitt to sell, barter, confiscate, 
 or purchase furniture: and she enjoyed herself not a little in 
 an occupation which gave full scope to her taste and ingenuity. 
 The renovation of the house was determined upon when Sir 
 Pitt came to town in November to see his lawyers, and when 
 he passed nearly a week in Curzon Street, under the roof of his 
 affectionate brother and sister. 
 
 He had put up at an hotel at first; but Becky, as soon as she 
 heard of the Baronet's arrival, went off alone to greet him, and 
 returned in an hour to Curzon Street with Sir Pitt in the carriage 
 by her side. It was impossible sometimes to resist this artless 
 little creature's hospitalities, so kindly were they pressed, so 
 frankly and amiably offered. Becky seized Pitt's hand in a 
 transport of gratitude when he agreed to come. " Thank you," 
 she said, squeezing it, and looking into the Baronet's eyes, who 
 blushed a good deal; " how happy this will make Rawdon! " 
 She bustled up to Pitt's bedroom, leading on the servants, who 
 were carrying his trunks thither. She came in herself laughing, 
 with a coal-scuttle out of her own room. 
 
 A fire was blazing already in Sir Pitt's apartment (it was Miss 
 Briggs 's room, by the way, who was sent upstairs to sleep with 
 the maid). " I knew I should bring you," she said, with plea- 
 sure beaming in her glance. Indeed, she was really sincerely 
 happy at having him for a guest. 
 
 Becky made Rawdon dine out once or twice on business, 
 while Pitt stayed with them, and the Baronet passed the happy 
 evening alone with her and Briggs. She went downstairs to the 
 kitchen, and actually cooked little dishes for him. " Isn't it a 
 
Between London and Hampshire 443 
 
 good salmi? " she said; " I made it for you. I can make you 
 better dishes than that: and will when you come to see me." 
 
 " Everything you do, you do well," said the Baronet, gallantly. 
 " The salmi is excellent indeed." 
 
 " A poor man's wife," Rebecca replied gaily, " must make 
 herself useful, you know: " on which her brother-in-law vowed 
 that *' she was fit to be the wife of an Emperor, and that to be 
 skilful in domestic duties was surely one of the most charming 
 of woman's qualities." And Sir Pitt thought, with something 
 like mortification, of Lady Jane at home, and of a certain pie 
 which she had insisted on making, and serving to him at dinner 
 — a most abominable pie. 
 
 Besides the salmi, which was made of Lord Steyne's pheasants 
 from his lordship's cottage of Stillbrook, Becky gave her brother- 
 in-law a bottle of wliite wine, some that Rawdon had brought 
 with him from France, and had picked up for nothing, the little 
 story-teller said ; whereas the liquor was, in truth, some White 
 Hermitage from the Marquis of Steyne's famous cellars, which 
 brought fire into the Baronet's palHd cheeks, and a glow into 
 his feeble frame. 
 
 Then when he had drunk up the bottle of petit vin blanc, she 
 gave him her hand and took him up to the drawing-room, and 
 made him snug on the sofa by the fire, and let him talk as she 
 listened with the tenderest kindly interest, sitting by him, and 
 hemming a shirt for her dear little boy. Whenever Mrs. 
 Rawdon wished to be particularly humble and virtuous, this 
 little shirt used to come out of her work-box. It had got to be 
 too small for Rawdon long before it was finished. 
 
 Well, Rebecca Hstened to Pitt, she talked to him, she sang to 
 him, she coaxed him, and cuddled him, so that he found himself 
 more and more glad every day to get back from the lawyer's at 
 Gray's Inn to the blazing fire in Curzon Street — a gladness in 
 which the men of law likewise participated, for Pitt's harangues 
 were of the longest — and so that when he went away, he felt 
 quite a pang at departing. How pretty she looked kissing her 
 hand to him from the carriage, and waving her handkerchief 
 when he had taken his place in the m.ail ! She put the handker- 
 chief to her eyes once. He pulled his sealskin cap over his, as the 
 coach drove away, and, sinking back, he thought to himself how 
 she respected him and how he deserved it, and how Rawdon was 
 a foolish dull fellow who didn't half appreciate his wife : and how 
 mum and stupid his own wife was compared to that brilliant 
 little Becky. Becky had hinted every one of these things herself, 
 
44+ Vanity Fair 
 
 perhaps, but so delicately and gently, that you hardly knew 
 when or where. And, before they parted, it was agreed that the 
 house in London should be redecorated for the next season, and 
 that the brothers' families should meet again in the country at 
 Christmas. 
 
 '' I wish you could have got a little money out of him," 
 Rawdon said to his wife moodily when the Baronet was gone. 
 ** I should like to give something to old Raggles, hanged if I 
 shouldn't. It ain't right, j^ou know, that the old fellow should 
 be kept out of all his money. It may be inconvenient, and he 
 might let. to somebody else besides us, you know." 
 
 " Tell him," said Becky, " that as soon as Sir Pitt's affairs are 
 settled, everybody will be paid, and give him a little something 
 on account. Here's a cheque that Pitt left for the boy," and 
 she took from her bag and gave her husband a paper which his 
 brother had handed over to her, on behalf of the little son and 
 heir of the younger branch of the Crawleys. 
 
 The truth is, she had tried personally the ground on which her 
 husband expressed a wish that she should venture — tried it ever 
 so delicately, and found it unsafe. Even at a hint about em- 
 barrassments, Sir Pitt Crawley was off and alarmed. And he 
 began a long speech, explaining how straitened he himself was 
 in money matters; how the tenants would not pay; how his 
 father's affairs, and the expenses attendant upon the demise of 
 the old gentleman, had involved him ; how he w anted to pay off 
 incumbrances; and how the bankers and agents were over- 
 drawn; and Pitt Crawley ended by making a compromise with 
 his sister-in-law, and giving her a very small sum for the benefit 
 of her little boy. 
 
 Pitt knew how poor his brother and his brother's family must 
 be. It could not have escaped the notice of such a cool and ex- 
 perienced old diplomatist, that Rawdon's family had nothing 
 to live upon, and that houses and carriages are not to be kept 
 for nothing. He knew very well that he was the proprietor or 
 appropriator of the money which, according to all proper cal- 
 culation, ought to have fallen to his younger brother, and he had, 
 we may be sure, some secret pangs of remorse within him, which 
 warned him that he ought to perform some act of justice, or, 
 let us say, compensation, towards these disappointed relations. 
 A just, decent man, not without brains, who said his prayers, and 
 knew his catechism, and did his duty outwardly through life, he 
 could not be otherwise than aware that something was due to his 
 brother at his hands, and that morally he was Rawdon's debtor. 
 
Between London and Hampshire 445 
 
 But, as one reads in the columns of the Times newspaper 
 every now and then, queer announcements from the Chancellor 
 of the Exchequer, acknowledging the receipt of £50 from A. B., 
 or £10 from VV. T., as conscience money, on account of taxes due 
 by the said A. B. or W. T., which payments the penitents beg 
 the right honourable gentleman to acknowledge through the 
 medium of the pubHc press; — so is the Chancellor no doubt, and 
 the reader likewise always perfectly sure that the above-named 
 A. B. or W. T. are only paying a very small instalment of what 
 they really owe, and that the man v/ho sends up a twenty-pound 
 note has very likely hundreds or thousands more for which he 
 ought to account. Such, at least, are my feelings, when I see 
 A. B. or W. T-'s insufficient acts of repentance. And I have no 
 doubt that Pitt Crawley's contrition, or kindness, if you will, 
 towards his younger brother, by whom he had so much profited, 
 was only a very small dividend upon the capital sum in which 
 he was indebted to Rawdon. Not everybody is willing to pay 
 even so much. To part with money is a sacrifice beyond almost 
 all men endowed with a sense of order. There is scarcely any 
 man alive who does not think himself meritorious for giving his 
 neighbour five pounds. Thriftless gives, not from a beneficent 
 pleasure in giving, but from a lazy delight in spending. He 
 would not deny himself one enjoyment; not his opera-stall, not 
 his horse, not his dinner, not even the pleasure of giving Lazarus 
 the five pounds. Thrifty, who is good, wise, just, and owes no 
 man a penny, turns from a beggar, haggles with a hacloiey 
 coachman, or denies a poor relation, and I doubt which is the 
 most selfish of the two. Money has only a different value in the 
 eyes of each. 
 
 So, in a word, Pitt Crawley thought he would do something 
 for his brother, and then thought that he would think about it 
 some other time. 
 
 And with regard to Becky, she was not a woman who expected 
 too much from the generosity of her neighbours, and so was 
 quite content with all that Pitt Crawley had done for her. She 
 was acknowledged by the head of the family. If Pitt would not 
 give her anything, he would get something for her some day. 
 If she got no money from her brother-in-law, she got what was 
 as good as money — credit. Raggles was made rather easy in 
 liis mind by the spectacle of the union between the brothers, 
 by a small payment on the spot, and by the promise of a much 
 larger sum speedily to be assigned to him. And Rebecca told 
 Miss Briggs, whose Christmas dividend upon the Httle sum lent 
 
44^ Vanity Fair 
 
 by her Becky paid with an air of candid joy^ and as if her ex- 
 chequer was brimming over with gold — Rebecca^ we say, told 
 Miss Briggs, in strict confidence, that she had conferred with Sir 
 Pitt, who was famous as a financier, on Briggs's special behalf, 
 as to the most profitable investment of Miss B.'s remaining 
 capital ; that Sir Pitt, after much consideration, had thought of 
 a most safe and advantageous way in which Briggs could lay out 
 her money; that, being especially interested in her as an 
 attached friend of the late Miss Cra^'irley, and of the whole family, 
 and that long before he left town, he had recom.mended that she 
 should be ready with the money at a moment's notice, so as to 
 purchase at the most favourable opportunity the shares which 
 Sir Pitt had in his eye. Poor Miss Briggs was very grateful for 
 this mark of Sir Pitt's attention — it came so unsolicited, she said, 
 for she never should have thought of removing the money from 
 the funds — and the delicacy enhanced the kindness of the ofhce; 
 and she promised to see her man of business immediately, and 
 be ready with her little cash at the proper hour. 
 
 And this worthy woman was so grateful for the kindness of 
 Rebecca in the matter, and for that of her generous benefactor, 
 the Colonel, that she went out and spent a great part of her 
 half-year's dividend in the purchase of a black velvet coat for 
 little Rawdon, who, by the way, was grown almost too big for 
 black velvet now, and was of a size and age befitting him for the 
 assumption of the virile jacket and pantaloons. 
 
 He was a fine open-faced boy, with blue eyes and waving 
 flaxen hair, sturdy in limb, but generous and soft in heart: 
 fondly attaching himself to all who were good to him — to the 
 pony — to Lord Southdown, who gave him the horse — (he used 
 to blush and glow all over when he saw that kind young noble- 
 man) — ^to the groom who had charge of the pony — to Molly, 
 the cook, who crammed him with ghost stories at night, and 
 with good things from the dinner — to Briggs, whom he plagued 
 and laughed at — and to his father especially, whose attachment 
 towards the lad v/as curious too to witness. Here, as he grew 
 to be about eight years old, his attachments may be said to have 
 ended. The beautiful mother-vision had faded away after a 
 while. During near two years she had scarcely spoken to the 
 child. She disliked him. He had the measles and the whooping- 
 cough. He bored her. One day when he was standing at the 
 landing-place, having crept down from the upper regions, 
 attracted by the sound of his mother's voice, who was singing 
 to Lord Steyne, the drawing-room door opening suddenly, dis- 
 
Between London and Hampshire 447 
 
 covered the little spy, who but a moment before had been rapt 
 in delight, and listening to the music. 
 
 His mother came out and struck him violently a couple of 
 boxes on the ear. He heard a laugh from the Marquis in the 
 inner room (who was amused by this free and artless exhibition 
 of Becky's temper), and fled down below to his friends of the 
 kitchen, bursting in an agony of grief. 
 
 " It is not because it hurts me," little Rawdon gasped out — - 
 " only — only " — sobs and tears wound up the sentence in a 
 storm. It was the little boy's heart that was bleeding. " Why 
 mayn't I hear her singing? Why don't she ever sing to me — 
 as she does to that bald-headed man with the large teeth?" 
 He gasped out at various intervals these exclamations of rage 
 and grief. The cook looked at the housemaid: the housemaid 
 looked knowingly at the footman — the awful kitchen inquisition 
 which sits in judgment in every house, and knows everything, 
 — sate on Rebecca at that moment. 
 
 After this incident, the mother's dislike increased to hatred: 
 the consciousness that the child was in the house was a reproach 
 and a pain to her. His very sight annoyed her. Fear, doubt, 
 and resistance sprang up, too, in the boy's own bosom. They 
 were separated from that day of the boxes on the ear. 
 
 Lord Steyne also heartily disliked the boy. When they met by 
 mischance, he made sarcastic bows or remarks to the child, or 
 glared at him with savage-looking eyes. Rawdon used to stare 
 him in the face, and double his little fists in return. He knew 
 his enemy; and this gentleman, of all who came to the house, 
 was the one who angered him most. One day the footman 
 found him squaring his fists at Lord Steyne's hat in the hall. 
 The footman told the circumstance as a good joke to Lord 
 Steyne's coachman; that officer imparted it to Lord Steyne's 
 gentleman, and to the servants' hall in general. And very soon 
 afterwards, when Mrs. Rawdon Crawley made her appearance 
 at Gaunt House, the porter who unbarred the gates, the servants 
 of all uniforms in the hall, the functionaries in white waistcoats, 
 who bawled out from landing to landing the names of Colonel 
 and Mrs. Rawdon Crawley, knew about her, or fancied they did. 
 The man who brought her refreshment and stood behind her 
 chair, had talked her character over with the large gentleman 
 in motley-coloured clothes at his side. Bon Dieu I it is awful, 
 that servants' inquisition ! You see a woman in a great party in 
 a splendid saloon, surrounded by faithful admirers, distributing 
 sparkling glances^ dressed to perfection, curled, rouged, smiling 
 
44^ Vanity Fair 
 
 and happy: — Discovery walks respectfully up to her, in the shape 
 of a huge powdered man with large calves and a tray of ices — 
 with Calumny (which is as fatal as truth) behind him^ in the 
 shape of the hulldng fellow carrying the wafer-biscuits. Madam, 
 your secret will be talked over by those men at their club at 
 the public-house to-night. Jeames will tell Chawle his notions 
 about you over their pipes and pewter beer-pots. Some people 
 ought to have mutes for servants in Vanity Fair — mutes who 
 could not write. If you are guilty, tremble. That fellow behind 
 your chair may be a Janissary with a bow-string in his plush 
 breeches pocket. If you are not guilty, have a care of appear- 
 ances : which are as ruinous as guilt. 
 
 "Was Rebecca guilty or not?" The Vehmgericht of the 
 servants' hall had pronounced against her. 
 
 And, I shame to say, she would not have got credit had they 
 not believed her to be guilty. It was the sight of the Marquis 
 of Steyne's carriage-lamps at her door, contemplated by Raggies, 
 burning in the blackness of midnight, " that kep him up," as 
 he afterwards said; that even more than Rebecca's arts and 
 coaxmgs. 
 
 And so — guiltless very likely — she was writhing and pushing 
 onward towards what they call *' a position in society," and the 
 servants were pointing at her as lost and ruined. So you see 
 Molly, the housemaid, of a morning, watching a spider in the 
 door-post lay his thread and laboriously crawl up it, until, tired 
 of the sport, she raises her broom and sweeps away the thread 
 and the artificer. 
 
 A day or two before Christmas, Becky, her husband, and her 
 son, made ready and went to pass the holidays at the seat of 
 their ancestors at Queen's Crawley. Becky would have liked 
 to leave the little brat behind, and would have done so but 
 for Lady Jane's urgent invitations to the youngster; and the 
 s\Tnptoms of revolt and discontent which Rawdon manifested at 
 her neglect of her son. " He's the finest boy in England," the 
 father said in a tone of reproach to her, " and you don't seem to 
 care for him, Becky, as much as you do for your spaniel. He 
 shan't bother you much: at home he will be away from you in 
 the nursery, and he shall go outside on the coach with me." 
 
 " \¥here you go yourself because you want to smoke those 
 filthy cigars," replied Mrs. Rawdon. 
 
 " I remember when you liked 'em though," answered the 
 husband. 
 
 Becky laughed: she was almost always good-humoured, 
 
Between London and Hampshire 449 
 
 " That was when I was on my promotion, Goosey/' she said. 
 " Take Rawdon outside with you, and give him a cigar too if 
 you like." 
 
 Rawdon did not warm his little son for the winter's journey 
 in this way, but he and Briggs wrapped up the child in shawls 
 and comforters, and he was hoisted respectfully on to the roof 
 of the coach in the dark morning, under the lamps of the White 
 Horse Cellar: and with no small delight he watched the dawn 
 rise, and made his first journey to the place which his father still 
 called home. It was a journey of infinite pleasure to the boy, 
 to whom the incidents of the road afforded endless interest : his 
 father answering to him all questions connected with it, and 
 telling him who lived in the great white house to the right, and 
 whom the park belonged to. His mother, inside the vehicle, 
 with her maid and her furs, her wrappers, and her scent-bottles, 
 m.ade such a to-do that you would have thought she never had 
 been in a stage-coach before — much less, that she had been 
 turned out of this very one to make room for a paying pas- 
 senger on a certain journey performed some half-score years 
 ago. 
 
 It was dark again when little Rawdon was wakened up to 
 enter his uncle's carriage at Mudbury, and he sate and looked 
 out of it wondering as the great iron gates flew open, and at the 
 white trunks of the limes as they swept by, until they stopped, 
 at length, before the light windows of the Hall, which were 
 blazing and comfortable with Christmas welcome. The hall- 
 door was flung open — a big fire was burning in the grea,t old 
 fireplace — a carpet was down over the chequered black flags — 
 " It's the old Turkey one that used to be in the Ladies' Gallery," 
 thought Rebecca, and the next instant was kissing Lady Jane. 
 
 She and Sir Pitt performed the same salute with great gravity: 
 but Rawdon having been smoking, hung back ra.ther from his 
 sister-in-law, whose two children came up to their cousin: and, 
 while Matilda held out her hand and lassed him, Pitt Binkie 
 Southdown, the son and heir, stood aloof rather, and examined 
 him as a little dog does a big dog. 
 
 Then the kind hostess conducted her guests to the snug apart- 
 ments blazing with cheerful fires. Then the young ladies came 
 and knocked at Mrs. Rawdon's door, under the pretence that 
 they were desirous to be useful, but in reality to have the pleasure 
 of inspecting the contents of her band and bonnet boxes, and 
 her dresses, which, though black, were of the newest London 
 fashion. And they told her how much the Hall was changed 
 P298 
 
45 o Vanity Fair 
 
 for the better, and how old Lady Southdown was gone, and how 
 Pitt was taking his station in the county, as became a Crawley, 
 in fact. Then the great dinner-bell having rung, the family 
 assembled at dinner, at which meal Rawdon Junior was placed 
 by his aunt, the good-natured lady of the house; Sir Pitt being 
 uncommonly attentive to his sister-in-law at his own right hand. 
 
 Little Rawdon exhibited a fine appetite, and showed a gentle- 
 manlike behaviour. 
 
 " I like to dine here," he said to his aunt when he had com- 
 pleted his meal, at the conclusion of which, and after a decent 
 grace by Sir Pitt, the younger son and heir was introduced, and 
 was perched on a high chair by the Baronet's side, while the 
 daughter took possession of the place and the little wine-glass 
 prepared for her near her mother. " I like to dine here," said 
 Rawdon Minor, looking up at his relation's kind face. 
 
 " Why? " said the good Lady Jane. 
 
 " I dine in the kitchen when I am at home," replied Rawdon 
 Minor, " or else with Briggs." But Becky was so engaged with 
 the Baronet, her host, pouring out a flood of compliments and 
 delights and raptures, and admiring young Pitt Binkie, whom 
 she declared to be the most beautiful, intelligent, noble-looking 
 little creature, and so like his father, that she did not hear the 
 remarks of her own flesh and blood at the other end of the broad 
 shining table. 
 
 As a guest, and it being the first night of his arrival, Rawdon 
 the Second was allowed to sit up until the hour when tea being 
 over, and a great gilt book being laid on the table before Sir Pitt, 
 all the domestics of the family streamed in, and Sir Pitt read 
 prayers. It was the first time the poor little boy had ever 
 witnessed or heard of such a ceremonial. 
 
 The house had been much improved even since the Baronet's 
 brief reign, and was pronounced by Becky to be perfect, charm- 
 ing, delightful, when she surveyed it in his company. As for 
 little Rawdon, who examined it with the children for his guides, 
 it seemed to him a perfect palace of enchantment and wonder. 
 There were long galleries, and ancient state bedrooms, there were 
 pictures and old china, and armour. There were the rooms 
 in which grandpapa died, and by which the children walked 
 with terrified looks. "Who was grandpapa? " he asked; and 
 they told him how he used to be very old, and used to be wheeled 
 about in a garden-chair, and they showed him the garden-chair 
 one day rotting in the out-house in which it had lain since the 
 
Between Hampshire and London 451 
 
 old gentleman had been wheeled away yonder to the church, of 
 which the spire was glittering over the park elms. 
 
 The brothers had good occupations for several mornings in 
 examining the improvements which had been effected by Sir Pitt's 
 genius and economy. And as they walked or rode, and looked 
 at them, they could talk without too much boring each other. 
 And Pitt took care to tell Rawdon what a heavy outlay of 
 money these improvements had occasioned ; and that a man of 
 landed and funded property was often very hard pressed for 
 twenty pounds. " There is that new lodge gate," said Pitt, 
 pointing to it humbly with the bamboo cane, " I can no more 
 pay for it before the dividends in January than I can fly." 
 
 " I can lend you, Pitt, till then," Rawdon answered rather 
 ruefully; and they went in and looked at the restored lodge, 
 where the family arms were just new scraped in stone; and 
 where old Mrs. Lock, for the first time these many long years, 
 had tight doors, sound roofs, and whole windows. 
 
 CHAPTER XLV 
 
 BETWEEN HAMPSHIRE AND LONDON 
 
 Sir Pitt Crawley had done more than repair fences and restore 
 dilapidated lodges on the Queen's Crawley estate. Like a wise 
 man he had set to work to rebuild the injured popularity of his 
 house, and stop up the gaps and ruins in which his name had 
 been left by his disreputable and thriftless old predecessor. He 
 was elected for the borough speedily after his father's demise; 
 a magistrate, a member of Parliament, a county magnate, and 
 representative of an ancient family, he made it his duty to show 
 himself before the Hampshire public, subscribed handsomely 
 to the county charities, called assiduously upon all the county 
 folk, and laid himself out, in a word, to take that position in 
 Hampshire, and in the Empire afterwards, to which he thought 
 his prodigious talents justly entitled him. Lady Jane was in- 
 structed to be friendly with the Fuddlestones, and the Wapshots, 
 and the other famous baronets, their neighbours. Their 
 carriages might frequently be seen in the Queen's Crawley 
 avenue now; they dined pretty frequently at the Hall (where 
 the cookery was so good, that it was clear Lady Jane very seldom 
 
452 Vanity Fair 
 
 had a hand in it), and in return Pitt and his wife most energeti- 
 cally dined out in all sorts of weather, and at all sorts of dis- 
 tances. For though Pitt did not care for joviality, being a 
 frigid man of poor health and appetite, yet he considered that 
 to be hospitable and condescending was quite incumbent on his 
 station, and every time that he got a headache from too long 
 an after-dinner sitting, he felt that he was a mart}^: to duty. 
 He talked about crops, corn-laws, politics, with the best country 
 gentlemen. He (who had been formerly inclined to be a sad 
 freethinker on these points) entered into poaching and game- 
 preserving with ardour. He didn't hunt: he wasn't a hunting 
 man: he was a man of books and peaceful habits: but he 
 thought that the breed of horses must be kept up in the country, 
 and that the breed of foxes must therefore be looked to, and for 
 his part, if his friend. Sir Huddlestone Fuddlestone, liked to 
 draw his country, and meet as of old the F. hounds used to do 
 at Queen's Crawley, he should be happy to see him there, and 
 the gentlemen of the Fuddlestone hunt. And to Lady South- 
 down's dismay too he became more orthodox in his tendencies 
 every day: gave up preaching in public and attending meeting- 
 houses; went stoutly to Church: called on the Bishop, and all 
 the Clergy at Winchester: and made no objection when the 
 Venerable Archdeacon Trumper asked for a game of whist. 
 What pangs must have been those of Lady Southdown, and 
 what an utter castaway she must have thought her son-in-law 
 for permitting such a godless diversion ! and when, on the return 
 of the family from an oratorio at Winchester, the Baronet 
 announced to the young ladies that he should next year very 
 probably take them to the " county balls," they worshipped 
 him for his kindness. Lady Jane was only too obedient, and 
 perhaps glad herself to go. The Dowager wrote off the direst 
 descriptions of her daughter's worldly behaviour to the authoress 
 of the " Washerwoman of Finchley Common " at the Cape; and 
 her house in Brighton being about this time unoccupied, returned 
 to that watering-place, her absence being not very much deplored 
 by her children. We may suppose, too, that Rebecca, on pay- 
 ing a second visit to Queen's Crawley, did not feel particularly 
 grieved at the absence of the Lady of the medicine chest ; though 
 she wrote a Christmas letter to her Ladyship, in which she 
 respectfully recalled herself to Lady Southdown's recollection, 
 spoke with gratitude of the delight which her Ladyship's con- 
 versation had given her on the former visit, dilated on the kind- 
 ness with which her Ladyship had treated her in sickness, and 
 
Between Hampshire and London 453 
 
 declared that everything at Queen's Crawley reminded her of 
 her absent friend. 
 
 A great part of the altered demeanour and popularity of Sir 
 Pitt Crawley might have been traced to the counsels of that 
 astute little lady of Curzon Street. " You remain a baronet — 
 you consent to be a mere country gentleman/' she said to him, 
 while he had been her guest in London. " IvFo, Sir Pitt Crawley, 
 I know you better. I know your talents and your ambition. 
 You fancy you hide them both: but you can conceal neither 
 from me. I showed Lord Steyne your pamphlet on Malt. He 
 was familiar with it : and said it was in the opinion of the whole 
 Cabinet the most masterly thing that had appeared on the sub- 
 ject. The Ministry has its eye upon you, and I know what you 
 want. You want to distinguish yourself in Parliament; every 
 one says you are the finest speaker in England (for your speeches 
 at Oxford are still remembered). You want to be member for 
 the county, where, with your own vote and your borough at 
 your back, you can command anything. And you want to be 
 Baron Crawley of Queen's Crawley, and will be before you die. 
 I saw it all. I could read your heart, Sir Pitt. If I had a 
 husband who possessed your intellect as he does your name, I 
 sometimes think I should not be unworthy of him — but — but I 
 am your kinswoman now," she added with a laugh. " Poor 
 little penniless I have got a little interest — and who knows, per- 
 haps the mouse may be able to aid the lion." 
 
 Pitt Crawley was amazed and enraptured with her speech. 
 "How that woman comprehends me!" he said. "I never 
 could get Jane to read three pages of the Malt pa.mphlet. She 
 has no idea that I have commanding talents or secret ambition. 
 So they remxcmber my speaking at Oxford, do they? The 
 rascals! now that I represent my borough and may sit for the 
 county, they begin to recollect me ! Why, Lord Steyne cut me 
 at the levee last year: they are beginning to find out that Pitt 
 Crawley is some one at last. Yes, the man was always the same 
 whom these people neglected : it was only the opportunity that 
 was wanting, and I will show them now that I can speak and 
 act as well as write. Achilles did not declare himself until they 
 gave him the sword. I hold it now, and the world shall yet hear 
 of Pitt Crawley." 
 
 Therefore it was that this roguish diplomatist has grown so 
 hospitable; that he was so civil to oratorios and hospitals; so 
 kind to Deans and Chapters; so generous in giving and accept- 
 ing dinners; so uncommonly gracious to farmers on market- 
 
454 Vanity Fair 
 
 days ; and so much interested about county business ; and that 
 the Christmas at the Hall was the gayest which had been known 
 there for many a long day. 
 
 On Christmas Day a great family gathering took place. All 
 the Crawleys from the Rectory came to dine. Rebecca was as 
 frank and fond of Mrs. Bute, as if the other had never been her 
 enemy: she was affectionately interested in the dear girls, and 
 surprised at the progress which they had made in music since 
 her time ; and insisted upon encoring one of the duets out of the 
 great song-books which Jim, grumbling, had been forced to 
 bring under his arm from the Rectory. Mrs. Bute, perforce, 
 was obliged to adopt a decent demeanour towards the little ad- 
 venturess — of course being free to discourse with her daughters 
 afterwards about the absurd respect with which Sir Pitt treated 
 his sister-in-law. But Jim, who had sate next to her at dinner, 
 declared she was a trump: and one and all of the Rector's 
 family agreed that the little Rawdon was a fine boy. They 
 respected a possible baronet in the boy, between whom and the 
 title there was only the little sickly pale Pitt Binkie. 
 
 The children were very good friends. Pitt Binkie was too 
 little a dog for such a big dog as Rawdon to play with: and 
 Matilda being only a girl, of course not fit companion for a young 
 gentleman who was near eight years old, and going into jackets 
 very soon. He took the command of this small party at once — 
 the little girl and the little boy following him about with great 
 reverence at such times as he condescended to sport with them. 
 His happiness and pleasure in the country were extreme. The 
 kitchen garden pleased him hugely, the flowers moderately, but 
 the pigeons and the poultry, and the stables when he was allowed 
 to visit them, were delightful objects to him. He resisted being 
 kissed by the Misses Crawley: but he allowed Lady Jane some- 
 times to embrace him: and it was by her side that he liked to 
 sit when, the signal to retire to the drawing-room being given, 
 the ladies left the gentlemen to their claret — by her side rather 
 than by his mother. For Rebecca seeing that tenderness was 
 the fashion, called Rawdon to her one evening, and stooped down 
 and kissed him in the presence of all the ladies. 
 
 He looked her full in the face after the operation, trembHng 
 and turning very red, as his wont was when moved. " You 
 never kiss me at home, mamma," he said: at which there was a 
 general silence and consternation, and a by no means pleasant 
 look in Becky's eyes. 
 
 Rawdon was fond of his sister-in-law, for her regard for his 
 
Between Hampshire and London 455 
 
 son. Lady Jane and Becky did not get on quite so well at this 
 visit as on occasion of the former one^ when the Colonel's wife 
 was bent upon pleasing. Those two speeches of the child struck 
 rather a chill. Perhaps Sir Pitt was rather too attentive to her. 
 But Rawdon, as became his age and size, was fonder of the 
 society of the men than of the women; and never wearied of 
 accompanying his sire to the stables, whither the Colonel retired 
 to smoke his cigar — Jim, the Rector's son, sometimes joining 
 his cousin in that and other amusements. He and the Baronet's 
 keeper were very close friends, their mutual taste for " dawgs " 
 bringing them much together. On one day, Mr. James, the 
 Colonel, and Horn, the keeper, went and shot pheasants, taking 
 little Rawdon with them. On another most blissful morning, 
 these four gentlemen partook of the amusement of rat-hunting 
 in a bam, than which sport Rawdon as yet had never seen any- 
 thing more noble. They stopped up the ends of certain drains 
 in the bam, into the other openings of which ferrets were 
 inserted; and then stood silently aloof, with uplifted stakes in 
 their hands, and an anxious little terrier (Mr. James's celebrated 
 " dawg " Forceps, indeed), scarcely breathing from excitement, 
 listening motionless on three legs to the faint squeaking of the 
 rats below. Desperately bold at last, the persecuted animals 
 bolted above ground : the terrier accounted for one, the keeper 
 for another: Rawdon, from flurry and excitement, missed his 
 rat, but on the other hand he half-murdered a ferret. 
 
 But the greatest day of all was that on which Sir Huddle- 
 stone Fuddlestone's hounds met upon the lawn at Queen's 
 Crawley. 
 
 That was a famous sight for little Rawdon. At half-past ten, 
 Tom Moody, Sir Huddlestone Fuddlestone's huntsman, was 
 seen trotting up the avenue, followed by the noble pack of 
 hounds in a compact body — the rear being brought up by the two 
 whips clad in stained scarlet frocks — light hard-featured lads on 
 well-bred lean horses, possessing marvellous dexterity in casting 
 the points of their long heavy whips at the thinnest part of any 
 dog's skin who dares to straggle from the main body, or to take 
 the slightest notice, or even so much as wink, at the hares and 
 rabbits starting under their noses. 
 
 Next comes boy Jack, Tom Moody's son, who weighs five 
 stone, measures eight-and-forty inches, and will never be any 
 bigger. He is perched on a large raw-boned hunter, half- 
 covered by a capacious saddle. This animal is Sir Huddlestone 
 Fuddlestone's favourite horse — the Nob. Other horses, ridden 
 
456 Vanity Fair 
 
 by other small boys, arrive from time to time, awaiting their 
 masters, who will come cantering on anon. 
 
 Tom Moody rides up to the door of the Hall, where he is 
 welcomed by the butler, who offers him drink, which he declines. 
 He and his pack then draw off into a sheltered corner of the 
 lawn, where the dogs roll on the grass, and play or growl angrily 
 at one another, ever and anon breaking out into furious fight 
 speedily to be quelled by Tom's voice, unmatched at rating, 
 or the snaky thongs of the whips. 
 
 Many young gentlemen canter up on thoroughbred hacks, 
 spatterdashed to the knee, and enter the house to drink cherry 
 brandy and pay their respects to the ladies, or, more modest 
 and sportsmanlike, divest themselves of their mud-boots, ex- 
 change their hacks for their hunters, and warm their blood by a 
 preliminary gallop round the lawn. Then they collect round 
 the pack in the corner, and talk with Tom Moody of past sport, 
 and the merits of Sniveller and Diamond, and of the state of the 
 country and of the wretched breed of foxes. 
 
 Sir Huddlestone presently appears mounted on a clever cob, 
 and rides up to the Hall, where he enters and does the civil 
 thing by the ladies, after which, being a man of few words, he 
 proceeds to business. The hounds are drawn up to the hall 
 door and little Rawdon descends amongst them, excited, yet 
 half alarmed by the caresses which they bestow upon him, at 
 the thumps he receives from their waving tails, and at their 
 canine bickerings, scarcely restrained by Tom Moody's tongue 
 and lash. 
 
 Meanwhile, Sir Huddlestone has hoisted himself unwieldily 
 on the Nob: *' Let's try Sowster's Spinney, Tom," says the 
 Baronet, *' Farmer Mangle tells me there are two foxes in it." 
 Tom blows his horn and trots ojff , followed by the pack, by the 
 whips, by the young gents from Winchester, by the farmers of 
 the neighbourhood, by the labourers of the parish on foot, with 
 whom the day is a great holiday; Sir Huddlestone bringing up 
 the rear with Colonel Crawley, and the whole cortege disappears 
 down the avenue. 
 
 The Reverend Bute Crawley (who has been too modest to 
 appear at the public meet before his nephew's windows), and 
 whom Tom Moody remembers forty years back a slender divine 
 riding the wildest horses, jumping the widest brooks, and larking 
 over the newest gates in the country, — his Reverence, we say, 
 happens to trot out from the Rectory Lane on his powerful 
 black horse, just as Sir Huddlestone passes; he joins the worthy 
 
Between Hampshire and London 457 
 
 Baronet. Hounds and horsemen disappear^ and little Rawdon 
 remains on the door-steps, wondering and happy. 
 
 During the progress of this memorable holiday_, little Rawdon^ 
 if he had got no special liking for his uncle, always awful and cold 
 and locked up in his study, plunged in justice business and sur- 
 rounded by bailiffs and farmers — has gained the good graces of 
 his married and maiden aunts, of the two little folks of the Hall, 
 and of Jim of the Rectory, whom Sir Pitt is encouraging to pay 
 his addresses to one of the young ladies, with an understanding 
 doubtless that he shall be presented to the living when it shall 
 be vacated by his fox-hunting old sire. Jim has given up that 
 sport himself, and confines himself to a little harmless duck or 
 snipe shooting, or a little quiet trifling with the rats during the 
 Christmas holidays, after which he will return to the University, 
 and try not to be plucked once more. He has already eschewed 
 green coats, red neckcloths, and other worldly ornaments, and 
 is preparing himself for a change in his condition. In this cheap 
 and thrifty way Sir Pitt tries to pay off his debt to his family. 
 
 Also before this merry Christmas was over, the Baronet had 
 screwed up courage enough to give his brother another draft on 
 his bankers, and for no less a sum than a hundred pounds, an 
 act which caused Sir Pitt cruel pangs at first, but which made 
 him glow afterwards to think himself one of the most generous 
 of men. Rawdon and his son went away with the utmost heavi- 
 ness of heart. Becky and the ladies parted with some alacrity, 
 however: and our friend returned to London to commence 
 those avocations with which we find her occupied when this 
 chapter begins. Under her care the Crawley House in Great 
 Gaunt Street was quite rejuvenescent, and ready for the recep- 
 tion of Sir Pitt and his family, when the Baronet came to 
 London to attend his duties in Parliament, and to assume that 
 position in the country for which his vast genius fitted him. 
 
 For the first session, this profound dissembler hid his projects, 
 and never opened his lips but to present a petition from Mudbury. 
 But he attended assiduously in his place, and learned thoroughly 
 the routine and business of the House. At home he gave him- 
 self up to the perusal of Blue Books, to the alarm and wonder 
 of Lady Jane, who thought he was killing himself by late hours 
 and intense application. And he made acquaintance with the 
 Ministers, and the chiefs of his party, determining to rank as one 
 of them before many years were over. 
 
 Lady Jane's sweetness and kindness had inspired Rebecca 
 *P 298 
 
45 8 Vanity Fair 
 
 with such a contempt for her Ladyship as the little woman 
 found no small difficulty in concealing. That sort of goodness 
 and simplicity which Lady Jane possessed, annoyed our friend 
 Becky, and it was impossible for her at times not to show, or to 
 let the other divine her scorn. Her presence, too, rendered 
 Lady Jane uneasy. Her husband talked constantly with 
 Becky. Signs of intelligence seemed to pass between them: 
 and Pitt spoke with her on subjects on which he never thought 
 of discoursing with Lady Jane. The latter did not understand 
 them to be sure, but it was mortifying to remain silent; still 
 more mortifying to know that you had nothing to say, and hear 
 that little audacious Mrs. Rawdon dashing on from subject to 
 subject, with a word for every man, and a joke always pat; and 
 to sit in one's own house alone, by the fireside, and watching all 
 the men round your rival. 
 
 In the country, when Lady Jane was telling stories to the 
 children, who clustered about her knees (little Rawdon into the 
 bargain, who was very fond of her), and Becky came into the 
 room, sneering with green scornful eyes, poor Lady Jane grew 
 silent under those baleful glances. Her simple little fancies 
 shrank away tremulously, as fairies in the story-books before 
 a superior bad angel. She could not go on, although Rebecca, 
 with the smallest inflection of sarcasm in her voice, besought 
 her to continue that charming story. And on her side gentle 
 thoughts and simple pleasures were odious to Mrs. Becky; 
 they discorded with her; she hated people for liking them; she 
 spurned children and children-lovers. " I have no taste for 
 bread and butter," she would say, when caricaturing Lady Jane 
 and her ways to my Lord Ste3me. 
 
 " No more has a certain person for holy water," his lordship 
 replied with a bow and a grin, and a great jarring laugh after- 
 wards. 
 
 So these two ladies did not see much of each other except upon 
 those occasions, when the younger brother's wife, having an 
 object to gain from the other, frequented her. They my-loved 
 and my-deared each other assiduously, but kept apart generally: 
 whereas Sir Pitt, in the midst of his multiplied avocations, 
 found daily time to see his sister-in-law. 
 
 On the occasion of his first Speaker's dinner. Sir Pitt took the 
 opportunity of appearing before his sister-in-law in his uniform 
 — that old diplomatic suit which he had worn when attache to 
 the Pumpernickel legation. 
 
 Becky complimented him upon that dress, and admired him 
 
Between Hampshire and London 459 
 
 almost as much as his own wife and children, to whom he dis- 
 played himself before he set out. She said that it was only the 
 thoroughbred gentleman who could wear the Court suit with 
 advantage: it was only your men of ancient race whom the 
 coulotte courte became. Pitt looked down with complacency at 
 his legs, which had not, in truth, much more symmetry or swell 
 than the lean court sword which dangled by his side; looked 
 down at his legs, and thought in his heart that he was 
 killing. 
 
 When he was gone, Mrs. Becky made a caricature of his figure, 
 which she showed to Lord Steyne when he arrived. His Lord- 
 ship carried off the sketch, delighted with the accuracy of the 
 resemblance. He had done Sir Pitt Crawley the honour to 
 meet him at Mrs. Becky's house, and had been most gracious to 
 the new Baronet and member. Pitt was struck too by the 
 deference with which the great Peer treated his sister-in-law, by 
 her ease and sprightliness in the conversation, and by the delight 
 with which the other men of the party listened to her talk. 
 Lord Steyne made no doubt but that the Baronet had only com- 
 menced his career in public life, and expected rather anxiously 
 to hear him as an orator; as they were neighbours (for Great 
 Gaunt Street leads^into Gaunt Square, whereof Gaunt House, 
 as everybody knows, forms one side) my Lord hoped that as 
 soon as Lady Steyne arrived in London she would have the 
 honour of making the acquaintance of Lady Crawley. He left 
 a card upon his neighbour in the course of a day or two ; having 
 never thought fit to notice the predecessor, though they had 
 lived near each other for near a century past. 
 
 In the midst of these intrigues and fine parties and wise and 
 brilliant personages Rawdon felt himself more and more isolated 
 every day. He was allowed to go to the club more: to dine 
 abroad with bachelor friends: to come and go when he liked, 
 without any questions being asked. And he and Rawdon the 
 younger many a time would walk to Gaunt Street, and sit with 
 the lady and the children there while Sir Pitt was closeted with 
 Rebecca, on his way to the House, or on his return from it. 
 
 The ex-Colonel would sit for hours in his brother's house very 
 silent, and thinking and doing as little as possible. He was glad 
 to be employed of an errand : to go and make inquiries about a 
 horse or a servant : or to carve the roast mutton for the dinner 
 of the children. He was beat and cowed into laziness and sub- 
 mission. Delilah had imprisoned him, and cut his hair off too. 
 The bold and reckless young blood of ten years back was sub- 
 
460 Vanity Fair 
 
 jugated, and was turned into a torpid, submissive, middle-aged, 
 stout gentleman. 
 
 And poor Lady Jane was aware that Rebecca had captivated 
 her husband: although she and Mrs. Rawdon my-deared and 
 my-loved each other every day they met. 
 
 CHAPTER XLVI 
 
 STRUGGLES AND TRIALS 
 
 Our friends at Brompton were meanwhile passing their Christ- 
 mas after their fashion, and in a manner by no means too 
 cheerful. 
 
 Out of the hundred pounds a year, which was about the 
 amount of her income, the widow Osborne had been in the habit 
 of giving up nearly three-fourths to her father and mother, for 
 the expenses of herself and her little boy. With £120 more, 
 supplied by Jos, this family of four people, attended by a single 
 Irish servant, who also did for Clapp and his wife, might 
 manage to live in decent comfort through the year, and hold up 
 their heads yet, and be, able to give a friend a dish of tea still, 
 after the storms and disappointments of their early life. . Sedley 
 still maintained his ascendancy over the family of Mr. Clapp, 
 his ex-clerk. Clapp remembered the time when, sitting on the 
 edge of the chair, he tossed off a bumper to the health of " Mrs. 
 S — — ■, Miss Emimy, and Mr. Joseph in India," at the merchant's 
 rich table in Russell Square. Time magnified the splendour 
 of those recollections in the honest clerk's bosom. Whenever 
 he came up from the kitchen-parlour to the drawing-room, and 
 partook of tea or gin-and-water with Mr. Sedley, he would say, 
 " This was not what you was accustomed to once, sir," and as 
 gravely and reverentially drink the health of the ladies as he 
 had done in the days of their utmost prosperity. He thought 
 Miss 'Melia's playing the divinest music ever performed, and her 
 the finest lady. He never would sit down before Sedley at the 
 club even, nor would he have that gentleman's character abused 
 by any member of the society. He had seen the first men in 
 
 London shaking hands with Mr. S ; he said, " He'd known 
 
 him in times when Rothschild might be seen on 'Change with 
 him any day, and he owed him personally every think." 
 
Struggles and Trials 461 
 
 Clapp, with the best of characters and handwritings^ had been 
 able very soon after his master's disaster to find other employ- 
 ment for himself. " Such a little fish as me can swim in any 
 bucket/' he used to remark, and a member of the house from 
 which old Sedley had seceded was very glad to make use of 
 Mr. Clapp's services, and to reward them with a comfortable 
 salary. In fine, all Sedley's wealthy friends had dropped off 
 one by one, and this poor ex-dependent still remained faithfully 
 attached to him. 
 
 Out of the small residue of her income, which Amelia kept 
 back for herself, the widow had need of all the thrift and care 
 possible in order to enable her to keep her darling boy dressed 
 in such a manner as became George Osborne's son, and to defray 
 the expenses of the little school to which, after much misgiving 
 and reluctance, and many secret pangs and fears on her own 
 part, she had been induced to send the lad. She had sate up of 
 nights conning lessons and spelling over crabbed grammars and 
 geography books in order to teach them to Georgy. She had 
 worked even at the Latin accidence, fondly hoping that she 
 might be capable of instructing him in that language. To part 
 with him all day: to send him out to the mercy of a school- 
 master's cane and his schoolfellows' roughness, was almost like 
 weaning him over again, to that weak mother, so tremulous and 
 full of sensibility. He, for his part, rushed off to the school with 
 the utmost happiness. He was longing for the change. That 
 childish gladness wounded his mother, who was herself so grieved^ 
 to part with him. She would rather have had him more sorry, 
 she thought: and then was deeply repentant within herself, for 
 daring to be so selfish as to wish her own son to be unhappy. 
 
 Georgy made great progress in the school, which was kept by 
 a friend of his mother's constant admirer, the Rev. Mr. Binny. 
 He brought home numberless prizes and testimonials of abifity. 
 He told his mother countless stories every night about his school 
 companions: and what a fine fellow Lyons was, and what a 
 sneak Sniffin was; and how Steel's father actually supplied the 
 meat for the establishment, whereas Goiding's mother came in 
 a carriage to fetch him every Saturday: and how Neat had 
 straps to his trousers — might he have straps? — and how Bull 
 Major was so strong (though only in Eutropius) that it w^as 
 believed he could lick the usher, Mr. Ward, himself. So Amefia 
 learned to know every one of the boys in that school as well as 
 Georgy himself: a.nd of nights she used to help him in his 
 exercises and puzzle her little head over his lessons as eagerly as 
 
462 Vanity Fair 
 
 if she was herself going in the morning into the presence of the 
 master. Once, after a certain combat with Master Smith, 
 George came home to his mother with a black eye, and bragged 
 prodigiously to his parent and his delighted old grandfather 
 about his valour in the fight, in which, if the truth was known, 
 he did not behave with particular heroism, and in which he 
 decidedly had the worst. But Amelia has never forgiven that 
 Smith to this day, though he is now a peaceful apothecary near 
 Leicester Square. 
 
 In these quiet labours and harmless cares the gentle widow's 
 life was passing away, a silver hair or two marking the progress 
 of time on her head, and a line deepening ever so little on her 
 fair forehead. She used to smile at these marks of time. 
 " What matters it," she asked, " for an old woman like me? " 
 All she hoped for Was to live to see her son great, famous, and 
 glorious, as he deserved to be. She kept his copy-books, his 
 drawings, and compositions, and showed them about in her 
 little circle, as if they were miracles of genius. She confided 
 some of these specimens to Miss Dobbin; to show them to Miss 
 Osborne, George's aunt, to show them to Mr. Osborne himself — 
 to make that old man repent of his cruelty and ill-feeling towards 
 him who was gone. All her husband's faults and foibles she 
 had buried in the grave with him: she only remembered the 
 lover, who had married her at all sacrifices: the noble husband 
 so brave and beautiful, in whose arms she had hung on the 
 morning when he had gone away to fight, and die gloriously for 
 his king. From heaven the hero must be smiling down upon 
 that paragon of a boy whom he had left to comfort and console 
 her. 
 
 We have seen how one of George's grandfathers (Mr. Osborne), 
 in his easy chair in Russell Square, daily grew more violent and 
 moody, and how his daughter, with her fine carriage and her 
 fine horses, and her name on half the public charity lists of the 
 town, was a lonely, miserable, persecuted old maid. She thought 
 again and again of the beautiful little boy, her brother's son, 
 whom she had seen. She longed to be allowed to drive in the 
 fine carriage to the house in which he lived; and she used to 
 look out day after day as she took her solitary drive in the Park, 
 in hopes that she might see him. Her sister, the banker's lady, 
 occasionally condescended to pay her old home and companion 
 a visit in Russell Square. She brought a couple of sickly chil- 
 dren attended by a prim nurse, and in a faint genteel giggling 
 tone cackled to her sister about her fine acquaintance, and how 
 
Struggles and Trials 463 
 
 her little Frederick was the image of Lord Claud Lollypop, and 
 her sweet Maria had been noticed by the Baroness as they were 
 driving in their donkey-chaise at Roehampton. She urged her 
 to make her papa do something for the darlings. Frederick she 
 had determined should go into the Guards; and if they made 
 an elder son of him (and Mr. Bullock was positively ruining and 
 pinching himself to death to buy land)^ how was the darling girl 
 to be provided for.? '' I expect you, dear/' Mrs. Bullock v/ouid 
 say, '' for of course my share of our papa's property must go to 
 the head of the house, you know. Dear Rhoda M^Mull will dis- 
 engage the whole of the Castletoddy property as soon as poor 
 dear Lord Castletoddy dies, who is quite epileptic: and little 
 Macduff M'MuU will be Viscount Castletoddy. Both the Mr. 
 Bludyers of Mincing Lane have settled their fortunes on Fanny 
 Bludyers' little boy. My darling Frederick must positively be 
 an eldest son; and — and do ask papa to bring us back his 
 account in Lombard Street, will you, dear? It doesn't look 
 well, his going to Stumpy & Rowdy's." After which kind of 
 speeches, in which fashion and the main chance were blended 
 together, and after a kiss, which was like the contact of an 
 oyster — ^Mrs. Frederick Bullock would gather her starched 
 nurselings, and simper back into her carriage. 
 
 Every visit which this leader of ton paid to her family was 
 more unlucky for her. Her father paid more money into 
 Stumpy & Rowdy's. Her patronage became more and more in- 
 sufferable. The poor v/idow in the little cottage at Brompton, 
 guarding her treasure there, little knew how eagerly some people 
 coveted it. 
 
 On that night when Jane Osborne had told her father that 
 she had seen his grandson, the old man had made her no reply : 
 but he had shown no anger — and had bade her good-night on 
 going himself to his room in rather a kindly voice. And he 
 must have meditated on what she said, and have made some 
 inquiries of the Dobbin family regarding her visit; for a fort- 
 night after it took place, he asked her where was her little 
 French watch and chain she used to wear ? 
 
 " I bought it with my money, sir," she said in a great fright. 
 
 " Go and order another like it, or a better if you can get it," 
 said the old gentleman, and lapsed against into silence. 
 
 Of late the Misses Dobbin more than once repeated their 
 entreaties to Amelia, to allow George to visit them. His aunt 
 had shown her inclination; perhaps his grandfather himself, 
 they hinted, might be disposed to be reconciled to him. Surely 
 
464 Vanity Fair 
 
 Amelia could not refuse such advantageous chances for the 
 boy. 
 
 Nor could she : but she acceded to their overtures with a very 
 heavy and suspicious heart, was always uneasy during the 
 child's absence from her, and welcomed him back as if he was 
 rescued out of some danger. He brought back money and toys, 
 at which the widow looked with alarm and jealousy: she asked 
 him always if he had seen any gentleman — " Only old Sir 
 William, who drove him about in the four-wheeled chaise, and 
 Mr. Dobbin, who arrived on the beautiful bay horse in the after- 
 noon — in the green coat and pink neckcloth, with the gold- 
 headed whip, who promised to show him the Tower of London, 
 and take him out with the Surrey hounds." At last he said, 
 " There ivas an old gentleman, with thick eyebrows and a broad 
 hat, and large chain and seals." He came one day as the coach- 
 man was lunging Georgy round the lawn on the grey pony. 
 " He looked at me very much. He shook very much. I said 
 * My name is Nerval ' after dinner. My aunt began to cry. 
 She is always crying." Such was George's report on that 
 nisht. 
 
 Then Amelia knew that the boy had seen his grandfather: 
 and looked out feverishly for a proposal which she was sure 
 would follow, and which came, in fact, in a few days afterwards. 
 Mr. Osborne formally offered to take the boy, and make him 
 heir to the fortune which he had intended that his father should 
 inherit. He would make Mrs. George Osborne an allowance, 
 such as to assure her a decent competency. If Mrs. George 
 Osborne proposed to marry again, as Mr. 0. heard was her in- 
 tention, he would not withdraw that allowance. But it must be 
 understood, that the child would live entirely with his grand- 
 father in RusseU Square, or at whatever other place Mr. 0. 
 should select; and* that he would be occasionally permitted to 
 see Mrs. George Osborne at her own residence. This message 
 was brought or read to her in a letter one day, when her mother 
 was from home, and her father absent as usual in the City. 
 
 She was never seen angry but twice or thrice in her life, and 
 it was in one of these moods that Mr. Osborne's attorney had the 
 fortune to behold her. She rose up trembling and flushing very 
 much as soon as, after reading the letter, Mr. Poe handed it to 
 her, and she tore the paper into a hundred fragments, which she 
 trod on. "I marry again ! — I take money to part from my 
 child ? Who dares insult me by proposing such a thing ? Tell 
 Mr. Osborne it is a cowardly letter, sir — a cowardly letter— I 
 
Struggles and Trials 465 
 
 will not answer it. I wish you good morning, sir — and she 
 bowed me out of the room like a tragedy queen/' said the lawyer 
 who tt)ld the story. 
 
 Her parents never remarked her agitation an that day, and 
 she never told them of the interview. They had their own 
 affairs to interest them, affairs which deeply interested this 
 innocent and unconscious lady. The old gentleman, her father, 
 was always dabbling in speculation. We have seen how the 
 Wine Company and the Coal Company had failed him. But, 
 prowling about the City always eagerly and restlessly still, he 
 lighted upon some other scheme, of which he thought so well 
 that he embarked in it in spite of the remonstrances of Mr. Clapp, 
 to whom indeed he never dared to tell how far he had engaged 
 himself in it. And as it was always Mr. Sedley's maxim not to 
 talk about money matters before women, they had no inkling of 
 the misfortunes that were in store for them until the unhappy 
 old gentleman was forced to make gradual confessions. 
 
 The bills of the little household, which had been settled 
 weekly, first fell into arrear. The remittances had not arrived 
 from India, Mr. Sedley told his wife with a disturbed face. As 
 she had paid her bills very regularly hitherto, one or two of the 
 tradesmen to whom the poor lady was obliged to go round 
 asking for time were very angry at a delay to which they were 
 perfectly used from more irregular customers. Emmy's con- 
 tribution, paid over cheerfully without any questions, kept the 
 little company in half rations however. And the first six 
 months passed away pretty easily; old Sedley still keeping up 
 with the notion that his shares must rise and that ail would be 
 well. 
 
 No sixty pounds, however, came to help the household at the 
 end of the half-year; and it fell deeper and deeper into trouble 
 — Mrs. Sedley, who was growing infirm and was much shaken, 
 remained silent or wept a great deal with Mrs. Clapp in the 
 kitchen. The butcher was particularly surly: the grocer 
 insolent: once or twice little Georgy had grumbled about the 
 dinners: and Amelia, who still would have been satisfied with 
 a slice of bread for her own dinner, could not but perceive that 
 her son was neglected, and purchased Httle things out of her 
 private purse to keep the boy in health. 
 
 At last they told her, or told her such a garbled story as people 
 in difficulties tell. One day, her own money having beea 
 received, and Amelia about to pay it over: she, who had kept 
 an account of the moneys expended by her, proposed to keep a 
 
466 Vanity Fair 
 
 certain portion back out of her dividend, having contracted 
 engagements for a new suit for Georgy. 
 
 Then it came out that Jos's remittances were not paid ; that 
 the house was in difficulties^ which Amelia ought to have seen 
 before^ her mother said^ but she cared for nothing or nobody 
 except Georgy. At this she passed all her money across the 
 table, without a word;, to her mother, and returned to her room 
 to cry her eyes out. She had a great access of sensibility too 
 that day, when obliged to go and countermand the clothes, the 
 darling clothes on which she had set her heart for Christmas 
 Day, and the cut and fashion of which she had arranged in many 
 conversations with a small milliner, her friend. 
 
 Hardest of all, she had to break the matter to Georgy, who 
 made a loud outcry. Everybody had new clothes at Christmas. 
 The others would laugh at him. He would have new clothes. 
 She had promised them to him. The poor widow had only 
 kisses to give him. She darned the old suits in tears. She cast 
 about among her little ornaments to see if she could sell any- 
 thing to procure the desired novelties. There was her India 
 shawl that Dobbin had sent her. She remembered in former 
 days going with her mother to a. fine India shop on Ludgate 
 Hill, where the ladies had all sorts of dealings and bargains in 
 these articles. Her cheeks flushed and her eyes shone with 
 pleasure as she thought of this resource, and she kissed away 
 George to school in the morning, smiling brightly after him. 
 The boy felt that there was good news in her look. 
 
 Packing up her shawl in a handkerchief (another of the gifts 
 of the good Major), she hid them under her cloak, and walked 
 flushed and eager all the way to Ludgate Hill, tripping along 
 by the Park wall, and running over the crossings, so that many 
 a man turned as she hurried by him, and looked after her rosy 
 pretty face. She calculated how she should spend the proceeds 
 of her shawl : how, besides the clothes, she would buy the books 
 that he longed for, and pay his half-year's schooling; and how 
 she would buy a cloak for her father instead of that old great- 
 coat which he wore. She was not mistaken as to the value of 
 the Major's gift. It was a very fine and beautiful web: and 
 the merchant made a very good bargain when he gave her 
 twenty guineas for her shawl. 
 
 She ran on amazed and flurried with her riches to Darton's 
 shop in St. Paul's Churchyard, and there purchased the 
 ** Parents' Assistant," and the " Sandford and Merton " Georgy 
 longed for, and got into the coach there with her parcel, and 
 
Struggles and Trials 467 
 
 went home exulting. And she pleased herself by writing in the 
 fly-leaf in her neatest little hand, " George Osborne, a Christmas 
 gift from his affectionate mother." The books are extant to 
 this day, with the fair delicate superscription. 
 
 She was going from her own room with the books in her hand 
 to place them on George's table, where he might find them on 
 his return from school; when in the passage, she and her mother 
 met. The gilt bindings of the seven handsome little volumes 
 caught the old lady's eye. 
 
 " What are those? " she said. 
 
 " Some books for Georgy," Amelia replied — " I — I promised 
 them to him at Christmas." 
 
 "Books!" cried the elder lady indignantly, "Books, when 
 the whole house wants bread! Books, when to keep you and 
 your son in luxury, and your dear father out of gaol, I've sold 
 every trinket I had, the India shawl from my back — even 
 down to the very spoons, that our tradesmen mightn't insult us, 
 and that Mr. Clapp, which indeed he is justly entitled, being 
 not a hard landlord, and a civil man, and a father, might have 
 his rent. Amelia 1 you break my heart with your books and 
 that boy of yours, whom you are ruining, though part with him 
 you will not. Amelia, may God send you a more dutiful child 
 than I have had ! There's Jos deserts his father in his old age : 
 and there's George, who might be provided for, and who might 
 be rich, going to school like a lord, with a gold watch and chain 
 round his neck — while my dear, dear old man is without a sh — 
 shilling." Hysteric sobs and cries ended Mrs. Sedley's speech 
 — it echoed through every room in the small house, whereof the 
 other female inmates heard every word of the colloquy. 
 
 "0 mother, mother!" cried poor Amelia in reply. "You 
 toid me nothing — I — I promised him the books. I — I only 
 sold my shawl this morning. Take the money — take every- 
 thing " — and with quivering hands she took out her silver, and 
 her sovereigns — her precious golden sovereigns, which she 
 thrust into the hands of her mother, whence they overflowed 
 and tumbled, rolling down the stairs. 
 
 And then she went into her room, and sank down in despair 
 and utter misery. She saw it all now. Her selfishness was 
 sacrificing the boy. But for her he might have wealth, station, 
 education, and his father's place, which the elder George had 
 forfeited for her sake. She had but to speak the words, and her 
 father was restored to competency: and the boy raised to 
 fortune. Oh, what a conviction it was to that tender and 
 stricken heart ! 
 
468 Vanity Fair 
 
 CHAPTER XLVII 
 
 GAUNT HOUSE 
 
 • J All the world knows that Lord Ste5nie's town palace stands in 
 Gaunt Square, out of which Great Gaunt Street leads, whither 
 we first conducted Rebecca, in the time of the departed Sir Pitt 
 Crawley. Peering over the railings and through the black trees 
 into the garden of the Square, you see a few miserable gover- 
 nesses with wan-faced pupils wandering round and round it, and 
 round the dreary grass-plot in the centre of which rises the statue 
 of Lord Gaunt, who fought at Minden, in a three-tailed wig, 
 and otherwise habited like a Roman Emperor. Gaunt House 
 occupies nearly a side of the Square. The remaining three sides 
 are composed of mansions that have passed away into dowa- 
 gerism— tall, dark houses, with window-frames of stone, or 
 picked Out of a lighter red. Little light seems to be behind 
 those lean, comfortless casements now : and hospitality to have 
 passed away from those doors as much as the laced lacqueys 
 and link-boys of old times, who used to put out their torches in 
 the blank iron extinguishers that still flank the lamps over the 
 steps. Brass plates have penetrated into the Square — -Doctors, 
 the Diddlesex Bank Western Branch--^The English and European 
 Reunion, etc.— ^it has a dreary look— nor is my Lord Steyne's 
 palace less dreary. All I have ever seen of it is the vast wall in 
 front, with the rustic columns at the great gate, through which 
 an old porter peers sometimes with a fat and gloomy red face— 
 and over the wall the garret and bedroom windows, and the 
 chimneys, out of which there seldom comes any smoke now. 
 For the present Lord Steyne lives at Naples, preferring the view 
 of the Bay and Capri and Vesuvius, to the dreary aspect of the 
 wall in Gaunt Square. 
 A few score yards down New Gaunt Street, and leading into 
 "5\. Gaunt Mews indeed, is a little modest back door, which you 
 ^ would not remark from that of any of the other stables. But 
 ^5:^ many a little close carriage has stopped at that door, as my 
 informant (little^T^oin_Eaves, who knows everything, and who 
 showed me the place) told me. " The Prince and Perdita have 
 been in and out of that door, sir," he has often told me; 
 
 "Marianne Clarke has entered it with the Duke of . It 
 
 conducts to the famous petits appariements of Lord Steyne — 
 
Gaunt House 469 
 
 one^ sir, fitted up all in ivory and white satin, another in ebony 
 and black velvet; there is a little banqueting-room taken from 
 Sallust's house at Pompeii, and painted by Cosway — a little 
 private kitchen, in which every saucepan was silver and all the 
 spits were gold. It was there that Egalite Orleans roasted 
 partridges on the night when he and the Marquis of Steyne won 
 a hundred thousand from a great personage at ombre. Half 
 of the money went to the French Revolution, half to purchase 
 Lord Gaunt's Marquisate and Garter — and the remainder " — 
 but it forms no part of our scheme to tell what became of the 
 remainder, for every shilling of which, and a great deal more_, 
 little Tom Eaves, who knows everybody's affairs, is ready to 
 account. 
 
 Besides his town palace, the Marquis had castles and palaces 
 in various quarters of the three kingdoms, whereof the descrip- 
 tions may be found in the road-books — Castle Strongbow, with 
 its woods, on the Shannon shore ; Gaunt Castle, in Carmarthen- 
 shire, where Richard II. was taken prisoner— Gauntly Hall in 
 Yorkshire, where I have been informed there were two hundred 
 silver teapots for the breakfasts of the guests of the house, 
 with everything to correspond in splendour; and Stillbrook in 
 Hampshire, which was my lord's farm, an humble place of 
 residence, of which we all remember the wonderful furniture 
 which was sold at my lord's demise by a late celebrated 
 auctioneer. 
 
 The Marchioness of Steyne was of the renowned and ancient 
 family of the Caerlyons, Marquises of Camelot, who have pre- 
 served the old faith ever since the conversion of the venerable 
 Druid, their first ancestor, and whose pedigree goes far beyond 
 the date of the arrival of King Brute in these islands. Pen- 
 dragon is the title of the eldest son of the house. The sons have 
 been called Arthurs, Uthers, and Caradocs, from immemorial 
 time. Their heads have fallen in many a lo3^al conspiracy. 
 Elizabeth chopped off the head of the Arthur of her day, who 
 had been Chamberlain to Philip and Mary, and carried letters 
 between the Queen of Scots and her uncles the Guises. A cadet 
 of the house was an officer of the great Duke, and distinguished 
 in the famous Saint Bartholomew conspiracy. During the 
 whole of Mary's confinement, the house of Camelot conspired in 
 her behalf. It was as much injured by its charges in fitting out 
 an armament against the Spaniards, during the time of the 
 Armada, as by the fines and confiscations levied on it by 
 Elizabeth for harbouring of priests, obstinate recusancy, and 
 
470 Vanity Fair 
 
 Popish misdoings. A recreant of James's time was momentarily 
 perverted from his reHgion by the arguments of that great 
 theologian^ and the fortunes of the family somewhat restored 
 by his timely weakness. But the Earl of Cam.elot^ of the reign 
 of Charles^ returned to the old creed of his family^ and they con- 
 tinued to fight for it^ and ruin themselves for it^ as long as there 
 was a Stuart left to head or to instigate a rebellion. 
 
 Lady Mary Caerlyon was brought up at a Parisian convent; 
 the Dauphiness Marie Antoinette was her godmother. In the 
 pride of her beauty she had been married — sold^ it was said — to 
 Lord Gaunt, then at Paris, who won vast sums from the lady's 
 brother at some of Philip of Orleans's banquets. The Earl of 
 Gaunt's famous duel with the Count de la Marche, of the Grey 
 Musqueteers, was attributed by common report to the preten- 
 sions of that officer (who had been a page, and remained a 
 favourite with the Queen) to the hand of the beautiful Lady 
 Mary Caerlyon. She was married to Lord Gaunt while the 
 Count lay ill of his wound, and came to dwell at Gaunt House, 
 and to figure for a short time in the splendid Court of the Prince 
 of Wales. Fox had toasted her. Morris and Sheridan had 
 written songs about her. Malmesbury had made her his best 
 bow; Walpole had pronounced her charming; Devonshire had 
 been almost jealous of her; but she was scared by the wild 
 pleasures and gaieties of the society into which she was flung, 
 and after she had borne a couple of sons, shrank away into a 
 life of devout seclusion. No wonder that my Lord Steyne, who 
 liked pleasure and cheerfulness, was not often seen after their 
 marriage, by the side of this trembling, silent, superstitious, 
 unhappy lady. 
 
 The before-mentioned Tom Eaves (who has no part in this 
 history, except that he knew all the great folks in London, and 
 the stories and mysteries of each family) had further informa- 
 tion regarding my Lady Steyne, which may or may not be true. 
 " The humiliations," Tom used to say, " which that woman has 
 been made to undergo, in her own house, have been frightful; 
 Lord Steyne has made her sit down to table with women with 
 whom I would rather die than allow Mrs. Eaves to associate — 
 with Lady Crackenbury, with Mrs. Chippenham, with Madame 
 de la Cruchecassee, the French secretary's wife " (from every 
 one of which ladies Tom Eaves — who would have sacrificed his 
 wife for knowing them — was too glad to get a bow or a dinner), 
 *' with the reigning favourite in a word. And do you suppose 
 that that woman, of that family, who are as proud as the 
 
Gaunt House 471 
 
 Bourbons, and to whom the Steynes are but lacqueys, mush- 
 rooms of yesterday (for, after all, they are not of the old Gaunts, 
 but of a minor and doubtful branch of the house); do you 
 suppose, I say " (the reader must bear in mind that it is always 
 Tom Eaves who speaks), " that the Marchioness of Steyne, the 
 haughtiest woman in England, would bend down to her husband 
 so submissively, if there were not some cause? Pooh! I tell 
 you there are secret reasons. I tell you, that in the emigration, 
 the Abbe de la Marche who was here, and was employed in the 
 Quiberoon business with Puisaye and Tinteniac, was the same 
 Colonel of Mousquetaires Gris with whom Steyne fought in the 
 year '86 — that he and the Marchioness met again: that it was 
 after the Reverend Colonel was shot in Brittany, that Lady 
 Steyne took to those extreme practices of devotion which she 
 carries on now; for she is closeted with her director every day 
 — she is at service at Spanish Place every morning, I've watched 
 her there — that is, I've happened to be passing there — and 
 depend on it there's a mystery in her case. People are not so 
 unhappy unless they have something to repent of," added Tom 
 Eaves with a knowing wag of his head; " and depend on it, 
 that woman would not be so submissive as she is, if the Marquis 
 had not some sword to hold over her." 
 
 So, if Mr. Eaves's information be correct, it is ver}^ likely that 
 this lady, in her high stations, had to submit to many a private 
 indignity, and to hide many secret griefs under a calm face. 
 And let us, my brethren who have not our names in the Red 
 Book, console ourselves by thinking comfortably how miserable 
 our betters may be, and that Damocles, who sits on satin 
 cushions, and is served on gold plate, has an awful sword hang- 
 ing over his head in the shape of a bailiff, or an hereditary 
 disease, or a family secret, which peeps out every now and then 
 from the embroidered arras in a ghastly manner, and will be 
 sure to drop one day or the other in the right place. 
 
 In comparing, too, the poor man's situation with that of the 
 great, there is (always according to Mr. Eaves) another source 
 of comfort for the former. You who have little or no patrimony 
 to bequeath or to inherit, may be on good terms with your 
 father or your son, whereas the heir of a great prince, such as 
 my Lord Steyne, must naturally be angr>^ at being kept out of 
 his kingdom, and eye the occupant of it with no very agreeable 
 glances. '" Take it as a rule," this sardonic old Eaves would 
 say, " the fathers and elder sons of all great families hate each 
 other. The Crown Prince is always in opposition to the crown 
 
472 Vanity Fair 
 
 or hankering after it. Shakspeare knew the worlds my good 
 sir^ and when he describes Prince Hal (from whose family the 
 Gaunts pretend to be descended, though they are no more 
 related to John of Gamit than you are) tr3ang on his father's 
 coronet, he gives you a natural description of all heirs-apparent. 
 If you were heir to a dukedom and a thousand pounds a day, 
 do you mean to say you would not wish for possession? Pooh! 
 And it stands to reason that every great man, having experi- 
 enced this feeling towards his father, must be aware that his 
 son entertains it towards himself; and so they can't but be 
 suspicious and hostile. 
 
 " Then again, as to the feeling of elder towards younger sons. 
 My dear sir, you ought to know that every elder brother looks 
 upon the cadets of the house as his natural enemies, who deprive 
 him of so much ready-money which ought to be his by right, 
 I have often heard George MacTurk, Lord Bajazet's eldest son, 
 say that if he had his will when he came to the title, he would 
 do what the sultans do, and clear the estate by chopping off ail 
 his younger brothers' heads at once ; and so the case is, more or 
 less, with them all. I tell you they are all Turks in their hearts. 
 Pooh! sir, they know the world." And here, haply, a great 
 man coming up, Tom Eaves's hat would drop off his head, and 
 he would rush forward with a bow and a grin, .which shov/ed 
 that he knew the world too — in the Tomeavesian way, that is. 
 And having laid out every shilling of his fortune on an annuity, 
 Tom could afford to bear no malice to his nephews, and nieces, 
 and to have no other feeling with regard to his betters, but a 
 constant and generous desire to dine with them. 
 
 Between the Marchioness and the natural and tender 
 regard of mother for children, there was that cruel barrier 
 placed of difference of faith. The very love which she might 
 feel for her sons, only served to render the timid and pious 
 lady more fearful and unhappy. The gulf which separated 
 them was fatal and impassable. She could not stretch her 
 weak arms across it, or draw her children over to that side 
 away from v/hich her belief told her there was no safety. 
 During the youth of his sons. Lord Steyne, who was a good 
 scholar and amateur casuist, had no better sport in the 
 evening after dinner in the country than in setting the boys' 
 tutor, the Reverend Mr. Trail (now my Lord Bishop of Ealing), 
 on her Ladyship's director. Father Mole, over their wine, and 
 in pitting Oxford against St. Acheul. He cried " Bravo, 
 Latimer! Well said, Loyola!" alternately; he promised Mole 
 
Gaunt House 473 
 
 a bishopric if he would come over; and vowed he would use all 
 his influence to get Trail a Cardinal's hat if he would secede. 
 Neither divine allowed himself to be conquered; and though 
 the fond mother hoped that her youngest and favourite son 
 v/ould be reconciled to her Church — his mother church — a sad 
 and awful disappointment awaited the devout lady — a dis- 
 appointment which seemed to be a judgment upon her for the 
 sin of her marriage. 
 
 My Lord Gaunt married^ as every person who frequents the 
 Peerage knows^ the Lady Blanche Thistlewood^, a daughter of 
 the noble house of Bareacres^ before mentioned in this veracious 
 history. A wing of Gaunt House was assigned to this couple; 
 for the head of the family chose to govern it^ and while he reigned 
 to reign supreme: his son and heir^ however, living little at 
 home, disagreeing with his wife, and borrowing upon post-obits 
 such moneys as he required beyond the very moderate sums 
 which his father was disposed to allow him. The Marquis 
 knew every shilling of his son's debts. At his lamented demise, 
 he was found himself to be possessor of many of his heir's bonds, 
 purchased for their benefit, and devised by his Lordship to the 
 children of his younger son. 
 
 ' As, to my Lord Gaunt's dismay, and the chuckling delight of 
 his natural enemy and father, the Lady Gaunt had no children 
 — the Lord George Gaunt was desired to return from Vienna, 
 where he was engaged in waltzing and diplomacy, and to con- 
 tract a matrimonial alliance with the Honourable Joan, only 
 daughter of John Johnes, First Baron Helvellyn, the head of 
 the firm of Jones, Brown & Robinson, of Threadneedle Street, 
 Bankers; from which union sprang several sons and daughters, 
 whose doings do not appertain to this story. 
 
 The marriage at first was a happy and prosperous one. My 
 Lord George Gaunt could not only read, but write pretty cor- 
 rectly. He spoke French with considerable fluency; and was 
 one of the finest waltzers in Europe. With these talents, and 
 his interest at home, there was little doubt that his Lordsliip 
 would rise to the highest dignities in his profession. The lady, 
 his wife, felt that courts v/ere her sphere : and her wealth enabled 
 her to receive splendidly in those Continental towns whither 
 her husband's diplomatic duties led him. There was talk of 
 appointing him Minister, and bets were laid at the Travellers' 
 that he would be ambassador ere long, when of a sudden 
 rumours arrived of the secretary's extraordinary behaviour. 
 At a grand diplomatic dinner given by his chief, he had started 
 
474 Vanity Fair 
 
 up; and declared that a pate defoie gras was poisoned. He went 
 to a ball at the hotel of the Bavarian envoy^ the Count de 
 Springbock-Hohenlaufen, with his head shaved^ and dressed 
 as a Capuchin friar. It was not a masked ball, as some folks 
 wanted to persuade you. It was something queer, people 
 whispered. His grandfather was so. It was in the family. 
 
 His wife and family returned to this country, and took up 
 their abode at Gaunt House. Lord George gave up his post on 
 the European continent, and was gazetted to Brazil. But 
 people knew better; he never returned from that Brazil expedi- 
 tion — never died there — never lived there — never was there at 
 all. He was nowhere: he was gone out altogether. " Brazil," 
 said one gossip to another, with a grin — " Brazil is St. John's 
 Wood. Rio Janeiro is a cottage surrounded by four walls; and 
 George Gaunt is accredited to a keeper, who has invested him 
 with the order of the Strait-Waistcoat." These are the kinds 
 of epitaphs which men pass over one another in Vanity 
 Fair. 
 
 Twice or thrice in a week, in the earliest morning, the poor 
 mother went for her sins and saw the poor invalid. Sometimes 
 he laughed at her (and his laughter was more pitiful than to 
 hear him cry); sometimes she found the brilliant dandy diplo- 
 matist of the Congress of Vienna dragging about a child's toy, 
 or nursing the keeper's baby's doll. Sometimes he knew her and 
 Father Mole, her director and companion: oftener he, forgot 
 her, as he had done wife, children, love, ambition, vanity. But 
 he remembered his dinner hour, and used to cry if his wine-and- 
 water was not strong enough. 
 
 It was the mysterious taint of the blood: the poor mother 
 had brought it from her own ancient race. The evil had broken 
 out once or twice in the father's family, long before Lady 
 Steyne's sins had begun, or her fasts and tears and penances 
 had been offered in their expiation. The pride of the race was 
 struck down as the first-born of Pharaoh. The dark mark of 
 fate and doom was on the threshold, — the tall old threshold 
 surmounted by coronets and carved heraldry. 
 
 The absent lord's children meanwhile prattled and grew on 
 quite unconscious that the doom was over them too. First 
 they talked of their father, and devised plans against his return. 
 Then the name of the living dead man was less frequently in 
 their mouth — then not mentioned at all. But the stricken old 
 grandmother trembled to think that these too were the inheri- 
 tors of their father's shame as well as of his honours: and 
 
Gaunt House 475 
 
 watched sickening for the day when the awful ancestral curse 
 should come down on them. 
 
 This dark presentiment also haunted Lord Steyne. He tried 
 to lay the horrid bedside ghost in Red Seas of wine and jollity, 
 and lost sight of it sometimes in the crowd and rout of his 
 pleasures. But it always came back to him when alone, and 
 seemed to grow more threatening with years. " I have taken 
 your son/' it said, " why not you? I may shut you up in a 
 prison some day like your son George. I may tap you on the 
 head to-morrow, and away go pleasure and honours, feasts and 
 beauty, friends, flatterers, French cooks, fine horses and houses 
 — ^in exchange for a prison, a keeper, and a straw mattress like 
 George Gaunt's." And then my Lord would defy the ghost 
 which threatened him: for he knew of a remedy by which he 
 could baulk his enemy. 
 
 So there wasjplendQ]j,r-aii,d„wealth, but no great happiness 
 perchance, behind the tall carved portals of Gaunt House with 
 its smoky cofohets and ciphers. The feasts there wereof the 
 grandest in London, but there was not over-much content there- 
 with, except among the guests who sate at my lord's table. Had 
 he not been so great a Prince very few possibly would have 
 visited him: but in Vanity Fair the sins of very great personages 
 are looked at indulgently. " Nous regardons a deux fois " (as 
 the French lady said) before we condemn a person of my lord's 
 undoubted quality. Some notorious carpers and squeamish 
 moralists might be sulky with Lord Steyne, but they were glad 
 enough to come when he asked them. 
 
 " Lord Ste)aie is really too bad," Lady Slingstone said, " but 
 everybody goes, and of course I shall see that my girls come 
 to no harm." " His Lordship is a man to whom I owe much, 
 everything in life," said the Right Reverend Doctor Trail, 
 thinking that the Archbishop was rather shaky: and Mrs. 
 Trail and the young ladies would as soon have missed going to 
 church as to one of his Lordship's parties. " His morals are bad," 
 said little Lord Southdown to his sister, who meekly expostu- 
 lated, having heard terrific legends from her mamma with 
 respect to the doings at Gaunt House; " but hang it, he's got 
 the best dry Sillery in Europe ! " And as for Sir Pitt Crawley, 
 Bart. — Sir Pitt, that pattern of decorum. Sir Pitt, who had led 
 off at missionary meetings, — he never for one moment thought 
 of not going too. " Where you see such persons as the Bishop 
 of EaJing and the Countess of Slingstone, you may be pretty 
 sure, Jane," the Baronet would say, " that we cannot be wrong. 
 
476 Vanity Fair 
 
 The great rank and station of Lord Steyne put him in a position 
 to command people in our station of life. The Lord Lieutenant 
 of a County, my dear, is a respectable man. Besides, George 
 Gaunt and I were intimate in early life : he was my junior when 
 we were attaches at Pumpernickel together." 
 
 In a word, everybody went to wait upon this great man — 
 everybody who was asked: as you the reader (do not say nay) 
 or I the writer hereof would go if we had an invitation. 
 
 CHAPTER XLVIII 
 
 IN WHICH THE READER IS INTRODUCED TO THE VERY BEST OF 
 
 COMPANY 
 
 At last Becky's kindness and attention to the chief of her 
 husband's family were destined to meet with an exceeding great 
 reward; a reward which, though certainly somewhat unsub- 
 stantial, the little woman coveted with greater eagerness than 
 more positive benefits. If she did not wish to lead a virtuous 
 life, at least she desired to enjoy a character for virtue, and we 
 know that no lady in the genteel world can possess this desidera- 
 tum, until she has put on a train and feathers, and has been pre- 
 sented to her Sovereign at Court. From that august interview 
 they come out stamped as honest women. The Lord Chamber- 
 lain gives them a certificate of virtue. And as dubious goods or 
 letters are passed through an oven at quarantine, sprinkled with 
 aromatic vinegar, and then pronounced clean, many a lady 
 whose reputation would be doubtful otherwise and liable to give 
 infection, passes through the wholesome ordeal of the Royal 
 presence, and issues from it free from ail taint. 
 
 It might be very well for my Lady Bareacres, my Lady Tufto, 
 Mrs. Bute Crawley in the country, and other ladies who had 
 come into contaxt with Mrs. Pvawdon Crawley, to cry fie at the 
 idea of the odious little adventuress making her curtsey before 
 the Sovereign, and to declare that, if dear good Queen Charlotte 
 had been alive, she never would have admitted such an ex- 
 tremely ill-regulated personage into Her chaste drawing-room. 
 But when we consider, that it was the First Gentleman in 
 Europe in whose high presence Mrs. Rawdon passed her ex- 
 amination, and, as it were, took her degree in reputation, it 
 
The Very Best of Company 477 
 
 surely must be flat disloyalty to doubt any more about her 
 virtue. I, for my part^ look back with love and awe to that 
 Great Character in history. Ah, what a high and noble apprecia- 
 tion of Gentlewomanhood there must have been in Vanity Fair, 
 when that revered and august being was invested^, by the uni- 
 versal acclaim of the refined and educated portion of this empire, 
 with the title of Premier Gentilhomme of his Kingdom. Do you 
 
 remember, dear M , friend of my youth, how one blissful 
 
 night five-and- twenty years since, the " Hypocrite " being 
 acted, Elliston being manager, Dowton and Listen performers, 
 two boys had leave from their loyal masters to go out from 
 Slaughter House School where they were educated, and to 
 appear on Drury Lane stage, amongst a crowd vv^hich assembled 
 there to greet the King. THE KING? There he was. Beef- 
 eaters were before the august box: the Marquis of Steyne (Lord 
 of the Powder Closet) and other great officers of state were behind 
 the chair on which he sate, He sate — florid of face, portly of 
 person, covered with orders, and in a rich curling head of hair — ■ 
 How we sang God save him ! How the house rocked and shouted 
 with that magnificent music. How they cheered, and cried, and 
 waved handkerchiefs. Ladies wept: mothers clasped their 
 children: some fainted with emotion. People were suffocated 
 in the pit, shrieks and groans rising up amidst the writhing and 
 shouting mass there of his people who were, and indeed showed 
 themselves almost to be, ready to die for him. Yes, we saw him. 
 Fate cannot deprive us of thai. Others have seen Napoleon. 
 Some few still exist who have beheld Frederick the Great, 
 Doctor Johnson, Marie Antoinette, etc. — be it our reasonable 
 boast to our children, that we saw George the Good, the Magnifi- 
 cent, the Great. 
 
 Well, there came a happy day in Mrs. Rawdon Crawley's exist- 
 ence when this angel was admitted into the paradise of a Court 
 which she coveted; her sister-in-law acting as her godmother. 
 On the appointed day. Sir Pitt and his Lady, in their great 
 family carriage (just newly built, and ready for the Baronet's 
 assumption of the office of High Sheriff of his county), drove 
 up to the little house in Curzon Street, to the edification of 
 Raggles, who was watching from his greengrocer's shop, and 
 saw fine plumes within, and enormous bunches of flowers in the 
 breasts of the new livery-coats of the footmen. 
 
 Sir Pitt, in a glittering uniform, descended and went into 
 Curzon Street, his sword between his legs. Little Rawdon stood 
 with his face against the parlour window-panes, smiling and 
 
478 Vanity Fair 
 
 nodding with all his might to his aunt in the carriage within; 
 and presently as Sir Pitt issued forth from the house again, 
 leading forth a lady with grand feathers, covered in a white 
 shawl, and holding up daintily a train of magnificent brocade. 
 She stepped into the vehicle as if she were a princess and accus- 
 tomed all her life to go to Court, smiling graciously on the foot- 
 man at the door, and on Sir Pitt, who followed her into the 
 carriage. 
 
 Then Rawdon followed in his old Guards' uniform, which had 
 grown wofuUy shabby, and was much too tight. He was to 
 have followed the procession, and waited upon his Sovereign in 
 a cab ; but that his good-natured sister-in-law insisted that they 
 should be a family party. The coach was large, the ladies not 
 very big, they would hold their trains in their laps — finally, the 
 four went fraternally together; and their carriage presently 
 joined the line of royal equipages which was making its way 
 down Piccadilly and St. James's Street, towards the old brick 
 palace where the Star of Brunswick was in waiting to receive 
 his nobles and gentlefolk. 
 
 Becky felt as if she could bless the people out of the carriage 
 windows, so elated was she in spirits, and so strong a sense had 
 she of the dignified position which she had at last attained in 
 life. Even our Becky had her weaknesses, and as one often 
 sees how men pride themselves upon excellences which others 
 are slow to perceive: how, for instance, Comus firmly believes 
 that he is the greatest tragic actor in England ; how Brown, the 
 famous novelist, longs to be considered, not a man of genius, 
 but a man of fashion; while Robinson, the great lawyer, does 
 not in the least care about his reputation in Westminster Hall, 
 but believes himself incomparable across country, and at a five- 
 barred gate — so to be, and to be thought, a respectable woman, 
 was Becky's aim in life, and she got up the genteel with amaz- 
 ing assiduity, readiness, and success. We have said, there were 
 times when she believed herself to be a fine lady, and forgot that 
 there was no money in the chest at home — duns round the gate, 
 tradesmen to coax and wheedle — no ground to walk upon, in a 
 word. And as she went to Court in the carriage, the family 
 carriage, she adopted a demeanour so grand, self-satisfied, 
 deliberate, and imposing, that it made even Lady Jane laugh. 
 She walked into the royal apartments with a toss of the head 
 which would have befitted an empress, and I have no doubt 
 iiad she been one, she v/ould have become the character per- 
 
The Very Best of Company 479 
 
 We are authorised to state that Mrs. Rawdon Crawley's cos- 
 tume de cour on the occasion of her presentation to the Sovereign 
 was of the most elegant and briUiant description. Some ladies 
 we may have seen — we who wear stars and cordons^ and attend 
 the St. James's assemblies^ or we who^ in muddy boots^ dawdle 
 up and down Pall Mall^ and peep into the coaches as they drive 
 up with the great folks in their feathers — some ladies of fashion^ 
 I say^ we may have seen, about two o'clock of the forenoon of 
 a levee day^ as the laced- jacketed band of the Life Guards are 
 blowing triumphal marches seated on those prancing music- 
 stools, their cream-coloured chargers — who are by no means 
 lovely and enticing objects at that early period of noon. A 
 stout countess of sixty, decolletee, painted, wrinkled with rouge 
 up to her drooping eyelids, and diamonds twinkling in her wig, 
 is a wholesome and edifying, but not a pleasant sight. She has 
 the faded look of a St. James's Street illumination, as it may be 
 seen of an early morning, when half the lamps are out, and the 
 others are blinking wanly, as if they were about to vanish like 
 ghosts before the dawn. Such charms as those of which we 
 catch glimpses while her ladyship's carriage passes should 
 appear abroad at night alone. If even Cynthia looks haggard 
 of an afternoon, as we may see her sometimes in the present 
 winter season, with Phoebus staring her out of countenance 
 from the opposite side of the heavens, how much more can old 
 Lady Castlemouldy keep her head up when the sun is shining 
 full upon it through the chariot windows, and showing all the 
 chinks and crannies with which time has marked her face ! No. 
 Drawing-rooms should be announced for November, or the 
 first foggy day: or the elderly sultanas of our Vanity Fair 
 should drive up in closed litters, descend in a covered way and 
 make their curtsey to the Sovereign under the protection of 
 lamplight. 
 
 Our beloved Rebecca had no need, however, of any such a 
 friendly halo to set off her beauty. Her complexion could bear 
 any sunshine as yet; and her dress, though if you were to see 
 it now, any present lady of Vanity Fair would pronounce it to 
 be the most foolish and preposterous a^ire_ever_worn, was as 
 handsome in her eyes and fKose~6f tHe public, some five-and- 
 twenty years since, as the most brilliant costume of the most 
 famous beauty of the present season. A score of years hence 
 that too, that milliner's wonder, will have passed into the 
 domain of the absurd, along with all previous vanities. But 
 we are wandering too much. Mrs. Rawdon's dress was pro- 
 
480 Vanity Fair 
 
 nounced to be channante on the eventful day of her presenta- 
 tion. Even good Httle Lady Jane was forced to acknowledge 
 this effect, as she looked at her kinswoman ; and owned sorrow- 
 fully to herself that she was quite inferior in taste to Mrs. 
 Becky. 
 
 She did not know how much care, thought, and genius Mrs. 
 Rawdon had bestowed upon that garment. Rebecca had as 
 good taste as any milliner in Europe, and such a clever way of 
 doing things as Lady Jane little understood. The latter quickly 
 spied out the magnificence of the brocade of Becky's train, and 
 the splendour of the lace on her dress. 
 
 The brocade was an old remnant, Becky said; and as for the 
 lace, it was a great bargain. She had had it these hundred 
 years. 
 
 " My dear Mrs. Crawley, it must have cost a little fortune," 
 Lady Jane said, looking down at her own lace, which was not 
 nearly so good; and then examining the quality of the ancient 
 brocade which formed the material of Mrs. Rawdon's Court 
 dress, she felt inclined to say that she could not afford such 
 fine clothing, but checked that speech, with an effort, as one 
 uncharitable to her kinswoman. 
 
 And yet, if Lady Jane had known all, I think even her kindly 
 temper would have failed her. The fact is, when she was putting 
 Sir Pitt's house in order, Mrs. Rawdon had found the lace and 
 the brocade in old wardrobes, the property of the former ladies 
 of the house, and had quietly carried the goods home, and had 
 suited them to her own little person. Briggs saw her take them, 
 asked no questions, told no stories; but I believe quite sym- 
 pathised with her on this matter, and so would many another 
 honest woman. 
 
 And the diamonds — " Where the doose did you get the 
 diamonds, Becky? " said her husband, admiring some jewels 
 which he had never seen before, and which sparkled in her ears 
 and on her neck with brilliance and profusion. 
 
 Becky blushed a little, and looked at him hard for a moment. 
 Pitt Crawley blushed a little too, and looked out of window. 
 The fact is, he had given her a very small portion of the brilliants ; 
 a pretty diamond clasp, which confined a pearl necklace which 
 she wore; and the Baronet had omitted to mention the circum- 
 stance to his lady. 
 
 Becky looked at her husband, and then at Sir Pitt, with an 
 air of saucy triumph — as much as to say, " Shall I betray you ? " 
 
 " Guess ! " she said to her husband. " Why, you silly man," 
 
J-: in lu i^LO 
 The Very Best of Company 48 1 
 
 she continued, " Where do you suppose I got them? — all except 
 the little clasp, which a dear friend of mine gave me long ago. 
 I hired them, to be sure. I hired them at Mr. Polonius's, in 
 Coventry Street. You don't suppose that all the diamonds 
 which go to Court belong to the wearers; like those beautiful 
 stones which Lady Jane has, and which are much handsomer 
 than any which I have, I am certain," 
 
 " They are family jewels," said Sir Pitt, again looking uneasy. 
 And in this family conversation the carriage rolled down the 
 street, until its cargo was finally discharged at the gates of the 
 palace where the Sovereign was sitting in state. 
 
 The diamonds, which had created Rawdon's admiration, 
 never went back to Mr. Polonius, of Coventry Street, and that 
 gentleman never applied for their restoration; but they retired 
 into a little private repository, in an old desk, which Amelia 
 Sedley had given her years and years ago, and in which Becky 
 kept a number of useful and, perhaps, valuable things about 
 which her husband knew nothing. To know nothing, or Httle, 
 is in the nature of some husbands. To hide, in the nature of 
 how many women? O ladies! how many of you have sur- 
 reptitious milliners' bills ? How many of you have gowns and 
 bracelets, which you daren't show, or which you wear trembling? 
 — trembling, and coaxing with smiles the husband by your side, 
 who does not know the new velvet gown from the old one, or 
 the new bracelet from last year's, or has any notion that the 
 ragged-looking yellow lace scarf cost forty guineas, and that 
 Madame Bobinot is writing dunning letters every week for the 
 money ! 
 
 Thus Rawdon knew nothing about the brilliant diamond ear- 
 rings, or the superb brilliant ornament which decorated the fair 
 bosom of his lady; but Lord Steyne, who was in his place at 
 Court, as Lord of the Powder Closet, and one of the great digni- 
 taries and illustrious defences of the throne of England, and 
 came up with all his stars, garters, collars, and cordons, and 
 paid particular attention to the Httle woman, knew whence the 
 jewels came, and who paid for them. 
 
 As he bowed over her he smiled, and quoted the hackneyed 
 and beautiful lines, from the ^' Rape of the Lock," about 
 Behnda's diamonds, " which Jews might kiss and infidels 
 adore." 
 
 " But I hope your Lordship is orthodox," said the little lady, 
 with a toss of her head. And many ladies round about whis- 
 pered and talked, and many gentlemen nodded and whispered. 
 
482 Vanity Fair 
 
 as they saw what marked attention the great nobleman was 
 paying to the little adventuress. 
 
 What were the circumstances of the interview between 
 Rebecca Crawley nee Sharp, and her Imperial Master, it does 
 not become such a feeble and inexperienced pen as mine to 
 attempt to relate. The dazzled eyes close before that Magnifi- 
 cent Idea. Loyal respect and decency tell even the imagination 
 not to look too keenly and audaciously about the sacred audience 
 chamber, but to back away rapidly, silently, and respectfully, 
 making profound bows out of the August Presence. 
 
 This may be said, that in all London there was no more loyal 
 heart than Becky's after this interview. The name of her King 
 was always on her lips, and he was proclaimed by her to be the 
 most charming of men. She went to Colnaghi's and ordered 
 the finest portrait of him that art had produced, and credit could 
 supply. She chose that famous one in which the best of 
 monarchs is represented in a frockcoat with a fur collar, and 
 breeches and silk stockings, simpering on a sofa from under his 
 curly brown wig. She had him painted in a brooch and wore 
 it — indeed she amused and somewhat pestered her acquaint- 
 ance with her perpetual talk about his urbanity and beauty. 
 Who knows? Perhaps the little woman thought she might 
 play the part of a Maintenon or a Pompadour. 
 
 But the finest sport of all after her presentation was to hear 
 her talk virtuously. She had a few female acquaintances, not, 
 it must be owned, of the very highest reputation in Vanity Fair. 
 But being made an honest woman of, so to speak, Becky would 
 not consort any longer with these dubious ones, and cut Lady 
 Crackenbury when the latter nodded to her from her opera-box ; 
 and gave Mrs. Washington White the go-by in the Ring. " One 
 must, my dear, show one is somebody," she said. '' One 
 mustn't be seen with doubtful people. I pity Lady Cracken- 
 bury from my heart; and Mrs. Washington White may be a 
 very good-natured person. You may go and dine with them, 
 as you like your rubber. But / mustn't, and won't; and you 
 will have the goodness to tell Smith to say I am not at home 
 when either of them calls." 
 
 The particulars of Becky's costume were in the newspapers — • 
 feathers, lappets, superb diamonds, and all the rest. Lady 
 Crackenbury read the paragraph in bitterness of spirit, and dis- 
 coursed to her followers about the airs which that woman was 
 giving herself. Mrs. Bute Crawley and her young ladies in the 
 country had a copy of the Morning Post from town, and gave a 
 
The Very Best of Company 483 
 
 i vent to their honest indignation. " If you had been sandy- 
 haired, green-eyed, and a French rope-dancer's daughter," Mrs. 
 Bute said to her eldest girl (who, on the contrary, was a very 
 
 f swarthy, short, and snub-nosed young lady), " you might have 
 had superb diamonds forsooth, and have been presented at 
 Court by your cousin, the "Lady Jane. But you're only a gentle- 
 woman, my poor dear child. You have only some of the best 
 blood in England in your veins, and good principles and piety 
 for your portion. I, myself, the wife of a Baronet's younger 
 brother, too, never thought of such a thing as going to Court — 
 nor would other people, if good Queen Charlotte had been alive." 
 In this way the worthy Rectoress consoled herself: and her 
 daughters sighed, and sate over the Peerage all night. 
 
 A few days after the famous presentation, another great and 
 exceeding honour was vouchsafed to the virtuous Becky. Lady 
 Ste}Ti«'s carriage drove up to Mr. Rawdon Crawley's door, and 
 the footman, instead of driving down the front of the house, as 
 by his tremendous knocking he appeared to be inclined to do, 
 relented, and only delivered in a couple of cards, on which were 
 engraven the names of the Marchioness of Steyne and the Coun- 
 tess of Gaunt. If these bits of pasteboarTl had been beautiful 
 pictures, or had had a hundred yards of Malines lace rolled 
 round them, worth twice the number of guineas, Becky could 
 not have regarded them with more pleasure. You may be sure 
 I they occupied a conspicuous place in the china bowl on the 
 drawing-room table, where Becky kept the cards of her %dsitors. 
 Lord ! lord ! how poor Mrs. Washington White's card and Lady 
 Crackenbury's card, which our Httle friend had been glad enough 
 to get a few months back, and of which the silly httle creature 
 was rather proud once — Lord! lord! I say, how soon at the 
 appearance of these grand court cards, did those poor Httle 
 neglected deuces sink down to the bottom of the pack. Steyne ! 
 Bareacres ! Johnes of Helvellyn ! and Caerlyon of Camelot ! 
 we may be sure that Becky and Briggs looked out those august 
 names in the Peerage, and followed the noble races up through 
 all the ramifications of the family tree. 
 
 My Lord Steyne coming to call a couple of hours afterwards, 
 and looking about him, and observuig everything as was his 
 wont, found his ladies' cards already ranged as the trumps of 
 Becky's hand, and grinned, as this old cynic always did at any 
 naive display of human weakness. Becky came down to him 
 presently: whenever the dear girl expected his Lordship, her 
 
484 Vanity Fair 
 
 toilette was prepared, her hair in perfect order, her mouchoirs 
 aprons, scarfs, little morocco slippers, and other female gijn- 
 cracks arranged, and she seated in some artless and agreeable 
 posture ready to receive him — ^whenever she was surprised, of 
 course she had to fly to her apartment to take a rapid survey of 
 matters in the glass, and to trip down again to wait upon the 
 great peer. 
 
 She found him griiming over the bowl. She was discovered 
 and she blushed a little. " Thank you, Monseigneur,^' she said. 
 " You see your ladies have been here. How good of you ! I 
 couldn't come before — I was in the kitchen making a pudding. 
 
 " I know you were, I saw you through the area railings as I 
 drove up," replied the old gentleman. 
 
 " You see everything," she replied. 
 
 " A few things, but not that, my pretty lady," he said good- 
 naturedly. " You silly little fibster ! I heard you iq the room 
 overhead, where I have no doubt you were putting a little rouge 
 on ; you must give some of yours to my Lady Gaunt, whose com- 
 plexion is quite preposterous; and I heard the bedroom door 
 open and then you came downstairs." 
 
 " Is it a crime to try and look my best when you come here? " 
 answered Mrs. Rawdon plaintively, and she rubbed her cheek 
 with her handkerchief as if to show there was no rouge at all^ 
 only genuine blushes and modesty in her case. About this who 
 can tell? I know there is some rouge that won't come ofE on a 
 pocket-handkerchief; and some so good that even tears will not 
 disturb it. 
 
 " Well," said the old gentleman, twiddling round his wife's 
 card, " you are bent on becoming a fine lady. You pester my 
 poor old life out to get you into the world. You won't be able 
 to hold your own there, you silly little fool. You've got no 
 money." 
 
 " You will get us a place," interposed Becky, " as quick as 
 possible." 
 
 " You've got no money, and you want to compete with those 
 who have. You poor little earthenware pipkin, you want to 
 swim down the stream along with the great copper kettles. All 
 women are alike. Everybody is striving for what is not vf orth 
 the having! Gad! I dined with the King yesterday, and we 
 had neck of mutton and turnips. A dinner of herbs is better 
 than a stalled ox very often. You will go to Gaunt House. 
 You give an old fellow no rest until you get there. It's not half 
 so nice as here. You'll be bored there. I ami. My wife is as 
 
The Very Best of Company 485 
 
 gay as Ladv Macbeth, and my daughters as cheerful as Regan 
 and Gonerii. I daren't sleep in what they call my bedroom. 
 The bed is like the baldaquin of St. Peter's, and the pictures 
 frighten me. I have a little brass bed in a dressing-room : and 
 a Httle hair mattress like an anchorite. I am an anchorite. 
 Ho! ho! You'll be asked to dinner next week. And gare 
 auxfemmes, look out and hold your own ! How the women will 
 bully you .' " This was a very long speech for a man of few words 
 like my Lord Steyne ; nor was it the first which he uttered for 
 Becky's benefit on that day. 
 
 Briggs looked up from the work-table at which she was seated 
 in the farther room, and gave a deep sigh as she heard the great 
 Marquis speak so lightly of her sex. 
 
 " If you don't turn off that abominable sheepdog," said Lord 
 Steyne, with a savage look over his shoulder at her, " I will have 
 her poisoned." 
 
 " I always give my dog dinner from my own plate," said 
 Rebecca, laughing mischievously; and having enjoyed for some 
 time the discomfiture of my lord, who hated poor Briggs for 
 interrupting his tete-a-tete with the fair Colonel's wife, Mrs. 
 Rawdon at length had pity upon her admirer, and calling to 
 Briggs, praised the fineness of the weather to her, and bade her 
 to take out the child for a walk. 
 
 " I can't send her away," Becky said presently, after a pause, 
 and in a very sad voice. Her eyes filled with tears as she spoke, 
 and she turned away her head. 
 
 " You owe her her wages, I suppose? " said the Peer. 
 
 " Worse than that," said Becky, still casting down her eyes; 
 " I have ruined her." 
 
 " Pv-uined her? — then why don't you turn her out?" the 
 gentleman asked. 
 
 '' Men do that," Becky answered bitterly. " Women are not 
 so bad as you. Last year when we were reduced to our last 
 guinea, she gave us everything. She shall never leave me, until 
 we are ruined utterly ourselves, which does not seem far off, or 
 until I can pay her the utmost farthing." 
 
 " it, how much is it? " said the Peer, with an oath. And 
 
 Becky, reflecting on the largeness of his means, mentioned not 
 only the sum which she had borrowed from Miss Briggs, but one 
 of nearly double the amount. 
 
 This caused the Lord Steyne to break out in another brief 
 and energetic expression of anger, at which Rebecca held down 
 her head the more, and cried bitterly.; " I could not help it. 
 
486 Vanity Fair 
 
 It was my only chance. I dare not tell my husband; He would 
 kill me if I told him what I have done. I have kept it a secret 
 from everybody but you — and you forced it from me. Ah; what 
 shall I do. Lord Steyne.? for I am very^ very unhappy! " 
 
 Lord Steyne made no reply except by beating the devil's 
 tattoO; and biting his nails. At last he clapped his hat on his 
 headj and flung out of the room. Rebecca did not rise from her 
 attitude of misery until the door slammed upon him, and his 
 carriage whirled away. Then she rose up with the queerest 
 expression of victorious mischief glittering in her green eyes. 
 She burst out laughing once or twice to herself^ as she sate at 
 work: and sitting down to the piano, she rattled away a 
 triumphant voluntary on the keys, which made the people pause 
 under her window to listen to her brilliant music. 
 
 That night there came two notes from Gaunt House for the 
 little woman, the one containing a card of invitation from Lord 
 and Lady Steyne to a dinner at Gaunt House next Friday: 
 while the other enclosed a slip of grey paper bearing Lord 
 Steyne's signature and the address of Messrs. Jones, Brown & 
 Robinson, Lombard Street. 
 
 Rawdon heard Becky laughing in the night once or twice. 
 It was only her delight at going to Gaunt House and facing the 
 ladies there, she said, which amused her so. But the truth was, 
 that she was occupied with a great number of other thoughts. 
 Should she pay off old Briggs and give her her conge ? Should 
 she astonish Raggles by settling his account ? She turned over 
 all these thoughts on her pillow, and on the next day, when 
 Rawdon went out to pay his morning visit to the Club, Mrs. 
 Crawley (in a modest dress with a veil on) whipped off in a 
 hackney-coach to the City: and being landed at Messrs. Jones 
 & Robinson's bank, presented a document there to the authority 
 at the desk, who, in reply, asked her '' How she would take it? " 
 
 She gently said " she would take a hundred and fifty pounds 
 in small notes and the remainder in one note: " and passing 
 through St. Paul's Churchyard stopped there and bought the 
 handsomest black silk gown for Briggs which money could buy: 
 and which, with a kiss and the kindest speeches, she presented 
 to the simple old spinster. 
 
 Then she walked to Mr. Raggles', inquired about his children 
 affectionately, and gave him fifty pounds on account. Then she 
 went to the liveryman from whom she jobbed her carriages, and 
 gratified him with a similar sum. " And I hope this will be a 
 lesson to you, Spavin," she said, " and that on the next Drawing- 
 
Three Courses and a Dessert 487 
 
 room day my brother, Sir Pitt, will not be inconvenienced by 
 being obliged to take four of us in his carriage to wait upon his 
 Majesty, because my own carriage is not forthcoming." It 
 appears there had been a difference on the last Drawing-room 
 day. Hence the degradation which the Colonel had almost 
 suffered, of being obliged to enter the presence of his Sovereign 
 in a hack cab. 
 
 These arrangements concluded, Becky paid a visit upstairs \ 
 to the before-mentioned desk, which Amelia Sedley had given j 
 her years and years ago, and which contained a number of useful | 
 and valuable little things ; in which private museum she placed j 
 the one note which Messrs. Jones & Robinson's cashier had given 
 her. 
 
 J 
 
 CHAPTER XLIX 
 
 IN WHICH WE ENJOY THREE COURSES AND A DESSERT 
 
 When the ladies of Gaunt House were at breakfast that morning. 
 Lord Steyne (who took his chocolate in private, and seldom dis- 
 turbed the females of his household, or saw them except upon 
 public days, or when they crossed each other in the hall, or when 
 from his pit-box at the Opera he surveyed them in their box on 
 the grand tier) — his Lordship, we say, appeared among the 
 ladies and the children who were assembled over the tea and 
 toast, and a battle-royal ensued apropos of Rebecca. 
 
 " My Lady Steyne," he said, " I want to see the list for your 
 dinner on Friday; and I want you, if you please, to write a card 
 for Colonel and Mrs. Crawley." 
 
 " Blanche writes them," Lady Steyne said in a flutter. 
 " Lady Gaunt writes them." 
 
 " I will not write to that person," Lady Gaunt said, a tall and 
 stately lady, who looked up for an instant and then down again 
 after she had spoken. It was not good to meet Lord Steyne's 
 eyes for those who had offended him. 
 
 " Send the children out of the room. Go! " said he, pulling 
 at the bell-rope. The urchins, always frightened before him, 
 retired: their mother would have followed too. "Not you," 
 he said. " You stop." 
 
 " My Lady Steyne," he said, " once more will you have the 
 
488 Vanity Fair 
 
 goodness to go to the desk, and write that card for your dinner 
 on Friday? " 
 
 "My Lord, I will not be present at it/' Lady Gaunt said; 
 " I will go home." 
 
 " I wish you would, and stay there. You will find the bailiffs 
 at Bareacres very pleasant company, and I shall be freed from 
 lending money to your relations, and from your own danrned 
 tragedy airs. Who are you to give orders here ? You have no 
 money. You've got no brains. You were here to have children, 
 and you have not had any. Gaunt's tired of you ; and George's 
 wife is the only person in the family who doesn't wish you were 
 dead. Gaunt would marry again if you were." 
 
 " I wish I were," her ladyship answered with tears of rage in 
 her eyes. 
 
 " You, forsooth, must give yourself airs of virtue; while my 
 wife, who is an immaculate saint, as everybody knows, and 
 never did wrong in her life, has no objection to meet my young 
 friend Mrs. Crawley. My Lady Steyne knows that appearances 
 are sometimes against the best of women; that lies are often 
 told about the most innocent of them. Pray, Madam, shall I 
 tell you some little anecdotes about my Lady Bareacres, your 
 mamma? " 
 
 " You may strike me if you like, sir, or hit any cruel blow," 
 Lady Gaunt said. To see his wife and daughter suffering 
 always put his Lordship into a good humour. 
 
 " My sweet Blanche," he said, " I am a gentleman, and never 
 lay my hand upon a woman, save in the way of kindness. I only 
 wish to correct little faults in your character. You women are 
 too proud, and sadly lack humihty, as Father Mole, I'm sure, 
 would tell my Lady Steyne if he were here. You mustn't give 
 yourselves airs: you must be meek and humble, my blessings. 
 For all Lady Steyne knows, this calumniated, simple, good- 
 humoured Mrs. Crawley is quite innocent — even more innocent 
 than herself. Her husband's character is not good, but it is as 
 good as Bareacres', who has played a little and not paid a great 
 deal, who cheated you out of the only legacy you ever had and 
 left you a pauper on my hands. And Mrs. Crawley is not very 
 well born ; but she is not worse than Fanny's illustrious ancestor, 
 the first De la Jones." 
 
 ''The money which I brought into the family, sir," Lady 
 George cried out — 
 
 " You purchased a contingent reversion with it," the Marquis 
 said darkly. " If Gaunt dies, your husband may come to his 
 
Three Courses and a Dessert 489 
 
 honours ; your little boys may inherit them, and who knows 
 what besides? In the meanwhile, ladies, iDe as proud and 
 virtuous as you like abroad, but don't give me any airs. As for 
 Mrs. Crawley's character, I shan't demean myself or that most 
 spotless and perfectly irreproachable lady, by even hinting that 
 it requires a defence. You will be pleased to receive her with 
 the utmost cordiality, as you will receive all persons whom I 
 present in this house. This house?" He broke out with a 
 laugh. " Who is the master of it ? and what is it ? This Temple 
 of Virtue belongs to me. And if I invite all Newgate or all 
 Bedlam here, by they shall be welcome." 
 
 And after this vigorous allocution, to one of which sort Lord 
 Steyne treated his " Hareem " whenever symptoms of insub- 
 ordination appeared in his household, the crestfallen women 
 had nothing for it but to obey. Lady Gaunt wrote the invita- 
 tion which his Lordship required, and she and her mother-in- 
 law drove in person, and with bitter and humiliated hearts, to 
 leave the cards on Mrs. Rawdon, the reception of which caused 
 that innocent woman so much pleasure. 
 
 There were families in London who would have sacrificed a 
 year's income to receive such an honour at the hands of those 
 great ladies. Mrs. Frederick Bullock, for instance, would have 
 gone on her knees from Mayfair to Lombard Street, if Lady 
 Steyne and Lady Gaunt had been waiting in the City to raise 
 her up and say, " Come to us next Friday," — not to one of the 
 great crushes and grand balls of Gaunt House, whither every- 
 body went, but to the sacred, unapproachable, mysterious, 
 delicious entertainments, to be admitted to one of which was a 
 privilege, and an honour, and a blessing indeed. 
 
 Severe, spotless and beautiful. Lady Gaunt held the very 
 highest rank in Vanity Fair. The distinguished courtesy with 
 which Lord Steyne treated her, charmed everybody who wit- 
 nessed his behaviour, caused the severest critics to admit how 
 perfect a gentleman he wus, and to own that his Lordship's 
 heart at least was in the right place. 
 
 The ladies of Gaunt House called Lady Bareacres in to their 
 aid, in order to repulse the common enemy. One of Lady 
 Gaunt's carriages went to Hill Street for her Lad3^ship's mother, 
 all whose equipages were in the hands of the bailiffs, whose very 
 jewels and wardrobe, it was said, had been seized by those 
 inexorable Israehtes. Bareacres Castle was theirs, too, with all 
 its costly pictures, furniture, and articles of vertu — the magni- 
 
490 Vanity Fair 
 
 ficent Vandykes; the noble Reynolds pictures; the Lawrence 
 portraits, tawdry and beautiful, and, thirty years ago, deemed 
 as precious as works of real genius; the matchless Dancing 
 Nymph of Canova, for which Lady Bareacres had sate in her 
 youth — Lady Bareacres splendid then, and radiant in wealth, 
 rank, and beauty — a toothless, bald, old woman now — a mere 
 rag of a former robe of state. Her lord, painted at the same 
 time by Lawrence, as waving his sabre in front of Bareacres 
 Castle, and clothed in his uniform as Colonel of the Thistlewood 
 Yeomanry, was a withered, old, lean man in a greatcoat and a 
 Brutus wig: slinking about Gray's Inn of mornings chiefly, and 
 dining alone at clubs. He did not like to dine with Steyne now. 
 They had run races of pleasure together in youth when Bareacres 
 was the winner. But Steyne had more bottom than he, and 
 had lasted him out. The Marquis was ten times a greater man 
 now than the young Lord Gaunt of '85 ; and Bareacres nowhere 
 in the race — old, beaten, bankrupt, and broken down. He had 
 borrowed too much money of Steyne to find it pleasant to meet 
 his old comrade often. The latter, whenever he wished to be 
 merry, used jeeringly to ask Lady Gaunt, why her father had 
 not come to see her.? " He has not been here for four months," 
 Lord Steyne would say. " I can always tell by my cheque- 
 book afterwards, when I get a visit from Bareacres. What a 
 comfort it is, my ladies, I bank with one of my sons' fathers-in- 
 law, and the other banks with me ! " 
 
 Of the other illustrious persons whom Becky had the honour 
 to encounter on this her first presentation to the grand world, 
 it does not become the present historian to say much. There 
 was his Excellency the Prince of Peterwaradin, with his Princess; 
 a nobleman tightly girthed, with a large miUtary chest, on which 
 the plaque of his order shone magnificently, and wearing the red 
 collar of the Golden Fleece round his neck. He was the owner 
 of countless flocks. " Look at his face. I think he must be 
 descended from a sheep," Becky whispered to Lord Steyne. 
 Indeed, his Excellency's countenance, long, solemn, and white, 
 with the ornament round his neck, bore some resemblance to 
 that of a venerable bell-wether. 
 
 There was Mr. John Paul Jefferson Jones, titularly attached 
 to the American Embassy, and correspondent of the New York 
 Demagogue ; who, by way of making himself agreeable to the 
 company, asked Lady Steyne, during a pause in the conversa- 
 tion at dinner, how his dear friend, George Gaunt, liked the 
 Brazils? — He and George had been most intimate at Naples, 
 
Three Courses and a Dessert 49 1 
 
 and had gone up Vesuvius together. Mr. Jones wrote a full 
 and particular account of the dinner which appeared duly in 
 the Demagogue. He mentioned the names and titles of all the 
 guests^ giving biographical sketches of the principal people. He 
 described the persons of the ladies with great eloquence; the 
 service of the table; the size and costume of the servants; 
 enumerated the dishes and wines served; the ornaments of the 
 sideboard;, and the probable value of the plate. Such a dinner 
 he calculated could not be dished up under fifteen or eighteen 
 dollars per head. And he was in the habit^, until very lately, 
 of sending over proteges, with letters of recommendation to the 
 present Marquis of Steyne, encouraged to do so by the intimate 
 terms on which he haf^. lived with his dear friend, the late lord. 
 He was most indignant that a young and insignificant aristocrat, 
 the Earl of Southdown, should have taken the pas of him in 
 their procession to the dining-room. " Just as I was stepping 
 up to offer my hand to a very pleasing and witty fashionable, 
 the brilliant and exclusive Mrs. Rawdon Crawley," — he wrote 
 — " the young patrician interposed between me and the lady, 
 and whisked my Helen off without a word of apology. I was 
 fain to bring up the rear with the Colonel, the lady's husband, 
 a stout red-faced warrior who distinguished himself at Waterloo, 
 where he had better luck than befell some of his brother red- 
 coats at New Orleans." 
 
 The Colonel's countenance on coming into this polite society 
 wore as many blushes as the face of a boy of sixteen assumes 
 when he is confronted with his sister's schoolfellows. It has 
 been told before that honest Rawdon had not been much used 
 at any period of his life to ladies' company. With the men at 
 the club or the mess-room, he was well enough; and could ride, 
 bet, smoke, or play at billiards with the boldest of them. He 
 had had his time for female friendships too: but that was 
 twenty years ago, and the ladies were of the rank of those with 
 whom Young Marlow in the comedy is represented as having 
 been familiar before he became abashed in the presence of Miss 
 Hardcastle. The times are such that one scarcely dares to 
 allude to that kind of company which thousands of our young 
 men in Vanity Fair are frequenting every day, which nightly 
 fills casinos and dancing-rooms, which is known to exist as well 
 as the Ring in Hyde Park or the Congregation at St. James's — 
 but which the most squeamish if not the most moral of societies j 
 is determined to ignore. In a word, although Colonel Crawley 
 
492 Vanity Fair 
 
 *was iiow five-and-forty years of nge, it had not been his lot in 
 life to meet with a half-dozen good women, besides his paragon 
 of a wife. All except her and his kind sister Lady Jane, whose 
 gentle nature had tamed and won him, scared the worthy 
 Colonel; and on cxrcasion of his first dinner at Gaunt House he 
 was not heard to make a single remark except to state that the 
 weather was very hot. Indeed, Becky would have left him at 
 home, but that virtue ordained that her husband should be by 
 her side to protect the timid and fluttering little creature on her 
 first appearance in polite society. 
 
 On her first appearance Lord Steyne stepped forward, taking 
 her hand, and greeting her with great courtesy, and presenting 
 lier to Lady Steyne, and their Ladyships, her daughters. Their 
 Ladyships made three stately curtsies, and the elder lady to be 
 sure gave her hand to the new-comer, but it was as cold and 
 lifeless as marble. 
 
 Becky took it, however, with grateful humility; and per- 
 forming a reverence which would have done credit to the best 
 dancing-master, put herself at Lady Steyne's feet, as it were, by 
 saying that his Lt^rdship had been her father's earliest friend 
 and patron, and that she, Becky, had learned to honour and 
 respect the Steyne family from the days of her childhood. The 
 fact is, that Lord .Steyne had once purchased a couple of pictures 
 of the late Sharp, and the affectionate orphan could never forget 
 her gratitude for that favour. 
 
 The Lady Bareacres then came under Becky's cognisance — to 
 whom the Colonel's lady made also a most respectful obeisance: 
 it was returned with severe dignity by the exalted person in 
 questiocL 
 
 " I had the pleasure of making your Ladyship's acquaintance 
 at Brussels, ten years ago," Becky said, in the most winning 
 manner. " I had the good fortune to meet Lady Bareacres, at 
 the Duchess of Richmond's ball, the night before the battle of 
 Waterloo. And I recollect your Ladyship, and my Lady 
 Blanche, your daughter, sitting in the carriage in the porte- 
 cochere at the mn, waiting for horses. I hope your Ladyship's 
 diamonds are safe." 
 
 Everybody's eyes looked into their neighbour's. The famous 
 diamonds had undergone a famous seizure, it appears, about 
 which Becky, of course, knew nothing. Rawdon Crawley 
 retreated with Lord Southdown into a window, where the latter 
 was heard to laugh immoderately, as Rawdon told him the story 
 of Lady Bareacres wanting horses, and " knuckling down by 
 
Three Courses and a Dessert 493 
 
 Jove/' to Mrs. Crawley, " I think I needn't be afraid of that 
 woman/' Becky thought. Indeed, Lady Bareacres exchanged 
 terrified and angry looks with her daughter, and retreated to a 
 table, where she began to look at pictures with great energy. 
 
 When the Potentate from the Danube made his appearance, 
 the conversation was carried on in the French language, and the 
 Lady Bareacres and the younger ladies found, to their further 
 mortification, that Mrs. Crawley was much better acquainted 
 with that tongue, and spoke it with a much better accent than 
 they. Becky had met other Hungarian magnates with the 
 army in France in 1816-17. She asked after her friends with 
 great interest. The foreign personages thought that she was a 
 lady of great distinction : and the Prince and the Princess asked 
 severally of Lord Steyne and the Marchioness, whom they con- 
 ducted to dinner, who was that fetite dame who spoke so well ? 
 
 Finally, the procession being formed in the order described 
 by the American diplomatist, they marched into the apartment 
 where the banquet was served : and which, as I have promised 
 the reader he shall enjoy it, he shall have the liberty of ordering 
 himself so as to suit his fancy. 
 
 But it was when the ladies were alone that Becky knew the 
 tug of war would come. And then indeed the little woman 
 found herself in such a situation, as made her acknowledge the 
 correctness of Lord Steyne's caution to her to beware of the 
 society of ladies above her own sphere. As they say the persons 
 who hate Lrishmen most are Lrishmen: so, assuredly, the 
 greatest tyrants over women are women. When poor little 
 Becky, alone with the ladies, went up to the fireplace whither 
 the great ladies had repaired, the great ladies marched away and 
 took possession of a table of drawings. When Becky followed 
 them to the table of drawings, they dropped off one by one to 
 the fire again. She tried to speak to one of the children (of 
 whom she was commonly fond in public places), but Master 
 George Gaunt was called away by his mamma; and the stranger 
 was treated with such cruelty finally, that even Lady Steyne 
 herself pitied her, and went up to speak to the friendless little 
 woman. 
 
 " Lord Steyne," said her Ladyship, as her wan cheeks glowed 
 with a blush, " says you sing and play very beautifully, Mrs. 
 Crawley — I wish you would do me the kindness to sing to me." 
 
 " I will do anything that may give pleasure to my Lord Steyne 
 or to you," said Rebecca, sincerely grateful, and seating herself 
 at the piano, began to sing. 
 
494 Vanity Fair 
 
 She sang religious songs of Mozart, which had been early- 
 favourites of Lady Steyne, and with such sweetness and tender- 
 ness that the lady^ lingering round the piano^ sate down by its 
 side, and listened until the tears rolled down her eyes. It is 
 true that the opposition ladies at the other end of the room kept 
 up a loud and ceaseless buzzing and talking : but the Lady Steyne 
 did not hear these rumours. She was a child again — and had 
 wandered back through a forty years' wilderness to her Convent 
 Garden. The chapel organ had pealed the same tones, the 
 organist, the sister whom she loved best of the community, had 
 taught them to her in those early happy days. She was a girl 
 once more, and the brief period of her happiress bloomed out 
 again for an hour — she started when the jarring doors were flung 
 open, and with a loud laugh from Lord Steyne, the men of the 
 party entered full of gaiety. 
 
 He saw at a glance what had happened in his absence: and 
 was grateful to his wife for once. He went and spoke to her, 
 and called her by her Christian name, so as again to bring blushes 
 to her pale face — " My wife says you have been singing like an 
 angel," he said to Becky. Now there are angels of two kinds, 
 and both sorts, it is said, are charming in their way. 
 
 Whatever the previous portion of the evening had been, the 
 rest of that night was a great triumph for Becky. She sang her 
 very best, and it was so good that every one of the men came 
 and crowded round the piano. The women, her enemies, were 
 left quite alone. And Mr. Paul Jefferson Jones thought he had 
 made a conquest of Lady Gaunt by going up to her Ladyship, 
 and praising her delightful friend's first-rate singing. 
 
 CHAPTER L 
 
 CONTAINS A VULGAR INCIDENT 
 
 The Muse, whoever she be, who presides over this Comic 
 History, must now descend from the genteel heights in which 
 she has been soaring, and have the goodness to drop down upon 
 the lowly roof of John Sedley at Brompton, and describe what 
 events are taking place there. Here, too, in this humble tene- 
 ment, live care, and distrust, and dismay. Mrs. Clapp in the 
 kitchen is grumbling in secret to her husband about the rent, and 
 
A Vulgar Incident ^ 495 
 
 urging the good fellow to rebel against his old friend and patron 
 and his present lodger. Mrs. Sedley has ceased to visit her 
 landlady in the lower regions now, and indeed is in a position 
 to patronise Mrs. Clapp no longer. How can one be conde- 
 scending to a lady to whom one owes a matter of forty pounds, 
 and who is perpetually throwing out hints for the money ? The 
 Irish maid-servant has not altered in the least in her kind and 
 respectful behaviour; but Mrs. Sedley fancies that she is grow- 
 ing insolent and ungrateful, and, as the guilty thief who fears 
 each bush an officer, sees threatening innuendoes and hints of 
 capture in all the girl's speeches and answers. Miss Clapp, 
 grown quite a young woman now, is declared by the soured old 
 lady to be an unbearable and impudent little minx. Why 
 Amelia can be so fond of her, or have her in her room so much, or 
 walk out with her so constantly, Mrs. Sedley cannot conceive. 
 The bitterness of povertyJias_poisonedJheJif^ q|Jh^ 
 ful and'5ind5;;^manr" She is thankless for Amelia's constant 
 and gentle bearing towards her; carps at her for her efforts at 
 kindness or service : rails at her for her silly pride in her child, 
 and her neglect of her parents. Georgy's house is not a very 
 lively one since Uncle Jos's annuity has been withdrawn, and 
 the little family are almost upon famine diet. 
 
 Amelia thinks, and thinks, and racks her brain, to find some 
 means of increasing the small pittance upon which the house- 
 hold is starving. Can she give lessons in anything ? paint card- 
 racks ? do fine work ? She finds that women are working hard 
 and better than she can, for twopence a day. She buys a couple 
 of begilt Bristol boards at the fancy stationer's, and paints her 
 very best upon them— a shepherd with a red waistcoat on one, 
 and a pink face smiling in the midst of a pencil landscape — a 
 shepherdess on the other, crossing a little bridge, with a little 
 dog, nicely shaded. The man of the Fancy Repository and 
 Brompton Emporium of Fine Arts (of whom she bought the 
 screens, vainly hoping that he would re-piurchase them when 
 ornamented by her hand), can hardly hide the sneer with which 
 he examines these feeble works of art. He looks askance at the 
 lady who waits in the shop, and ties up the cards again in their 
 envelope of whity-brown paper, and hands them to the poor 
 widow and Miss Clapp, who had never seen such beautiful 
 things in her life, and had been quite confident that the man 
 must give at least two guineas for the screens. They try at 
 other shops in the interior of London, with faint sickening 
 hopes. " Don't want 'em/' says one. " Be off," says another 
 
496 Vanity Fair 
 
 fiercely. Three-and-sixpence has been spent in vain — the 
 screens retire to Miss Clapp's bedroom, who persists in thinking 
 them lovely. 
 
 She writes out a little card in her neatest hand, and after long 
 thought and labour of composition; in which the public is 
 informed that " A Lady who has some time at her disposal, 
 wishes to undertake the education of some little girls, whom 
 she would instruct in English, in French, in Geography, in 
 History, and in music — address A.O., at Mr. Brown's;" and 
 she confides the card to the gentleman of the Fine Art Reposi- 
 tory, who consents to allow it to lie upon the counter, where 
 it grows dingy and flyblown. Amelia passes the door wistfully 
 many a time, in hopes that Mr. Brown will have some news to 
 give her; but he never beckons her in. When she goes to make 
 little purchases, there is no news for her. Poor simple lady, 
 tender and weak — how are you to battle with the struggling 
 violent world ? 
 
 She grows daily more careworn and sad : fixing upon her child 
 alarmed eyes, whereof the little boy cannot interpret the ex- 
 pression. She starts up of a night and peeps into his room 
 stealthily, to see that he is sleeping and not stolen away. She 
 sleeps but little now. A constant thought and terror is haunt- 
 ing her. How she weeps and prays in the long silent nights — 
 how she tries to hide from herself the thought which will return 
 to her, that she ought to part with the boy, that she is the only 
 barrier between him and prosperity. She can't, she can't. 
 Not now, at least. Some other day. Oh ! it is too hard to think 
 of and to bear. 
 
 A thought comes over her which makes her blush and turn 
 from herself, — her parents might keep the annuity — the curate 
 would marry her and give a home to her and the boy. But 
 George's picture and dearest memory are there to rebuke her. 
 Shame and love say no to the sacrifice. She shrinks from it as 
 from something unholy; and such thoughts never found a rest- 
 ing-place in that pure and gentle bosom. 
 
 The combat, which we describe in a sentence or two, lasted 
 for many weeks in poor Amelia's heart: during which she had 
 no confidante; indeed, she could never have one: as she would 
 not allow to herself the possibility of yielding; though she was 
 giving way daily before the enemy with whom she had to battle. 
 One truth after another was marshalling itself silently agaijnst 
 her, and keeping its ground. Poverty and misery for all, want 
 .and degradation for her parents, injustice, to the boy — one by 
 
A Vulgar Incident 497 
 
 one the outworks of the Httle citadel were taken, in which the 
 poor soul passionately guarded her only love and treasure. 
 
 At the beginning of the struggle, she had written off a letter 
 of tender supplication to her brother at Calcutta, imploring 
 him not to withdraw the support which he had granted to their 
 parents, and painting in terms of artless pathos their lonely and 
 hapless condition. She did not know the truth of the matter. 
 The payment of Jos's annuity was still regular: but it was a 
 money-lender in the City who was receiving it: old Sedley had 
 sold it for a sum of money wherewith to prosecute his bootless 
 schemes. Emmy was calculating eagerly the time that would 
 elapse before the letter would arrive and be answered. She 
 had written down the date in her pocket-book of the day when 
 she despatched it. To her son's guardian, the good Major at 
 Madras, she had not communicated any of her griefs and per- 
 plexities. She had not written to him since she wrote to con- 
 gratulate him on his approaching marriage. She thought with 
 sickening despondency, that that friend, — the only one, the one 
 who had felt such a regard for her, — ^was fallen away. 
 
 One day, when things had come to a very bad pass — when the 
 creditors were pressing, the mother in hysteric grief, the father 
 in more than usual gloom, the inmates of the family avoiding 
 each other, each secretly oppressed with his private unhappiness 
 and notion of wrong — the father and daughter happened to be 
 left alone together; and Amelia thought to comfort her father, 
 by telling him what she had done. She had written to Joseph 
 — an answer must come in three or four months. He was 
 always generous, though careless. He could not refuse, when 
 he knew how straitened were the circumstances of his parents. 
 
 Then the poor old gentleman revealed the whole truth to her 
 — that his son was still paying the annuity, which his own im- 
 prudence had flung away. He had not dared to tell it sooner. 
 He thought Amelia's ghastly and terrified look, when, with a 
 trembling, miserable voice he made the confession, conveyed 
 reproaches to him for his concealment. " Ah! " said he, with 
 quivering lips and turning away, " you despise your old father 
 now!" 
 
 "0 papa ! it is not that," Amelia cried out, falHng on his neck, 
 and kissing him many times. " You are always good and kind. 
 You did it for the best. It is not for the money — ^it is — my 
 God ! my God ! have mercy upon me, and give me strength to 
 bear this trial;" and she kissed him again wildly, and went 
 away. 
 
498 Vanity Fair 
 
 Still the father did not know what that explanation meant, 
 and the burst of anguish with which the poor girl left him. It 
 was that she was conquered. The sentence was passed. The 
 child must go from her — to others — to forget her. Her heart 
 and her treasure — her joy, hope, love, worship — her God, 
 almost ! She must give him up ; and then — and then she would 
 go to George: and they would watch over the child, and wait 
 for him until he came to them in heaven. 
 
 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. 
 
A Vulgar Incident 499 
 
 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 in- 
 duced 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^PrijdeJias 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 18 14, 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! smce 
 that ink was wet, what days and people had passed away! 
 The writing-book still on the table, was blotted with his hand. 
 
500 Vanity Fair 
 
 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, mam — indeed, mam," the 
 housekeeper said; " and the good old times is returning, mam. 
 The dear little feller, to be sure, mam ; how happy he will be t 
 But some folks in Mayfair, mam, will owe him a grudge, mam; " 
 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 pounds." 
 
 " 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 AmeHa. 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 la3dng 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 sav/ 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 
 
A Vulgar Incident 501 
 
 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 debase- 
 ment 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 shield- 
 ing the real culprit ! It is those who injure women who get the 
 
502 Vanity Fair 
 
 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 sacri- 
 ficed 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 patronising 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 storey 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 ring- 
 ing, 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 
 
A Charade is Acted 503 
 
 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. 
 
 CHAPTER LI 
 
 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 : (ami 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 mav 
 hope in vain to enter at them. Dear brethren, let us tremhi e 
 before_those august portals^ I fancy them. g uarded bv groom s 
 of the chamber with .flaminff-silver forkS-with_ which they prong 
 all those wlLO^haye^not th^ They say the 
 
 honest newspaper-fellov/ 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 horticul- 
 tural outskirts of Babylon, and Belgrave Square will be as 
 desolate as Baker Street, or Tadmor in the wilderness. 
 
 Ladies, are you aware that the great Pitt lived in Baker 
 
504 Vanity Fair 
 
 Street? What would not your grandmothers have given to be 
 asked to Lady Hester's parties in that now decayed mansion? 
 T^haAt ft dined in it — n'^i q'"^' '^"^'"l±r''^^Z I peopled the chamber 
 with ghosts of the mighty dead. As we sate soberly drinking 
 claret there with men of to-day^ the spirits of the departed came 
 in and took their places round the darksome board. The pilot 
 who weathered the storm tossed ofi great bumpers of spiritual 
 port : the shade of Dundas did not leave the ghost of a heeltap. 
 — Addington sate bowing and smirking in a ghastly manner, and 
 would not be behindhand when the noiseless bottle went round ; 
 Scott^ from under bushy eyebrows, winked at the apparition of 
 a beeswing; Wilberforce's eyes went up to the ceiling, so that 
 he did not seem to know how his glass went up full to his mouth 
 and came down empty; — up to the ceiling which was above us 
 only yesterday, and which the great of the past days have all 
 looked at. They let the house as a furnished lodging now. 
 Yes, Lady Hester once lived in Baker Street, and lies asleep in 
 the wilderness. Eothen saw her there — not in Baker Street: 
 but in the other solitude. 
 
 It is all vanity to be sure : but who will not own to liking a 
 little of it ? I should like to know what well-constituted mind, 
 merely because it is transitory, dislikes roast beef? That is a 
 vanity ; but may every man who reads this have a wholesome 
 portion of it through life, I beg: aye, though my readers were 
 five hundred thousand. Sit down, gentlemen, and fall to, with 
 a good hearty appetite; the fat, the lean, the gravy, the horse- 
 radish as you like it — don't spare it. Another glass of wine, 
 Jones, my boy — a little bit of the Sunday side. Yet, let us eat 
 our fill of the vain thing, and be thankful therefor. And let us 
 make the best of Becky's aristocratic pleasures likewise:^::-for 
 these too, like all other mortal delights, were but ^ansitory^ 
 
 The upshot of her visit to Lord Steyne was, that His Highness 
 the Prince of Peterwaradin took occasion to renew his acquaint- 
 ance with Colonel Crawley, when they met on the next day at 
 the Club, and to compliment Mrs. Crawley in the Ring of Hyde 
 Park with a profound salute of the hat. She and her husband 
 were invited immediately to one of the Prince's small parties 
 at Levant House, then occupied by His Highness during the 
 temporary absence from England of its noble proprietor. She 
 sang after dinner to a very little comtte. The Marquis of Steyne 
 was present, paternally superintending the progress of his 
 pupil. 
 
A Charade is Acted 505 
 
 At Levant House Becky met one of the finest gentlemen and 
 greatest Ministers that Europe has produced — the Due de la 
 Jaboti^re, then Ambassador from the Most Christian King, and 
 subsequently Minister to that monarch. I declare I swell with 
 pride as these august names are transcribed by my pen; and I 
 think in what brilliant company my dear Becky is moving. 
 She became a constant guest at the French Embassy^ where no 
 party was considered to be complete without the presence of 
 the charming Madame Ravdonn Cravley. 
 
 Messieurs de Truffigny (of the Perigord family) and Cham- 
 pignac, both attaches of the Embassy^ were straightway smitten 
 by the charms of the fair Colonel's wife: and both declared;, 
 according to the wont of their nation (for who ever yet met a 
 Frenchman^ come out of England, that has not left half-a-dozen 
 families miserable, and brought away as many hearts in his 
 pocket-book ?) — both, I say, declared that they were au mieux 
 with the charming Madame Ravdonn. 
 
 But I doubt the correctness of the assertion. Champignac 
 was very fond of ecarte, and made many parties with the Colonel 
 of evenings, while Becky was singing to Lord Steyne in the 
 other room; and as for Truffigny, it is a well-known fact that 
 he dared not go to the Travellers', where he owed money to the 
 waiters, and if he had not had the Embassy as a dining-place, the 
 worthy young gentleman must have starved. I doubt, I say, 
 that Becky would have selected either of these young men as a 
 person on whom she would bestow her special regard. They 
 ran of her messages, purchased her gloves and flowers, went in 
 debt for opera-boxes for her, and made themselves amiable in 
 a thousand ways. And they talked English with adorable 
 simplicity, and to the constant amusement of Becky and my 
 Lord Steyne, she would mimic one or other to his face, and com- 
 pliment him on his advance in the English language with a 
 gravity which never failed to tickle the Marquis, her sardonic 
 old patron. Truffigny gave Briggs a shawl by way of winning 
 over Becky's confidante, and asked her to take charge of a letter 
 which the simple spinster handed over in public to the person 
 to whom it was addressed; and the composition of which 
 amused everybody who read it greatly. Lord Ste5nie read it : 
 everybody but honest Rawdon; to whom it was not necessary 
 to tell everything that passed in the little house in Mayfair. 
 
 Here, before long, Becky received not only " the best " 
 foreigners (as the phrase is in our noble and admirable society 
 slang), but some of the best English people too, I don't mean 
 
5o6 Vanity Fair 
 
 the most virtuous^ or indeed the least virtuous^ or the cleverest, 
 or the stupidest, or the richest, or the best born, but " the best," 
 — in a word, people about whom there is no question — such as 
 the great Lady Fitz-Willis, that Patron Saint of Almack's, the 
 great Lady Slowbore, the great Lady Grizzel Macbeth (she was 
 Lady G. Glowry, daughter of Lord Grey of Glowry), and the 
 like. When the Countess of Fitz-Willis (her Ladyship is of the 
 King Street family, see Debrett and Burke) takes up a person 
 he or she is safe. There is no question about them any more. 
 Not that my Lady Fitz-Willis is any better than anybody else, 
 being, on the contrary, a faded person, fifty-seven years of age, 
 and neither handsome, nor wealthy, nor entertaining: but it is 
 agreed on all sides that she is of the " best people." Those who 
 go to her are of the best: and from an old grudge probably to 
 Lady Steyne (for whose coronet her Ladyship, then the youthful 
 Georgina Frederica, daughter of the Prince of Wales's favourite, 
 the Earl of Portansherry, had once tried), this great and famous 
 leader of fashion chose to acknowledge Mrs. Rawdon Crawley: 
 made her a most marked curtsey at the assembly over which 
 she presided: and not only encouraged her son. Sir Kitts (his 
 Lordship got his place through Lord Steyne's interest), to fre- 
 quent Mrs. Crawley's house, but asked her to her own mansion, 
 and spoke to her twice in the most public and condescending 
 manner during dinner. The important fact was known all over 
 London that night. People who had been crying fie about Mrs. 
 Crawley were silent. Wenham, the wit and lawyer. Lord 
 Steyne's right-hand man, went about everywhere praising her: 
 some who had hesitated, came forward at once and welcomed her: 
 little Tom Toady, who had warned Southdown about visiting 
 such an abandoned woman, now besought to be introduced to 
 her. In a word, she was admitted to be among the " best " 
 people. Ah, my beloved readers and brethren, do not envy 
 poor Becky prematurely — glory like this is said to be fugitive. 
 It is currently reported that even in the very inmost circles, 
 they are no happier than the poor wanderers outside the zone; 
 and Becky, who penetrated into the very centre of fashion, and 
 saw the great George IV. face to face, has owned since that 
 there too was Vanity. 
 
 We must be brief in descanting upon this part of her career. 
 As I cannot describe the mysteries of Freemasonry, although I 
 have a shrewd idea that it is a humbug: so an uninitiated man 
 cannot take upon himself to pourtray the great world accurately, 
 and had best keep his opinions to himself whatever they are. 
 
A Charade is Acted 507 
 
 Becky has often spoken in subsequent years of this season of 
 her life, when she moved among the very greatest circles of the 
 London fashion. Her success excited, elated, and then bored 
 her. At first no occupation was more pleasant than to invent 
 and procure (the latter a work of no small trouble and ingenuity, 
 by the way, in a person of Mrs. Rawdon Crawley's very narrow 
 means) — to procure, we say, the prettiest new dresses and orna- 
 ments : to drive to fine dinner parties, where she was welcomed 
 by great people ; and from the fine dinner parties to fine assem- 
 blies, whither the same people came with whom she had been 
 dining, whom she had met the night before, and would see on 
 the morrow — the young men faultlessly appointed, handsomely 
 cravatted, with the neatest glossy boots and white gloves — the 
 elders portly, brass-buttoned, noble-looking, polite, and prosy 
 — the young ladies blonde, timid, and in pink — the mothers 
 grand, beautiful, sumptuous, solemn, and in diamonds. They 
 talked in English, not in bad French, as they do in the novels. 
 They talked about each others' houses, and characters, and 
 families: just as the Joneses do about the Smiths. Becky's 
 former acquaintances hated and envied her; the poor woman 
 herself was yawning in spirit. " I wish I were out of it," she 
 said to herself. " I would rather be a parson's wife, and teach 
 a Sunday School than this; or a sergeant's lady, and ride in 
 the regimental waggon; or, how much gayer it would be to 
 wear spangles and trousers, and dance before a booth at a 
 fair." 
 
 " You would do it very well," said Lord Steyne, laughing. 
 She used to tell the great man her ennuis and perplexities in her 
 artless way — they amused him. 
 
 " Rawdon would make a very good Ecuyer — ^Master of the 
 Ceremonies — what do you call him — the man in the large boots 
 and the uniform, who goes round the ring cracking the whip? 
 He is large, heavy, and of a military figure. I recollect," Becky 
 continued pensively, " my father took me to see a show at Brook- 
 green Fair when I was a child ; and when we came home I made 
 myself a pair of stilts and danced in the studio to the wonder of 
 all the pupils." 
 
 " I should have liked to see it," said Lord Steyne. 
 
 " I should like to do it now," Becky continued. " How Lady 
 Blinkey would open her eyes, and Lady Grizzel Macbeth would 
 stare? Hush! silence! there is Pasta beginning to sing." 
 Becky always made a point of being conspicuously polite to 
 the professional ladies and gentlemen who attended at these 
 
5o8 Vanity Fair 
 
 aristocratic parties — of following them, into the corners where 
 they sate in silence^ and shaking hands with them and smiling in 
 the view of all persons. She was an artist herself , as she said 
 very truly: there was a frankness and humility in the manner 
 in which she acknowledged her origin, which provoked, or dis- 
 armed, or amused lookers-on, as the case might be. " How cool 
 that woman is," said one; " what airs of independence she 
 assumes, where she ought to sit still and be thankful if anybody 
 speaks to her! " " What an honest and good-natured soul she 
 is ! " said another. " What an artful little minx ! " said a third. 
 They were all right very likely; but Eecky went her own way, 
 and so fascinated the professional personages, that they would 
 leave off their sore throats in order to sing at her parties, and give 
 her lessons for nothing. 
 
 Yes, she gave parties in the little house in Curzon Street. 
 Many scores of carriages, with blazing lamps, blocked up the 
 street, to the disgust of No. loo, who could not rest for the 
 thunder of the knocking, and of 102, who could not sleep for 
 envy. The gigantic footmen who accompanied the vehicles 
 were too big to be contained in Becky's little hall, and were 
 billeted ofi in the neighbouring public-houses, whence, when they 
 were wanted, call-boys summoned them from their beer. Scores 
 of the great dandies of London squeezed and trod on each other 
 on the little stairs, laughing to find themselves there: and many 
 spotless and severe ladies of ton were seated in the little drawing- 
 room, listening to the professional singers, who were singing 
 according to their wont, and as if they wished to blow the 
 windows down. And the day after, there appeared among the 
 fashionable reunions in the Morning Post a paragraph to the 
 following effect: — 
 
 " Yesterday, Colonel and Mrs. Crawley entertained a select 
 party at dinner at their house in Mayfair. Their Excellencies 
 the Prince and Princess of Peterwaradin, H. E. Papoosh Pasha, 
 the Turkish Ambassador (attended by Kibob Bey, dragoman of 
 the mission), the Marquis of Steyne, Earl of Southdown, Sir 
 Pitt and Lady Jane Crawley, Mr. Wagg, etc. After dinner Mrs. 
 Crawley had an assembly, which was attended by the Duchess 
 (Dowager) of Stilton, Due de la Gruy^re, Marchioness of Cheshire, 
 Marchese Alessandro Strachinor, Comte de Brie, Baron Schap- 
 zuger, Chevalier Tosti, Countess of Slingstone, and Lady F. 
 Macadam, Major-General and Lady G. Macbeth, and (2) Miss 
 Macbeths; Viscount Paddington, Sir Horace Fogey, Hon. 
 Sands Bedwin, Bobbachy Bahawder," and an etc., which the 
 
A Charade is Acted 509 
 
 reader may fill at his pleasure through a dozen close lines of 
 small type. 
 
 And in her commerce with the great our dear friend showed 
 the same frankness which disting-uished her transactions with the 
 lowly in station. On one occasion^ when out at a very fine house, 
 Rebecca was (perhaps rather ostentatiously) holding a conversa- 
 tion in the French language with a celebrated tenor singer of that 
 nation, while the Lady Grizzel Macbeth looked over her shoulder 
 scowling at the pair. 
 
 " How very well you speak French/' Lady Grizzel said, who 
 herself spoke the tongue in an Edinburgh accent most remark- 
 able to hear. 
 
 " I ought to know it/' Becky modestly said, casting down her 
 eyes. " I taught it in a school, and my mother was a French- 
 woman." 
 
 Lady Grizzel was won by her humility, and was mollified 
 towards the little woman. She deplored the fatal levelling 
 tendencies of the age, which admitted persons of all classes into 
 the society of their superiors; but her Ladyship owned, that 
 this one at least was well behaved and never forgot her place in 
 life. She was a very good woman: good to the poor: stupid, 
 blameless, unsuspicious.— It is not her Ladyship's fault that 
 she fancies herself better than you and me. The skirts of her 
 ancestors' garments have been kissed for centuries: it is a 
 thousand years, they say, since the tartans of the head of the 
 family were embraced by the defunct Duncan's lords and coun- 
 cillors, when the great ancestor of the House became King of 
 Scotland. 
 
 Lady Steyne, after the music scene, succumbed before Becky 
 and perhaps was not disinclined to her. The younger ladies of 
 the House of Gaunt were also compelled into submission. Once 
 or twice they set people at her, but they failed. The brilliant 
 Lady Stunnington tried a passage of arms with her, but was 
 routed with great slaughter by the intrepid little Becky. When 
 attacked sometimes, Becky had a knack of adopting a demure 
 ingenue air, under which she was most dangerous. She said 
 the wickedest things with the most simple unaffected air when 
 in this mood, and would take care artlessly to apologise for her 
 blunders, so that all the world should know that she had made 
 them, 
 
 Mr. V/agg, the celebrated wit, and a led captain and trencher- 
 man of m.y Lord Ste3me, was caused by the ladies to charge her; 
 and the worthy fellow, leering at his patronesses, and giving 
 
5IO Vanity Fair 
 
 them a wink, as much as to say, " Now look out for sport/' — 
 one evening began an assault upon Becky, who was unsus- 
 piciously eating her dinner. The little woman attacked on a 
 sudden, but never without arms, lighted up in an instant, 
 parried and riposted with a home-thrust, which made Wagg's 
 face tingle with shame; then she returned to her soup with the 
 most perfect calm and a quiet smile on her face. Wagg's great 
 patron, v/lio gave him dinners and lent him a little money some- 
 times, and whose election, newspaper, and other jobs Wagg did, 
 gave the luckless fellov/ such a savage glance with the eyes as 
 almost made him sink under the table and burst into tears. He 
 looked piteously at my Lord, who never spoke to him during 
 dinner, and at the ladies, who disowned him. At last Becky 
 herself took compassion upon him, and tried to engage him in 
 talk. He was not asked to dinner again for six weeks; and 
 Fiche, my Lord's confidential man, to whom Wagg naturally 
 paid a great deal of court, was instructed to tell him that if he 
 ever dared to say a rude thing to Mrs. Crawley again, or make 
 her the butt of his stupid jokes, Milor would put every one of his 
 notes of hand into his lawyer's hands, and sell him up without 
 mercy. Wagg wept before Fiche, and implored his dear friend 
 to intercede for him. He wrote a poem in favour of Mrs. R. C. 
 which appeared in the very next number of the " Harumscarum 
 Magazine," which he conducted. He implored her good will at 
 parties where he met her. He cringed and coaxed Rawdon at 
 the club. He was allowed to come back to Gaunt House after 
 a while. Becky was always good to him, always amused, never 
 
 His Lordship's vizier and chief confidential servant (with a 
 seat in Parliament and at the dinner-table), Mr. Wenham, was 
 much more prudent in his behaviour and opinions than Mr. 
 Wagg. However much he might be disposed to hate all par- 
 venus (Mr. Wenham himself was a staunch old True Blue Tory, 
 and his father a small coal-merchant in the North of England), 
 this aide-de-camp of the Marquis never showed any sort of 
 hostility to the new favourite; but pursued her with stealthy 
 kindnesses, and a sly and deferential politeness, which some- 
 how made Becky more uneasy than other people's overt hos- 
 tilities. 
 
 How the Crawleys got the money which was spent upon the 
 entertainments with which they treated the polite world, was a 
 mystery which gave rise to some conversation at the time, and 
 probably added zest to these little festivities. Some persons 
 
A Charade is Acted 5 1 1 
 
 averred that Sir Pitt Crawley gave his brother a handsome 
 allowance: if he did^ Becky's power over the Baronet must 
 have been extraordinary indeed^ and his character greatly 
 changed in his advanced age. Other parties hinted that it was 
 Becky's habit to levy contributions on all her husband's friends : 
 going to this one in tears with an account that there was an 
 execution in the house; falling on her knees to that one, and 
 declaring that the whole family must go to gaol or commit 
 suicide unless such and such a bill could be paid. Lord South- 
 down, it was said, had been induced to give many hundreds 
 through these pathetic representations. Young Feltham of 
 the — th Dragoons (and son of the firm of Tiler & Feltham, 
 hatters and army accoutrement makers), and whom the Crawleys 
 introduced into fashionable life, was also cited as one of Becky's 
 victims in the pecuniary way. People declared that she got 
 money from various simply disposed persons, under pretence 
 of getting them confidential appointments under Government. 
 Who knows what stories were or were not told of our dear and 
 innocent friend ? Certain it is, that if she had had all the money 
 which she was said to have begged or borrowed or stolen, she 
 might have capitalised and been honest for life, whereas, — but 
 this is advancing matters. 
 
 The truth is, that by economy and good management — by a 
 sparing use of ready-money and by paying scarcely anybody, — 
 people can manage, for a time at least, to make a great show 
 with very little means : and it is our belief that Becky's much- 
 talked-of parties, which were not, after all was said, very numer- 
 ous, cost this lady very little more than the wax candles which 
 lighted the walls. Stillbrook and Queen's Crawley supplied 
 her with game and fruit in abundance. Lord Steyne's cellars 
 were at her disposal, and that excellent nobleman's famous 
 cooks presided over her little kitchen, or sent by my lord's order 
 the rarest delicacies from their own. I protest it is quite shame- 
 ful in the world to abuse a simple creature, as people of her time 
 abuse Becky, and I warn the public against believing one- tenth 
 of the stories against her. If every person is to be banished 
 from society who runs into debt and cannot pay — if we are to 
 be peering into everybody's private life, speculating upon their 
 income, and cutting them if we don't approve of their expendi- 
 ture—why, what a howling wilderness and intolerable dwelling 
 Vanity Fair would be! Every man's hand would be against 
 his neighbour in this case, my dear sir, and the benefits of 
 civilisation would be done away with. We should be quarrel- 
 
512 Vanity Fair 
 
 iing, abusing^ avoiding one another. Our houses would become 
 caverns: and we should go in rags because we cared for nobody. 
 Rents would go down. Parties wouldn't be given any more. 
 All the tradesmen of the town would be bankrupt. Wine, wax- 
 iights, comestibles, rouge, crinoline-petticoats, diamonds, wigs, 
 Louis-Quatorze gimcracks, and old china, park hacks, and 
 splendid high-stepping carriage horses— all the delights of Hfe, 
 I say, — would go to the deuce, if people did but act upon their 
 silly principles, and avoid those whom they dislike and abuse. 
 Whereas, by a little charity and mutual forbearance, things are 
 made to go on pleasantly enough : we may abuse a man as much 
 as we like, and call him the greatest rascal unhanged — but do 
 we wish to hang him therefore.^ No. We shake hands when 
 we meet. If his cook is good we forgive him, and go and dine 
 with him, and we expect he will do the same by us. Thus trade 
 flourishes — civilisation advances: peace is kept; new dresses 
 are wanted for new assemblies every week; and the last year's 
 vintage of Lafitte will remunerate the honest proprietor who 
 reared it. 
 
 At the time whereof we are writing, though the Great George 
 was on the throne and ladies wore gigots and large combs like 
 tortoiseshell shovels in their hair, instead of the simple sleeves 
 and lovely wreaths which are actually in fashion, the manners of 
 the very polite world were not, I take it, essentially different 
 from those of the present day: and their amusements pretty 
 similar. To us, from the outside, gazing over the policeman's 
 shoulders at the bewildering beauties as they pass into Court 
 or ball, they may seem beings of unearthly splendour, and in the 
 enjoyment of an exquisite happiness by us unattainable. It is to 
 console some of these dissatisfied beings, that we are narrating 
 our dear Becky's struggles, and triumphs, and disappointments, 
 of all of which, indeed, as is the case with all persons of merit, 
 she had her share. 
 
 At this time the amiable amusement of acting charades had 
 come among us from France : and was considerably in vogue in 
 this country, enabling the many ladies amongst us who had 
 'beauty to display their charms, and the fewer number who had 
 cleverness to exhibit their wit. My Lord Steyne was incited b}^ 
 Becky, who perhaps believed herself endowed with both the 
 above qualifications, to give an entertainment at Gaunt House, 
 which should include some of these little dramas— and we must 
 take leave to introduce the reader to this brilliant rezmion, and 
 ■with a melancholy welcome too, for it will be among the very 
 
A Charade is Acted 5 i 3 
 
 last of the fashionable entertainments to which it will be our 
 fortune to conduct him. 
 
 A portion of that splendid room, the picture gallery of Gaunt 
 House, was arranged as the charade theatre. It had been so 
 used when George III. v/as king; and a picture of the Marquis 
 of Gaunt is still extant, with his hair in powder and a pink 
 ribbon, in a Roman shape, as it was called, enacting the part 
 of Cato in Mr. Addison's tragedy of that name, performed 
 before their Royal Highnesses the Prince of Wales, the Bishop 
 of Osnaburgh, and Prince William Henry, then children like 
 the actor. One or two of the old properties were drawn out of 
 garrets, where they had lain ever since, and furbished up anew 
 for the present festivities. 
 
 Young Bedwin Sands, then an elegant dandy and Eastern 
 traveller, was manager of the revels. An Eastern traveller was 
 somebody in those days, and the adventurous Bedwin, who had 
 published his quarto, and passed some months under the tents 
 in the desert, was a personage of no small importance. — In his 
 volume there were several pictures of Sands in various oriental 
 costumes; and he travelled about with a black attendant of 
 most unprepossessing appearance, just like another- iJrian de 
 Bois Guilbert. Bedwin, his costumes, and black man, were 
 hailed at Gaunt House as very valuable acquisitions. 
 
 He led off the first charade. A Turkish officer with an 
 immense plume of feathers (the Janizaries were supposed to be 
 still in existence, and the tarboosh had not as yet displaced the 
 ancient and majestic head-dress of the true believers), was seen 
 couched on a divan, and making beheve to puff at a narghile, in 
 which, however, for the sake of the ladies, only a fragrant 
 pastille was allowed to smoke. The Turkish dignitary yawns 
 and expresses signs of weariness and idleness. Pie claps his 
 hands and Mesrour the Nubian appears, with bare arms, bangles, 
 yataghans, and every Eastern ornament — gaunt, tall, and 
 hideous. He makes a salaam before my lord the Aga. 
 
 A thrill of terror and delight runs through the assembly. 
 The ladies whisper to one another. The blacl-- sla\'e was given 
 to Bedwin Sands by an Egyptian Pasha in exchange for three 
 dozen of Maraschino. He has sewn up ever so many odalisques 
 in sacks and tilted them into the Nile. 
 
 '* Bid the slave-merchant enter," says the Turkish voluptuary 
 with a wave of his hand. Mesrour conducts t^e slave-merchant 
 into my lord's presence: he brings a veiled female with him. 
 He removes the veil. A thrill of applause bursts through the 
 
 R^98 
 
514 Vanity Fair 
 
 house. It is Mrs. Winkworth (she was a Miss Absolom) with 
 the beautiful eyes and hair. She is in a gorgeous oriental cos- 
 tume; the black braided locks are twined with innumerable 
 jewels; her dress is covered over with gold piastres. The 
 odious Mahometan expresses himself charmed by her beauty. 
 She falls down on her knees, and entreats him to restore her to 
 the mountains where she was bom, and where her. Circassian 
 lover is still deploring the absence of his Zuleikah. No en- 
 treaties will move the obdurate Hassan. He laughs at the 
 notion of the Circassian bridegroom. Zuleikah covers her face 
 with her hands, and drops down in an attitude of the most 
 beautiful despair. There seems to be no hope for her, when — 
 when the Kislar Aga appears. 
 
 The Kislar Aga brings a letter from the Sultan. Hassan 
 receives and places on his head the dread firman. A ghastly 
 terror seizes him, while on the negro's face (it is Mesrour again 
 in another costume) appears a ghastly joy. '' Mercy ! Mercy ! " 
 cries the Pasha: while the Kislar Aga, grinning horribly, pulls 
 out — a bow-string. 
 
 The curtain draws just as he is going to use that awful weapon. 
 Hassan from within bawls out, " First two syllables " — and 
 Mrs. Rawdon Crawley, who is going to act in. the charade, 
 comes forward and compliments Mrs. Winkworth on the admir- 
 able taste and beauty of her costume. 
 
 The second part of the charade takes place. It is still an 
 Eastern scene. Hassan, in another dress, is in an attitude by 
 Zuleikah, who is perfectly reconciled to him. The Kislar Aga 
 has become a peaceful black slave. It is sunrise on the desert, 
 and the Turks turn their heads eastwards and bow to the sand.; 
 As there are no dromedaries at hand, the band facetiously 
 plays " The Camels are coming." An enormous Egyptian head 
 figures in the scene. It is a musical one, — and, to the surprise 
 of the oriental travellers, sings a comic song, composed by Mr. 
 Wagg. The Eastern voyagers go off dancing, like Papageno 
 and the Moorish King in the " Magic Flute," " Last two 
 syllables " roars the head. 
 
 The last act opens. It is a Grecian tent this time. A tall 
 and stalwart man reposes on a couch there. Above him hang 
 his helmet and shield. There is no need for them now. IHum 
 is down. Iphigenia is slain. Cassandra is a prisoner in his 
 outer halls. The king of men (it is Colonel Crawley, who, 
 indeed, has no notion about the sack of Ilium or the conquest 
 of Cassandra), the anax andron is asleep in his chamber at 
 
A Charade is Acted 5 1 5 
 
 Argos. A lamp casts the broad shadow of the sleeping warrior 
 flickering on the wall— the sword and shield of Troy glitter in 
 its light. The band plays the awful music of " Don Ju-an/' 
 before the statue enters. 
 
 iEgisthus steals in pale and on tiptoe. What is that ghastly 
 face looking out balefuUy after him from behind the arras? He 
 raises his dagger to strike the sleeper, who turns in his bed, and 
 opens his broad chest as if for the blow. Pie cannot strike the 
 noble slumbering chieftain. Clytemnestra glides swiftly into 
 the room like an apparition — her arms are bare and white — her 
 tawny hair floats down her shoulders, — her face is deadly pale, 
 — and her eyes are lighted up with a smile so ghastly, that people 
 quake as they look at her. 
 
 A tremor ran through the room. " Good God ! " somebody 
 said, " it's Mrs. Rawdon Crawley." 
 
 Scornfully she snatches the dagger out of ^Egisthus's hand, 
 and advances to the bed. You see it shining over her head in 
 the glimmer of the lamp, and — and the lamp goes out with a 
 groan, and all is dark. 
 
 The darkness and the scene frightened people. Rebecca per- 
 formed her part so well, and with such ghastly truth, that the 
 spectators were all dumb, until, with a burst, all the lamps of 
 the hall blazed out again, when everybody began to shout 
 applause. " Brava! brava!" old Steyne's strident voice was 
 
 heard roaring over all the rest. " By , she'd do it too," 
 
 he said between his teeth. The performers were called by the 
 whole house, which sounded with cries of " Manager! Clytem- 
 nestra!" AGAMEMNON could not be got to show in his 
 classical tunic, but stood in the background with i^gisthus and 
 others of the performers of the little play, Mr. Bedwin Sands 
 led on Zuleikah and Clytemnestra. A great personage insisted 
 on being presented to the charming Clytemnestra. *' Heigh 
 ha ? Run him through the body. Marry somebody else, hey ? " 
 was the apposite remark made by His Royal Highness. 
 
 " Mrs. Rawdon Crawley was quite killing in her part," said 
 Lord Steyne. Becky laughed; gay, and saucy looking, and 
 swept the prettiest httle curtsey ever seen. 
 
 Servants brought in salvers covered with numerous cool 
 dainties, and the performers disappeared to get ready for the 
 second charade-tableau. 
 
 The three syllables of this charade were to be depicted in 
 pantomime, and the performance took place in the following 
 wise :— 
 
5i6 Vanity Fair 
 
 First syllable. Colonel Rawdon Crawley, C.B., with a 
 slouched hat and a staff, a greatcoat, and a lantern borrowed 
 from the stables, passed across the stage bawling out, as if 
 warning the inhabitants of the hour. In the lower window are 
 seen two bagmen playing apparently at the game of cribbage, 
 over which they yawn much. To them enters one looking like 
 Boots (the Honourable G. Ringwood), which character the 
 young gentleman performed to perfection, and divests them of 
 their lower coverings; and presently Chambermaid (the Right 
 Honourable Lord Southdown) with two candlesticks, and a 
 warming-pan. She ascends to the upper apartment, and warms 
 the bed. She uses the warming-pan as a weapon wherewith 
 she wards off the attention of the bagmen. She exits. They 
 put on their nightcaps, and pull down the blinds. Boots comes 
 out and closes the shutters of the ground-floor chamber. You 
 hear him bolting and chaining the door within. All the lights 
 go out. The music plays Dormez, dormez, chers Amours. A 
 voice from behind the curtain says, " First syllable." 
 
 Second syllable. The lamps are lighted up all of a sudden. 
 The music plays the old air from John of Paris, Ah quel plaisir 
 d^itre en voyage. It is the same scene. Between the first and 
 second floors of the house represented, you behold a sign on 
 which the Steyne arms are painted. All the bells are ringing 
 all over the house. In the lower apartment you see a man with 
 a long slip of paper presenting it to another, v/ho shakes his fist, 
 threatens, and vows that it is monstrous. " Ostler, bring round 
 my gig," cries another at the door. He chucks Chambermaid 
 (the Right Honourable Lord Southdown) under the chin; she 
 seems to deplore his absence, as Calypso did that of that other 
 eminent traveller Ulysses. Boots (the Honourable G. Ring- 
 wood) passes with a wooden box, containing silver flagons, and 
 cries " Pots " with such exquisite humour and naturalness, that 
 the whole house rings with applause, and a bouquet is thrown 
 to him. Crack, crack, crack, go the whips. Landlord, chamber- 
 maid, waiter rush to the door; but just as some distinguished 
 guest is arriving, the curtains close, and the invisible theatrical 
 manager cries out " Second syllable." 
 
 " I think it must be ' Hotel,' " says Captain Grigg of the Life 
 Guards; there is a general laugh at the Captain's cleverness. 
 He is not very far from the mark. 
 
 While the third syllable is in preparation, the band begins a 
 nautical medley — " All in the Downs," " Cease, Rude Boreas," 
 " Rule Britannia/' " In the Bay of Biscay 0! " — some maritime 
 
A Charade is Acted 517 
 
 event is about to take place. A bell is heard ringing as the 
 curtain draws aside. "Now, gents, for the shore!" a voice 
 exclaims. People take leave of each other. They point 
 anxiously as if towards the clouds, which are represented by a 
 dark curtain, and they nod their heads in fear. Lady Squeams 
 (the Right Honourable Lord Southdown), her lap-dog, her bags, 
 reticules, and husband sit down, and cling hold of some ropes.. 
 It is evidently a ship. 
 
 The Captain (Colonel Crawley, C.B.), with a cocked hat and 
 a telescope, comes in, holding his hat on his head, and looks out; 
 his coat-tails fly about as if in the wind. When he leaves go of 
 his hat to use his telescope, his hat flies off, with immense 
 applause. It is blowing fresh. The music rises and whistles 
 louder and louder; the mariners go across the stage staggering, 
 as if the ship was in severe motion. The Steward (the Honour- 
 able G. Ringwood) passes reeling by, holding six basins. He 
 puts one rapidly by Lord Squeams — Lady Squeams, giving a 
 pinch to her dog, which begins to howl piteously, puts her 
 pocket-handkerchief to her face, and rushes away as for the 
 cabin. The music rises up to the wildest pitch of stormy excite- 
 ment, and the third syllable is concluded. 
 
 There was a little ballet, "Le Rossignol," in which Montessu and 
 Noblet used to be famous in those days, and which Mr. Wagg 
 transferred to the English stage as an opera, putting his verse, 
 of which he was a skilful writer, to the pretty airs of the ballet. 
 It was dressed in old French costume, and little Lord South- 
 down now appeared admirably attired in the disguise of an old 
 woman hobbling about the stage with a faultless crooked stick. 
 
 Trills of melody were heard behind the scenes, and gurgling 
 from a sweet pasteboard cottage covered with roses and trellis 
 work. " Philomele, Philomele," cries the old woman, and 
 Philomele comes out. 
 
 More applause — it is Mrs. Rawdon Crawley in pov/der and 
 patches, the most ravissante little Marquise in the world. 
 
 She comes in laughing, humming, and frisks about the stage 
 with all the innocence of theatrical youth — she makes a curtsey. 
 Mamma says, *' Why, child, you are always laughing and sing- 
 ing," and away she goes, with — 
 
 The Rose upon My Balcony. 
 
 The rose upon ray balcony the morning air perfuming, 
 
 Was leafless aU the winter time and pining for the spring; 
 
 You ask me why her breath is sweet and why her cheek is blooming. 
 
 It is because the sun is out and birds begin to sing. 
 
5i8 Vanity Fair 
 
 The nightingale, whose melody is through the greenwood ringing. 
 Was silent when the boughs were bare and winds were blowing keen: 
 And if, Mamma, you ask of me the reason of his singing, 
 It is because the sun is out and all the leaves are green. 
 
 Thus each performs his part. Mamma, the birds have found their voices. 
 The blowing rose a flush. Mamma, her bonny cheek to dye; 
 And there's sunshine in my heart. Mamma, which wakens and rejoices. 
 And so I sing and blush, Mamma, and that's the reason why. 
 
 During the intervals of the stanzas of this ditty, the good- 
 natured personage addressed as mamma by the singer, and 
 whose large whiskers appeared under her cap, seemed very 
 anxious to exhibit her maternal affection by embracing the 
 innocent creature who performed the daughter's part. Every 
 caress was received with loud acclamations of laughter by the 
 sympathising audience. At its conclusion (while the music was 
 performing a symphony as if ever so many birds were warbling) 
 the whole house was unanimous for an encore : and applause 
 and bouquets without end were showered upon the nightingale 
 of the evening. Lord Steyne's voice of applause was loudest of 
 all. Becky, the nightingale, took the flowers which he threw 
 to her, and pressed them to her heart with the air of a consum- 
 mate comedian. Lord Steyne was frantic with delight. His 
 guests' enthusiasm harmonised with his own. Where was the 
 beautiful black-eyed Houri whose appearance in the first 
 charade had caused such delight ? She was twice as handsome 
 as Becky, but the brilliancy of the latter had quite eclipsed her. 
 All voices were for her. Stephens, Caradori, Ronzi de Begnis, 
 people compared her to one or the other, and agreed with good 
 reason, very likely, that had she been an actress none on the 
 stage could have surpassed her. She had reached her culmina- 
 tion : her voice rose trilling and bright over the storm of applause 
 and soared as high and joyful as her triumph. There was a ball 
 after the dramatic entertainments, and everybody pressed round 
 Becky as the great point of attraction of the evening. The 
 Royal Personage declared, with an oath, that she was perfection, 
 and engaged her again and again in conversation. Little Becky's 
 soul swelled with pride and delight at these honours; she saw 
 fortune, fame, fashion before her. Lord Steyne was her slave; 
 followed her everywhere, and scarcely spoke to any one in the 
 room beside; and paid her the most marked compliments and 
 attention. She still appeared in her Marquise costume, and 
 danced a minuet with Monsieur de Trufhgny, Monsieur Le Due 
 de la Jabotiere's attache ; and the Duke, who had all the tradi- 
 tions of the ancient Court, pronounced that Madame Crawley 
 
A Charade is Acted 5.19 
 
 was worthy to have been a pupil of Vestris, or to have figured at 
 Versailles. Only a feeling of dignity, the gout, and the strongest 
 sense of duty and personal sacrifice, prevented his Excellency 
 from dancing with her himself; and he declared in public, that 
 a lady who could talk and dance like Mrs. Rawdon was fit to be 
 ambassadress at any court in Europe. He was only consoled 
 when he heard that she was half a Frenchwoman by birth. 
 " None but a compatriot," his Excellency declared, " could have 
 performed that majestic dance in such a way." 
 
 Then she figured in a waltz with Monsieur de Klingenspohr, 
 the Prince of Peterwaradin's cousin and attache. The delighted 
 Prince, having less retenue than his French diplomatic colleague, 
 insisted on taking a turn with the charming creature, and 
 twirled round the ballroom with her, scattering the diamonds 
 out of his boot-tassels and hussar jacket until His Highness was 
 fairly out of breath. Papoosh Pasha himself would have liked 
 to dance with her if that amusement had been the custom of his 
 country. The company made a circle round her, and applauded 
 as wildly as if she had been a Noblet or a Taglioni. Everybody 
 was in ecstasy; and Becky too, you may be sure. She passed 
 by Lady Stunnington with a look of scorn. She patronised 
 Lady Gaunt and her astonished and mortified sister-in-law — she 
 ecrased all rival charmers. As for poor Mrs. Winkworth, and 
 her long hair and great eyes, which had made such an effect at 
 the commencement of the evening; where was. she now? No- 
 where in the race. She might tear her long hair and cry her 
 great eyes out; but there was not a person to heed or to deplore 
 the discomfiture. 
 
 The greatest triumph of all was at supper- time. She was 
 placed at the grand exclusive table with his Royal Highness the 
 exalted personage before-mentioned, and the rest of the great 
 guests. She was served on gold plate. She might have had 
 pearls melted into her champagne if she iiked— another 
 Cleopatra; and the potentate of Peterwaradin would have given 
 halt the brilliants off his jacket for a kind glance from those 
 dazzling eyes. Jabotiere wrote home about her to his govern- 
 ment. The ladies at the other tables, who supped off mere 
 silver, and marked Lord Steyne's constant attention to her, 
 vowed it was a monstrous infatuation, a gross insult to ladies 
 of rank. If sarcasm could have killed. Lady Stunnington would 
 have slain her on the spot. 
 
 Rawdon Crawley was scared at these triumphs. They seemed 
 to separate his wife farther than ever from him somehow. He 
 
520 Vanity Fair 
 
 thought with a feeling very like pain how immeasurably she 
 was his superior. 
 
 When the hour of departure came, a crowd of young men 
 followed her to her carriage, for which the people without 
 bawled, the cry being caught up by the link-men who were 
 stationed outside the tall gates of Gaunt House, congratulating 
 each person who issued from the gate and hoping his Lordship 
 had enjoyed this noble party. 
 
 Mrs. Rawdon Crawley's carriage, coming up to the gate after 
 due shouting, rattled into the illuminated courtyard, and drove 
 up to tiie covered way. Rawdon put his wife into the carriage, 
 which drove off. Mr. Wenham had proposed to him to walk 
 home, and offered the Colonel the refreshment of a cigar. 
 
 They lighted their cigars by the lamp of one of the many 
 link- boys outside, and Rawdon walked on with his friend 
 Wenham. Two persons separated from the crowd and followed 
 the two gentlemen; and when they had walked down Gaunt 
 Square a few score of paces, one of the men came up, and touch- 
 ing Rawdon on the shoulder, said, " Beg your pardon, Colonel, 
 I vish to speak to you most particular." This gentleman's 
 acquaintance gave a loud whistle as the latter spoke, at which 
 signal a cab came clattering up from those stationed at the gate 
 of Gaunt House — and the aide-de-camp ran round and placed 
 himself in front of Colonel Crawley. 
 
 That gallant offtcer at once knew what had befallen him. He 
 was in the hands of the bailiffs. He started back, falling against 
 the man who had first touched him. 
 
 " We're three on us — it's no use bolting," the man behind 
 said. 
 
 " It's you, Moss, is it? " said the Colonel, who appeared to 
 know his interlocutor. " How much is it? " 
 
 *' Only a small thing," whispered Mr. Moss, of Cursitor Street, 
 Chancery Lane, and assistant officer to the Sheriff of Middlesex 
 — " One hundred and thirty-six, six and eightpence, at the suit 
 of Mr. Nathan." 
 
 '' Lend me a hundred, Wenham, for God's sake," poor 
 Rawdon said — " I've got seventy at home." 
 
 " I've not got ten pounds in the world," said poor Mr. Wen- 
 ham. " Good night, my dear fellow." 
 
 " Good night," said Rawdon ruefully. And Wenham walked 
 away — and Rawdon Crawley finished his cigar as the cab drove 
 under Temple Bar. 
 
Lord Steyne in a Most Amiable Light 521 
 
 CHAPTER LII 
 
 IN WHICH LORD STEYNE SHOWS HIMSELF IN A MOST 
 AMIABLE LIGHT 
 
 When Lord Steyne was benevolently disposed, he did nothing 
 by halves, and his kindness towards the Crawley family did the 
 greatest honour to his benevolent discrimination. His Lord- 
 ship extended his good will to little Rawdon: he pointed out 
 to the boy's parents the necessity of sending him to a public 
 school: that he was of an age now when emulation, the first 
 principles of the Latin language, pugilistic exercises, and the 
 society of his fellow-boys would be of the greatest benefit to the 
 boy. His father objected that he was not rich enough to send 
 the child to a good public school; his mother, that Briggs was 
 a capital mistress for him, and had brought him on (as indeed 
 was the fact) famously in English, the Latin rudiments and in 
 general learning: but all these objections disappeared before 
 the generous perseverance of the Marquis of Steyne. His Lord- 
 ship was one of the governors of that famous old collegiate 
 institution called the Whitefriars. It had been a Cistercian Con- 
 vent in old days, when the Smithfield, which is contiguous to 
 it, was a tournament ground. Obstinate heretics used to be 
 brought thither convenient for burning hard by. Henry VHL, 
 the Defender of the Faith, seized upon the monastery and its 
 possessions, and hanged and tortured some of the monks who 
 could not accommodate themselves to the pace of his reform. 
 Finally, a great merchant bought the house and land adjoining, 
 in which, and with the help of other wealthy endowments of 
 land and money, he established a famous foundation hospital 
 for old men and children. An extern school grev/ round the 
 old almost monastic foundation, which subsists still with its 
 middle-age costume and usages; and all Cistercians pray that 
 it may long flourish. 
 
 Of this famous house, some of the greatest noblemen, pre- 
 lates, and dignitaries in England are governors: and as the boys 
 are very comfortably lodged, fed, and educated, and subse- 
 quently inducted to good scholarships at the University and 
 livings in the Church, many little gentlemen are devoted to the 
 ecclesiastical profession from their tenderest years, and there 
 is considerable emulation to procure nominations for the founda- 
 
522 Vanity Fair 
 
 tion. It was originally intended for the sons of poor and de- 
 serving clerics and laics; but many of the noble governors of 
 the Institution, with an enlarged and rather capricious benevo- 
 lence, selected all sorts of objects for their bounty. To get an 
 education for nothing, and a future livelihood and profession 
 assured, was so excellent a scheme that some of the richest 
 people did not disdain it; and not only great men's relations, 
 but great men themselves, sent their sons to profit by the chance 
 — Right Rev. Prelates sent their own kinsmen or the sons of their 
 clergy, while on the other hand, some great noblemen did not 
 disdain to patronise the children of their confidential servants, 
 — so that a lad entering this establishment had every variety 
 of youthful society wherewith to mingle. 
 
 Rawdon Crawley, though the only book which he studied was 
 the Racing Calendar, and though his chief recollections of polite- 
 learning were connected with the floggings which he received 
 at Eton in his early youth, had that decent and honest reverence 
 for classical learning which all English gentlemen feel, and was 
 glad to think that his son was to have a provision for life, per- 
 haps, and a certain opportunity of becoming a scholar. And 
 although his boy was his chief solace and companion, and en- 
 deared to him by a thousand small ties, about which he did not 
 care to speak to his wife, who had all along shown the utmost 
 indifference to their son, yet Rawdon agreed at once to part 
 with him, and to give up his own greatest comfort and benefit 
 for the sake of the welfare of the little lad. He did not know- 
 how fond he was of the child until it became necessary to let 
 him go away. When he was gone, he felt more sad and dowa'- 
 cast than he cared to own — far sadder than the boy himself, 
 who was happy enough to enter a new career, and find com- 
 panions of his own age. Becky burst out laughing once or 
 twice, when the Colonel, in his clumsy, incoherent way, tried 
 to express his sentimental sorrows at the boy's departure. The 
 poor fellow felt that his dearest pleasure and closest friend was 
 taken from him. He looked often and wistfully at the little 
 vacant bed in his dressing-room, where the child used to sleep. 
 He missed him sadly of mornings, and tried in vain to walk in 
 the Park without him. He did not know how solitary he was 
 until little Rawdon was gone. He liked the people who were 
 fond of him; and would go and sit for long hours with his 
 good-natured sister Lady Jane, and talk to her about the 
 virtues, and good looks, and hundred good qualities of the child. 
 
 Young Rawdon's aunt, we have said, was very fond of him. 
 
Lord Steyne in a Most Amiable Light 523 
 
 as was her little girl, who wept copiously when the time for her 
 cousin's departure came. The elder Rawdon was thankful for 
 the fondness of mother and daughter. The very best and 
 honestest feelings of the man came out in these artless out- 
 pourings of paternal feeling in which he indulged in their 
 presence, and encouraged by their sympathy. He secured 
 not only Lady Jane's kindness, but her sincere regard, by the 
 feelings which he manifested, and which he could not show to 
 his own wife. The two kinswomen met as seldom as possible. 
 Becky laughed bitterly at Jane's feelings and softness; the 
 other's kindly and gentle nature could not but revolt at her 
 sister's callous behaviour. 
 
 It estranged Rawdon from his wife more than he knew or 
 acknowledged to himself. She did not care for the estrange- 
 ment. Indeed, she did not miss him or anybody. She looked 
 upon him as her errand-m^an and humble slave. He might be 
 ever so depressed or sulky, and she did not mark his demeanour, 
 or only treated it with a sneer. She was busy thinking about 
 her position, or her pleasures, or her advancement in society; 
 she ought to have held a great place in it, that is certain. 
 
 It was honest Briggs who made up the little kit for the 
 boy which he was to take to school. Molly, the housemaid, 
 blubbered in the passage when he went away — Molly, kind and 
 faithful in spite of a long arrear of unpaid wages. Mrs. Becky 
 could not let her husband have the carriage to take the boy to 
 school. Take the horses into the City ! — such a thing was never 
 heard of. Let a cab be brought. She did not offer to kiss him 
 when he went: nor did the child propose to embrace her: but 
 gave a kiss to old Briggs (whom, in general, he was very shy of 
 caressing), and consoled her by pointing out that he was to come 
 home on Saturdays, when she would have the benefit of seeing 
 him. As the cab rolled towards the City, Becky's carriage 
 rattled off to the Park. She was chattering and laughing with 
 a score of young dandies by the Serpentine, as the father and 
 son entered the old gates of the school — where Rawdon left the 
 child, and came away with a sadder purer feeling in his heart 
 than perhaps that poor battered fellow had ever known since 
 he himself came out of the nursery. 
 
 He walked all the way home very dismally, and dined alone 
 with Briggs. He was very kind to her, and grateful for her love 
 and watchfulness over the boy. His conscience smote him that 
 he had borrowed Briggs's money and aided in deceiving her. 
 They talked about little Rawdon a long time, for Becky only 
 
524 Vanity Fair 
 
 came home to dress and go out to dinner — and then he went off 
 uneasily to drink tea with Lady Jane^ and tell her of what had 
 happened, and how little Rawdon went off like a trump, and 
 how he was to wear a gown and little knee-breeches, and how 
 young Blackball, Jack Blackball 's son, of the old regiment, had 
 taken him in charge and promised to be kind to him. 
 
 In the course of a week, young Blackball had constituted 
 little Rawdon his fag, shoeblack, and breakfast toaster; initiated 
 him into the mysteries of the Latin Grammar, and thrashed him 
 three or four times; but not severely. The little chap's good- 
 natured honest face won his way for him. He only got that 
 degree of beating which was, no doubt, good for him; and as 
 for blacking shoes, toasting bread, and fagging in general, were 
 these offices not deemed to be necessary parts of every young 
 English gentleman's education.^ 
 
 Our business does not lie with the second generation and 
 Master Rawdon's life at school, otherwise the present tale might 
 be carried to any indefinite length. The Colonel went to see his 
 son a short time afterwards, and found the lad sufficiently well 
 and happy, grinning and laughing in his little black gown and 
 little breeches. 
 
 His father sagaciously tipped Blackball, his master, a 
 sovereign, and secured that young gentleman's goodwill towards 
 his fag. As a protege of the great Lord Steyne, the nephew of 
 a County member, and son of a Colonel and C.B., whose name 
 appeared in some of the most fashionable parties in the Morning 
 Post, perhaps the school authorities were disposed not to look 
 unkindly on the child. He had plenty of pocket-money, which 
 he spent in treating his comrades royally to raspberry tarts, and 
 he was often allowed to come home on Saturdays to his father, 
 who always made a jubilee of that day. When free, Rawdon 
 would take him to the play, or send him thither with the 
 footman; and on Sundays he went to church with Briggs and 
 Lady Jane and his cousins. Rawdon marvelled over his stories 
 about school, and fights, and fagging. Before long, he knew 
 the names of all the masters and the principal boys as well as 
 little Rawdon himself. He invited little Rawdon's crony from 
 school, and made both the children sick with pastry, and oysters, 
 and porter after the play. He tried to look knowing over the 
 Latin Grammar when little Rawdon showed him what part of 
 that work he was " in." " Stick to it, my boy," he said to him 
 with much gravity, " there's nothing like a good classical educa- 
 tion! nothing! " 
 
Lord Steyne in a Most Amiable Light 525 
 
 Becky's contempt for her husband grew greater every- 
 day. " Do what you like, — dine where you please, — go and 
 have ginger-beer and sawdust at Astley's, or psalm-singing 
 with Lady Jane, — only don't expect me to busy myself with 
 the boy. I have your interests to attend to, as you can't 
 attend to them yourself. I should like to know where you 
 would have been now, and in what sort of a position in society, 
 if I had not looked after you ? " Indeed, nobody wanted poor 
 old Rawdon at the parties whither Becky used to go. She was 
 often asked without him now. She talked about great people 
 as if she had the fee-simple of Mayfair; and when the Court 
 went into mourning, she always wore black. 
 
 Little Rawdon being disposed of, Lord Steyne, who took such 
 a parental interest in the affairs of this amiable poor family, 
 thought that their expenses might be very advantageously 
 curtailed by the departure of Miss Briggs; and that Becky was 
 quite clever enough to take the management of her own house. 
 It has been narrated in a former chapter, how the benevolent 
 nobleman had given his protegee money to pay off her little debt 
 to Miss Briggs, who however still remained behind with her 
 friends; whence my lord came to the painful conclusion that 
 Mrs. Crawley had made some other use of the money confided 
 to her than that for which her generous patron had given the 
 loan. However, Lord Steyne was not so rude as to impart his 
 suspicions upon this head to Mrs. Becky, whose feelings might 
 be hurt by any controversy on the money question, and who 
 might have a thousand painful reasons for disposing otherwise 
 of his Lordship's generous loan. But he determined to satisfy 
 himself of the real state of the case ! and instituted the necessary 
 inquiries in a most cautious and delicate manner. 
 
 In the first place, he took an early opportunity of pumping 
 Miss Briggs. That was not a difficult operation. A very little 
 encouragement would set that worthy woman to talk volubly, 
 and pour out all within her. And one day when Mrs. Rawdon 
 had gone out to drive (as Mr. Fiche, his Lordship's confidential 
 servant, easily learned at the livery stables where the Crawleys 
 kept their carriage and horses, or rather, where the liver}Tnan 
 kept a carriage and horses for Mr. and Mrs. Crawley) — ^my lord 
 dropped in upon the Curzon Street house — asked Briggs for a 
 cup of coffee — told her that he had good accounts of the little 
 boy at school — and in five minutes found out from her that Mrs. 
 Pvawdon had given her nothing except a black silk gown^ for 
 which Miss Briggs was immensely grateful. 
 
526 Vanity Fair 
 
 He laughed within himself at this artless story. For the 
 truth is, our dear friend Rebecca had given him a most circum- 
 stantial narration of Briggs's delight at receiving her money — 
 eleven hundred and twenty-five pounds — and in what securities 
 she had invested it; and what a pang Becky herself felt in being 
 obliged to pay away such a delightful sum of money. " Who 
 knows," the dear woman may have thought within herself, 
 " perhaps he may give me a little more? " My lord, however, 
 made no such proposal to the little schemer— very likely think- 
 ing that he had been sufficiently generous already. 
 
 He had the curiosity, then, to ask Miss Briggs about the state 
 of her private affairs — and she told his Lordship candidly what 
 her position was — how Miss Crawley had left her a legacy — how 
 her relatives had had part of it — how Colonel Crawley had put 
 out another portion, for which she had the best security and 
 interest — and how Mr. and Mrs. Rawdon had kindly busied 
 themselves with Sir Pitt, who was to dispose of the remainder 
 most advantageously for her, when he had time. My lord 
 asked how much the Colonel had already invested for her, and 
 Miss Briggs at once and truly told him that the sum was six 
 hundred and odd pounds. 
 
 But as soon as she had told her story, the voluble Briggs 
 repented of her frankness, and besought my lord not to tell Mr. 
 Crawley of the confessions which she had made. " The Colonel 
 was so kind— Mr. Crawley might be offended and pay back the 
 money, for which she could get no such good interest anywhere 
 else." Lord Steyne, laughing, promised he never would divulge 
 their conversation, and when he and Miss Briggs parted he 
 laughed still more. 
 
 "What an accomplished little devil it is!" thought he. 
 " What a splendid actress and manager! She had almost got 
 a second supply out of me the other day, with her coaxing ways. 
 She beats all the women I have ever seen in the course of all 
 my well-spent life. They are babies compared to her. I am a 
 greenhorn myself, and a fool in her hands — an old fool. She is 
 unsurpassable in lies." His Lordship's admiration for Becky 
 rose immeasurably at this proof of her cleverness. Getting the 
 money was nothing — but getting double the sum she wanted, 
 and paying nobody — it was a magnificent stroke. And Crawley, 
 my lord thought — Crawley is not such a fool as he looks and 
 seems. He has managed the matter cleverly enough on his 
 side. Nobody would ever have supposed from his face and 
 demeanour that he knew anything about this money business; 
 
Lord Steyne in a Most Amiable Light 527 
 
 and yet he put her up to it, and has spent the money, no doubt. 
 In this opinion my lord, we know, was mistaken; but it in- 
 fluenced a good deal his behaviour towards Colonel Crawley, 
 whom he began to treat with even less than that semblance of 
 respect which he had formerly shown towards that gentleman. 
 It never entered into the head of Mrs. Crawley's patron that the 
 little lady might be making a purse for herself; and, perhaps, 
 if the truth must be told, he judged of Colonel Crawley by his 
 experience of other husbands, whom he had known in the course 
 of the long and well-spent life which had made him acquainted 
 with a great deal of the weakness of mankind. My lord had 
 bought so many men during his life that he was surely to be 
 pardoned, for supposing that he had found the price of this one. 
 
 He taxed Becky upon the point on the very first occasion 
 when he met her alone, and he complimented her, good- 
 humouredly, on her cleverness in getting more than the money 
 which she required, Becky was only a little taken aback. It 
 was not the habit of this dear creature to tell falsehoods, except 
 when necessity compelled, but in these great emergencies it was 
 her practice to lie very freely; and in an instant she was ready 
 with another neat plausible circumstantial story which she 
 administered to her patron. The previous statement which she 
 had made to him was a falsehood — a wicked falsehood; she 
 owned it; but who had made her tell it? " Ah, my Lord," she 
 said, " you don't know all I have to suffer and bear in silence: 
 you see me gay and happy before you — you little know what I 
 have to endure when there is no protector near me. It was my 
 husband, by threats and the most savage treatment, forced me 
 to ask for that sum about which I deceived you. It was he, 
 who, foreseeing that questions might be asked regarding the 
 disposal of the money, forced me to account for it as I did. He 
 took the money. He told me he had paid Miss Briggs; I did 
 not want, I did not dare to doubt him. Pardon the wrong 
 which a desperate man is forced to commit, and pity a miserable, 
 miserable woman." She burst into tears as she spoke. Per- 
 secuted virtue never looked more bewitchingly wretched. 
 
 They had a long conversation, driving round and round the 
 Regent's Park in Mrs. Crawley's carriage together, a conversa- 
 tion of which it is not necessary to repeat the details ; but the 
 upshot of it was, that, when Becky came home, she flew to her 
 dear Briggs with a smiling face, and announced that she had 
 some very good news for her. Lord Steyne had acted in the 
 noblest and most generous manner. He was always thinking 
 
528 Vanity Fair 
 
 how and when he could do good. Now that little Rawdon was 
 gone to school, a dear companion and friend was no longer 
 necessary to her. She was grieved beyond measure to part 
 with Briggs; but her means required that she should practise 
 every retrenchment, and her sorrow was mitigated by the idea 
 that her dear Briggs would be far better provided for by her 
 generous patron than in her humble home. Mrs. Pilkington, 
 the housekeeper at Gauntly Hall, was growing exceedingly old, 
 feeble, and rheumatic: she was not equal to the work of superin- 
 tending that vast mansion, and must be on the look-out for a 
 successor. It was a splendid position. The family did not go 
 to Gauntly once in two years. At other times the housekeeper 
 was the mistress of the magnificent mansion — had four covers 
 daily for her table; was visited by the clergy and the most 
 respectable people of the county — was the lady of Gauntly, in 
 fact; and the two last housekeepers before Mrs. Pilkington had 
 married rectors of Gauntly: but Mrs. P. could not, being the 
 aunt of the present Rector. The place was not to be hers yet; 
 but she might go down on a visit to Mrs. Pilkington, and see 
 whether she would like to succeed her. 
 
 What words can paint the ecstatic gratitude of Briggs ! All she 
 stipulated for was that little Rawdon should be allowed to come 
 down and see her at the Hall. Becky promised this — anything. 
 She ran up to her husband when he came home, and told him 
 the joyful news. Rawdon was glad, deuced glad; the weight 
 was off his conscience about poor Briggs's money. She was 
 provided for, at any rate, but — but his mind was disquiet. He 
 did not seem to be all right somehow. He told little Southdown 
 what Lord Steyne had done, and the young man eyed Crawley 
 with an air which surprised the latter. 
 
 He told Lady Jane of this second proof of Steyne's bounty, 
 and she, too, looked odd and alarmed; so did Sir Pitt. " She 
 is too clever and — and gay to be allowed to go from party to 
 party without a companion," both said. "You must go with 
 her, Rawdon, wherever she goes, and you viust have somebody 
 with her — one of the girls from Queen's Crawley, perhaps, 
 though they were rather giddy guardians for her." 
 
 Somebody Becky should have. But in the meantime it was 
 clear that honest Briggs must not lose her chance of settlement 
 for life; and so she and her bags were packed, and she set off 
 on her journey. And so two of Rawdon's out-sentinels were in 
 the hands of the enemy. 
 
 Sir Pitt went and expostulated with his sister-in-law upon the 
 
Lord Steyne in a Most Amiable Light 529 
 
 subject of the dismissal of Briggs, and other matters of delicate 
 family interest. In vain she pointed out to him how necessary- 
 was the protection of Lord Steyne for her poor husband; how 
 cruel it would be on their part to deprive Briggs of the position 
 offered to her. Cajolements^ coaxings, smiles, tears could not 
 satisfy Sir Pitt, and he had something very hke a quarrel with 
 his once admired Becky. He spoke of the honour of the family: 
 the unsullied reputation of the Crawleys; expressed himself in 
 indignant tones about her receiving those young Frenchmen — 
 those wild young men of fashion, my Lord Steyne himself, whose 
 carriage was always at her door, who passed hours daily in her 
 company, and whose constant presence made the world talk 
 about her. As the head of the house he implored her to be more 
 prudent. Society was already speaking lightly of her. Lord 
 Steyne, though a nobleman of the greatest station and talents, 
 was a man whose attentions would compromise any woman; he 
 besought, he implored, he commanded his sister-in-law to be 
 watchful in her intercourse with that nobleman. 
 
 Becky promised anything and everything Pitt wanted; but 
 Lord Steyne came to her house as often as ever, and Sir Pitt's 
 anger increased. I wonder was Lady Jane angry or pleased 
 that her husband at last found fault with his favourite Rebecca? 
 Lord Steyne's visits continuing, his own ceased; and his wife 
 was for refusing all further intercourse with that nobleman, and 
 declining the invitation to the Charade-night which the Mar- 
 chioness sent to her: but Sir Pitt thought it was necessary to 
 accept it, as his Royal Highness would be there. 
 
 Although he went to the party in question, Sir Pitt quitted 
 it very early, and his wife, too, was very glad to come away. 
 Becky hardly so much as spoke to him or noticed her sister- 
 in-law. Pitt Crawley declared her behaviour was monstrously 
 indecorous, reprobated in strong terms the habit of play-acting 
 and fancy dressing, as highly unbecoming a British female; and 
 after the charades were over, took his brother Rawdon severely 
 to task for appearing himself, and allowing his wife to join in 
 such improper exhibitions. 
 
 Rawdon said she should not join in any more such amuse- 
 ments: but indeed, and perhaps from hints from his elder 
 brother and sister, he had already become a very watchful and 
 exemplary domestic character. He left of? his clubs and 
 billiards. He never left home. He took Becky out to drive: 
 he went laboriously with her to all her parties. Whenever my 
 Lord Steyne called, he was sure to find the Colonel. And when 
 
53^ Vanity Fair 
 
 Becky proposed to go out without her husband, or received 
 invitations for herself, he peremptorily ordered her to refuse 
 them; and there was that in the gentleman's manner which 
 enforced obedience. Little Becky to do her justice was charmed 
 with Rawdon's gallantry. If he was surly, she never was. 
 Whether, friends .were present or absent, s,he had always a kind 
 smile for him, and was attentive to his pleasure and comfort. 
 It was the early days of their marriage over again: the same 
 good-humour, prevenances, merriment, and artless confidence 
 and regard. " How much pleasanter it is," she would say, " to 
 have you by my side in the carriage than that foolish old Briggs I 
 Let us always go on so, dear Rawdon. How nice it would be^ 
 and how happy we should always be, if we had but the money ! " 
 He fell asleep after dinner in his chair; he did not see the face 
 opposite to him, haggard, weary, and terrible; it lighted up 
 with fresh candid smiles when he woke. It kissed him gaily. 
 He wondered that he had ever had suspicions. No, he never 
 had suspicions; all those dumb doubts and surly misgivings 
 which had been gathering on his mind, were mere idle jealousies. 
 She was fond of him ; she always had been. As for her shining 
 in society, it was no fault of hers ; she was formed to shine there. 
 Was there any woman who could talk, or sing, or do anything 
 like her? If she would but like the boy! Rawdon thought.; 
 But the mother and son never could be brought together. ; . 
 And it was while Rawdon's mind was agitated with these 
 doubts and perplexities that the incident occurred which was 
 mentioned in the last chapter; and the unfortunate Colonel 
 found himself a prisoner away from home. 
 
 CHAPTER LIII 
 
 A RESCUE AND A CATASTRpPHS. 
 
 Friend Rawdon drove on then to Mr. Moss's mansion in Cursitor 
 Street, and was duly inducted into that dismal place of hos- 
 pitahty. Morning was breaking over the cheerful housetops of 
 Chancery Lane as the rattling cab woke up the echoes there. A 
 Httle pink-eyed Jew-boy, with a head as ruddy as the rising' 
 morn, let the party into the house, and Rawdon was welcomed' 
 to the ground-floor apartments by Mr. Moss, his travelling com-. 
 
A Rescue and a Catastrophe 531 
 
 panion and host, who cheerfully asked him if he would like a 
 glass of something warm after his drive. 
 
 - The Colonel was not so depressed as some mortals would be, 
 who, quitting a palace and a placens uxor, find themselves 
 barred into a spunging-house ; for, if the truth must be told, 
 he had been a lodger at Mr. Moss's establishment once or twice 
 before. We have not thought it necessary in the previous 
 course of this narrative to mention these trivial little domestic 
 incidents: but the reader may be assured that they can't un- 
 frequently occur in the life of a man who lives on nothing a year. 
 Upon his first visit to Mr. Moss, the Colonel, then a bachelor, 
 : had been liberated by the generosity Of his aunt; on the second 
 mishap, little Becky, with the greatest spirit and kindness, had 
 borrowed a sum of money from Lord Southdown, and had 
 coaxed her husband's creditor (who was her shawl, velvet-gown, 
 lace pocket-handkerchief, trinket, and gimcrack purveyor, 
 indeed) to take a portion of the sum claimed, and Rawdon's 
 promissory note for the remainder: so on both these occasions 
 the capture and release had been conducted with the utmost 
 gallantry on all sides, and Moss and the Colonel were therefore 
 on the very best of terms. 
 
 " You'll find your old bed, Colonel, and everything comfort- 
 able," that gentleman said, " as I may honestly say. You may 
 be pretty sure it's kep aired, and by the best of company, too. ' 
 ilt was slep in the night afore last by the Honourable Capting 
 ■Famish, of the Fiftieth Dragoons, whose mar took him out, 
 I after a fortnight, jest to punish him, she said. But, Law bless 
 jyou, I promise you he punished my champagne, and had a 
 ( party 'ere every night — reglar tip-top swells, down from the 
 1 clubs and the West End — Capting Ragg, the Honourable 
 (Deuceace, who lives in the Temple, and some fellers as knows 
 ia good glass of wine, I warrant you. I've got a Doctor of 
 IDiwinity upstairs, five gents in the coffee-room, and Mrs. Moss 
 [ has a tably-dy-hoty at half-past five, and a little cards or music 
 [ afterwards, when we shall be most happy to see you.^' 
 i " I'll ring when I want anything," said Rawdon, and went 
 (quietly to his bedroom. He was an old soldier, we have said, 
 f and not to be disturbed by any little shocks of fate. A weaker 
 [ man would have sent off a letter to his wife on the instant of his 
 [ capture. " But what is the use of disturbing her night's rest.f* " 
 ' thought Rawdon. '* She won't know whether I am in my room 
 or not. It will be time enough to write to her when she has 
 i had her sleep out, and I have had mine. It's only a hundred- 
 
532 Vanity Fair 
 
 and-seventy, and the deuce is in it if we can't raise that." 
 And SO; thinking about Uttle Rawdon (whom he would not have 
 know that he was in such a queer place), the Colonel turned 
 into the bed lately occupied by Captain Famish^ and fell asleep. 
 It was ten o'clock when he woke up, and the ruddy-headed 
 youth brought him, with conscious pride, a fine silver dressing- 
 case, wherewith he might perform the operation of shaving. 
 Indeed, Mr. Moss's house, though somewhat dirty, was splendid 
 throughout. There were dirty trays, and wine-coolers en per- 
 manence on the sideboard, huge dirty gilt cornices, with dingy- 
 yellow satin hangings to the barred windows which looked into 
 Cursitor Street — vast and dirty gilt picture-frames surround- 
 ing pieces sporting and sacred, all of which works were by the 
 greatest masters; and fetched the greatest prices, too, in the 
 bill transactions, in the course of which they were sold and 
 bought over and over again. The Colonel's breakfast was 
 served to him in the same dingy and gorgeous plated ware. 
 Miss Moss, a dark-eyed maid in curl-papers, appeared with the 
 teapot, and, smiling, asked the Colonel how he had slep' ? and 
 she brought him in the Morning Post, with the names of all the 
 great people who had figured at Lord Steyne's entertainment 
 the night before. It contained a brilliant account of the festivi- 
 ties, and of the beautiful and accomplished Mrs. Rawdon 
 Crawley's admirable personifications. 
 
 After a lively chat with this lady (who sat on the edge of the 
 breakfast table in an easy attitude displaying the drapery of 
 her stocking and an ex- white satin shoe, which was down at 
 heel). Colonel Crawley called for pens and ink, and paper; and 
 being asked how many sheets, chose one which was brought to 
 him between Miss Moss's own finger and thumb. Many a sheet 
 had that dark-eyed damsel brought in ; many a poor fellow had 
 scrawled and blotted hurried lines of entreaty, and paced up 
 and down that awful room until his messenger brought back 
 the reply. Poor men always use messengers instead of the post 
 Who has not had their letters, with the wafers wet, and the 
 announcement that a person is waiting in the hall } 
 
 Now on the score of his application, Rawdon had not manyi 
 misgivings. 
 
 *' Dear Becky (Rawdon wrote), 
 
 " / hope you slept well. Don't be frightened if I don't bring you 
 in your coffy. Last night as I was coming home smoaking, I met 
 with an accadent. I was nabbed by Moss of Cursitor Street — from 
 \vhose gilt and splendid parler I write this — the same that had me 
 
A Rescue and a Catastrophe 533 
 
 this time two years. Miss Moss brought in my tea — she is grown 
 very fat, and, as usual, had her stockens down at heal. 
 
 " It's Nathan's business — a hundred-and -fifty — with costs, hun- 
 dred -and -seventy. Please send me my desk and some cloths — I'm 
 in pumps and a white tye (something like Miss M.'s stockings) — I've 
 seventy in it. And as soon as you get this, Drive to Nathan's — 
 offer him seventy-five down, and ask hitn to renew — say I'll take 
 wine — we may as well have some dinner sherry; but not picturs, 
 they're too dear. 
 
 " If he won't stand it. Take my ticker and such of your things 
 as you can spare, and send them to Balls — we must, of coarse, have 
 the sum to-night. It won't do to let it stand over, as to-m9rrow's 
 Sunday; the beds here are not very clean, and there may be other 
 things out against me — I'm glad it, an't Rawdon's Saturday for 
 coming home. God bless you. 
 
 " Yours in haste, 
 
 " R. C. 
 
 " P.S. — ^Make haste and come." 
 
 This letter, sealed with a wafer, was despatched by one of the 
 messengers who are always hanging about Mr. Moss's establish- 
 ment; and Rawdon, having seen him depart, went out in the 
 court^^ard, and smoked his cigar with a tolerably easy mind — 
 in spite of the bars overhead; for Mr. Moss's courtyard is railed 
 in like a cagi, lest the gentlemxen who are boarding with him 
 should take a fancy to escape from his hospitality. 
 
 Three hours, he calculated, would be the utmost time required, 
 before Becky should arrive and open his prison doors; and he 
 passed these pretty cheerfully in smoking, in reading the paper, 
 and in the coffee-room with an acquaintance. Captain Walker, 
 who happened to be there, and with whom he cut for sixpences 
 for some hours, with pretty equal luck on either side. 
 
 But the day passed away and no messenger returned, — no 
 Becky. Mr. Moss's tably-dy-hoty was served at the appointed 
 hour of half-past five, when such of the gentlemen lodging in the 
 house as could afford to pay for the banquet, came and partook 
 of it in the splendid front parlour before described, and with 
 which Mr. Crawley's temporary lodging communicated, when 
 Miss M. (Miss Hem, as, her papa called her) appeared without 
 the curl-papers of the morning, and Mrs. Hem did the honours 
 of a prime boiled leg of mutton and turnips, of which the 
 Colonel ate with a very faint appetite. Asked whether he 
 would " stand " a bottle of champagne for the company, he 
 consented, and the ladies drank to his 'ealth, and Mr. Moss, in 
 the most polite manner, ".looked towards him." 
 
 In the midst of this repast, however, the door-bell was heard; 
 
534 Vanity Fair 
 
 — ^young Moss, of the ruddy hair, rose up with the keys and 
 answered the summons, and coming back, told the Colonel that 
 the messenger had returned with a bag, a desk, and a letter, 
 which he gave him. '* No ceramony. Colonel, I beg," said Mrs. 
 Moss with a wave of her hand, and he opened the letter rather 
 tremulously. It was a beautiful letter, highly scented, on a 
 pink paper and with a light green seal. 
 
 " MON PAUVRE CHER PETIT (Mrs. Crawley wrote), 
 
 " I could not sleep one wink for thinking of what had become of 
 my odious old monstre : and only got to rest in the morning after 
 sending for Mr. Blench (for I was in a fever), who gave me a com- 
 posing draught and left orders with Finette that I should be dis- 
 turbed on no account. So that my poor old man's messenger who 
 had bien mauvaise mine Finette says, and sentoit le genievre, remained 
 in the hall for some hours waiting my bell. You may fancy my 
 state when I read your poor dear old ill-spelt letter. 
 
 " 111 as I was, I instantly called for the carriage, and as soon as I 
 was dressed (though I couldn't drink a drop of chocolate — I assure 
 you I couldn't without my monstre to bring it to me), I drove ventre 
 a terre to Nathan's. I saw him — I wept — I cried — I fell at his 
 odious knees. Nothing would mollify the horrid man. He would 
 have all the money, he said, or keep my poor monstre in prison. I 
 drove home with the intention of paying that triste visite chez mon 
 oncle (when every trinket I have should be at vour disposal, 
 though they would not fetch a hundred pounds, for some, you know, 
 are with ce cher oncle already), and found Milor there with the Bul- 
 garian old sheep-faced monster, who had come to compliment me 
 upon last night's performances. Paddington came in, too, drawling 
 and lisping and twiddling his hair; so did Champignac, and his 
 chef — everybody with foison of compliments and pretty speeches — 
 plaguing poor me, who longed to be rid of them, and was thinking 
 every moment of the time of m,on pauvre prisonnier. 
 
 " When they were gone, I went down on my knees to Milor; told 
 him we were going to pawn everything, and begged and prayed him 
 to give me two hundred pounds. He pish'd and psha'd in a fury — 
 told me not to be such a fool as to pawn — and said he would see 
 whether he could lend me the money. At last he went away, promis- 
 ing that he would send it me in the morning: when I will bring it to 
 my poor old monster with a kiss from his affectionate 
 
 " Becky. 
 
 " I am writing in bed. Oh, I have such a headache and such a 
 heartache! " 
 
 When Rawdon read over this letter, he turned so red and 
 looked so savage, that the company at the table d'hote easily 
 perceived that bad news had reached him. All his suspicions, 
 which he had been trying to banish, returned upon him. She 
 could not even go out and sell her trinkets to free him. She 
 
A Rescue and a Catastrophe 535 
 
 could launch and talk about compliments paid to her^ whilst he 
 was in prison. Who had put him there ? Wenham had walked 
 with him. Was there . . .He could hardly bear to think of 
 what he suspected. Leaving the room hurriedly, he ran into 
 his own — opened his desk, wrote two hurried lines, which he 
 directed to Sir Pitt or Lady Crawley, and bade the messenger 
 carry them at once to Gaunt Street, bidding him to take a cab, 
 and promising him a guinea if he was back in an hour. 
 
 In the note he besought his dear brother and sister, for the 
 sake of God; for the sake of his dear child and his honour; to 
 come to him and relieve him from this difficulty. He was 
 in prison: he wanted a hundred pounds to set him free — he 
 entreated them to come to him. 
 
 He went back to the dining-room after despatching his mes- 
 senger, and called for more wine. He laughed and talked with 
 a strange boisterousness, as the people thought. Sometimes he 
 laughed madly at his own fears, and went on drinking for an 
 hour; listening all the while for the carriage which was to bring 
 his fate back. 
 
 At the expiration of that time, wheels were heard whirling 
 up to the gate — the young janitor went out with his gate-ke3''S. 
 It was a lady whom he let in at the bailiff's door. 
 
 ** Colonel Crawley," she said, trembling very much. He, 
 with a knowing look, locked the outer door upon her — then un- 
 locked and opened the inner one, and calling out, *' Colonel, 
 you're wanted," led her into the back parlour, which he 
 occupied. 
 
 Rawdon came in from the dining-parlour where all those 
 people were carousing, into his back room; a flare of coarse 
 light following him into the apartment where the lady stood, 
 still very nervous. 
 
 " It is I, Rawdon," she said in a timid voice, which she strove 
 to render cheerful. '* It is Jane." Rawdon was quite over- 
 come by that kind voice and presence. He ran up to her — 
 caught her in his arms — gasped out some inarticulate words of 
 thanks, and fairly sobbed on her shoulder. She did not know 
 the cause of his emotion. 
 
 The bills of Mr. Moss were quickly settled, perhaps to the 
 disappointment of that gentleman, who had counted on having 
 the Colonel as his guest over Sunday at least; and Jane, with 
 beaming smiles and happiness in her eyes, carried away Rawdon 
 from the bailiff's house, and they went homewards in the cab 
 in which she had hastened to his release. ** Pitt was gone to a 
 
536 Vanity Fair 
 
 Parliamentary dinner," she said, " when Rawdon's note came, 
 and so, dear Rawdon, I — I came myself; " and she put her 
 kind hand in his. Perhaps it was well for Rawdon Crawley 
 that Pitt was away at that dinner. Rawdon thanked his sister 
 a hundred times, and with an ardour of gratitude which touched 
 and almost alarmed that soft-hearted woman. " Oh," said he, 
 in his rude, artless way, " you — you don't know how I'm changed 
 since I've known you, and — and little Rawdy. I — I'd like to 
 
 change somehow. You see I want — I want — to be " He 
 
 did not finish the sentence, but she could interpret it. And 
 that night after he left her, and as she sate by her own little 
 boy's bed, she prayed humbly for that poor wayworn sinner. 
 
 Rawdon left her and walked home rapidly. It was nine 
 o'clock at night. He ran across the streets, and the great 
 squares of Vanity Fair, and at length came up breathless oppo- 
 site his own house. He started back and fell against the rail- 
 ings, trembling as he looked up. The drawing-room windows 
 were blazing with light. She had said that she was in bed and 
 ill. He stood there for some time, the light from the rooms on 
 his pale face. 
 
 He took out his door-key and let himself into the house. He 
 could hear laughter in the upper rooms. He was in the ball- 
 dress in which he had been captured the night before. He went 
 silently up the stairs ; leaning against the banisters ^t the stairs 
 head. Nobody was stirring in the house besides — all the ser- 
 vants had been sent away. Rawdon heard laughter within — 
 laughter and singing. Becky was singing a snatch of the song 
 of the night before; a hoarse voice shouted " Brava! Brava! " 
 — -it was Lord Steyne's. 
 ^D>^ Rawdon opened the door and went in. A little table with a 
 dinner was laid out — and wine and plate. Steyne was hanging 
 over the sofa on which Becky sate. The wretched woman was 
 in a brilliant full toilette, her arms and all her fingers sparkling 
 with bracelets and rings; and the brilliants on her breast 
 which Steyne had given her. He had her hand in his, and was 
 bowing over it to kiss it, when Becky started up with a faint 
 scream as she caught sight of Rawdon's white face. At the 
 next instant she tried a smile, a horrid smile, as if to welcome 
 her husband: and Steyne rose up, grinding his teeth, pale, a^nd 
 with fury in his looks. 
 
 He, too, attempted a laugh — and came forward holding out 
 his hand. "What, come back! How d'ye do, Crawley? " he 
 
A Rescue and a Catastrophe 537 
 
 said, the nerves of his mouth twitching as he tried to grin at 
 the intruder. 
 
 There was that in Rawdon's face which caused Becky to 
 fling herself before him. " I am innocent, Rawdon/' she said; 
 " before God, I am innocent." She clung hold of his coat, of 
 his hands; her own were all covered with serpents, and rings, 
 and baubles. " I am innocent. — Say I am innocent," she said 
 to Lord Steyne. cX'--: 'L.-. .^^ 'ov 
 
 He thought a trap had been laid for him, and was as furious 
 with the wife as with the husband. "You innocent! Damn 
 you," he screamed out. " You innocent! Why, every trinket 
 you have on your body is paid for by me. I have given you 
 thousands of pounds which this fellow has spent, and for which 
 
 he has sold you. Innocent, by ! You're as innocent as 
 
 your mother, the ballet-girl, and your husband the bully. Don't 
 think to frighten me as you have done others. Make way, sir, 
 and let me pass; " and Lord Steyne seized up his hat, and, with 
 flame in his eyes, and looking his enemy fiercely in the face, 
 marched upon him, never for a moment doubting th^t the other 
 would give way. , <X'-' ■: 
 
 But Rawdon Crawley springing out, seized him by the neck- 
 cloth, until Steyne, almost strangled, writhed, and bent under 
 his arm. " You lie, you dog! " said Rawdon. " You he, you 
 coward and villain! " And he struck the Peer twice over the 
 face with his open hand, and flung him bleeding to the ground. 
 It was all done before Rebecca could interpose. She stood 
 there trembling before hirn. She admired her husband, strong, 
 brave, and victorious. . o^-*^aJld\Zc/ /\«v>^.«t'rvcC^^ 
 
 " Come here," he said. — She came up at once. 
 
 ** Take off those things." — She began, trembling, pulling the 
 jewels from her arms, and the rings from her shaking fingers, 
 and held them all in a heap, quivering and looking up at him. 
 " Throw them down," he said, and she dropped them. He tore 
 the diamond ornament out of her breast, and flung it at Lord 
 Steyne. It cut him on his bald forehead. Steyne wore the 
 scar to his dying day. 
 
 " Come upstairs," Rawdon said to his wife. " Don't kill me, 
 Rawdon," she said. He laughed savagely. " I want to see if 
 that man lies about the money as he has about me. Has he 
 given you any? " 
 
 " No," said Rebecca, " that is " 
 
 " Give me your keys," Rawdon answered, and they went out 
 together. 
 
538 Vanity Fair 
 
 Rebecca gave him all the keys but one; and she was in hopes 
 that he would not have remarked the absence of that. It 
 belonged to the little desk which Amelia had given her in early 
 days, and which she kept in a secret place. But Rawdon flung 
 open boxes and wardrobes, throwing the multifarious trumpery 
 of their contents here and there, and at last he found the desk. 
 The woman was forced to open it. It contained papers, love- 
 letters many years old — all sorts of small trinkets and woman's 
 memoranda. And it contained a pocket-book with bank-notes. 
 Some of these were dated ten years back, too, and one was quite 
 a fresh one — a note for a thousand pounds which Lord Steyne 
 had given her. 
 
 " Did he give you this? " Rawdon said. 
 
 *' Yes," Rebecca answered. 
 
 " ril send it to him to-day," Rawdon said (for day had dawned 
 again, and many hours had passed in this search), " and I will 
 pay Briggs, who was kind to the boy, and some of the debts. 
 You will let me know where I shall send the rest to you. You 
 might have spared me a hundred pounds, Becky, out of all this 
 — I have always shared with you." 
 
 " I am innocent/' said Becky^ And he left her without 
 another word. 
 
 What were her thoughts when he left her? She remained 
 for hours after he was gone, the sunshine pouring into the room, 
 and Rebecca sitting alone on the bed's edge. The drawers were 
 all opened and their contents scattered about, — dresses and 
 feathers, scarfs and trinkets, a heap of tumbled vanities lying 
 in a wreck. Her hair was falling over her shoulders; her gown 
 was torn where Rawdon had wrenched the brilliants out of it. 
 She heard him go downstairs a few minutes after he left her, and 
 the door slamming and closing on him. She knew he would 
 never come back. He was gone for ever. Would he kill him- 
 self? — she thought — not until after he had met Lord Steyne. 
 She thought of her long past life, and all the dismal incidents 
 of it. Ah, how dreary it seemed, how miserable, lonely, and 
 profitless! Should she take laudanum, and end it, too — have 
 done with all hopes, schemes, debts, and triumphs? The 
 French maid found her in this position — sitting in the midst of 
 her miserable ruins with clasped hands and dry ejes. The 
 woman was her acconiplice and in Steyne's pay^ '*' Mon Dieii, 
 Madame, what has happened ? " she asked. 
 
 What had happened ? Was she guilty or not? She said not; 
 
Sunday After the Battle 539 
 
 but who could tell what was truth which came from those lips ; 
 or if that corrupt heart was in this case pure ? All her lies and 
 her schemes, ail her selfishness and her wiles, all her wit and 
 genius had come to this bankruptcy. The woman closed the 
 curtains, and with some entreaty and show of kindness, per- 
 suaded her mistress to lie down on the bed. Then she went 
 below and gathered up the trinkets which had been lying on the 
 floor since Rebecca dropped them there at her husband's orders, 
 and Lord Steyne went away. 
 
 CHAPTER LIV 
 
 SUNDAY AFTER THE BATTLE 
 
 The mansion of Sir Pitt Crawley, in Great Gaunt Street, was 
 just beginning to dress itself for the day, as Rawdon, in his 
 evening costume, which he had now worn two days, passed by 
 the scared female who was scouring the steps, and entered into 
 his brother's study. Lady Jane, in her morning-gown, was up 
 and above stairs in the nursery superintending the toilettes of 
 her children, and listening to the morning prayers which the 
 little creatures performed at her knee. Every morning she and 
 they performed this duty privately, and before the public cere- 
 monial at which Sir Pitt presided, and at which all the people 
 of the household were expected to assemble. Rawdon sate 
 down in the study before the Baronet's table, set out with the 
 orderly blue books and the letters, the neatly docketed bills and 
 symmetrical pamphlets; the locked account-books, desks, and 
 despatch-boxes, the Bible, the Quarterly Review, and the Court 
 Guide, which all stood as if on parade awaiting the inspection of 
 their chief. 
 
 A book of family sermons, one of which Sir Pitt was in the 
 habit of administering to his family on Sunday mornings, lay 
 ready on the study table, and awaiting his judicious selection. 
 And by the sermon-book was the Observer newspaper, damp and 
 neatly folded, and for Sir Pitt's own private use. His gentle- 
 man alone took the opportunity of perusing the newspaper 
 before he laid it by his master's desk. Before he had brought 
 it into the study that morning, he had read in the journal a 
 
540 Vanity Fair 
 
 flaming account of " Festivities at Gaunt House/' with the 
 names of all the distinguished personages invited by the Marquis 
 of Steyne to meet His Royal Highness. Having made comments 
 upon this entertainment to the housekeeper and her niece as 
 they were taking early tea and hot buttered toast in the former 
 lady's apartment, and wondered how the Rawdon Crawleys 
 could get on, the valet had damped and folded the paper once 
 more, so that it looked quite fresh and innocent against the 
 arrival of the master of the house. 
 
 Poor Rawdon took up the paper and began to try and read it 
 until his brother should arrive. But the print fell blank upon 
 his eyes ; and he did not know in the least what he was reading. 
 The Government news and appointments (which Sir Pitt as a 
 public man was bound to peruse, otherwise he would by no 
 means permit the introduction of Sunday papers into his house- 
 hold), the theatrical criticisms, the fight for a hundred pounds 
 a side between the Barking Butcher and the Tutbury Pet, the 
 Gaunt House chronicle itself, which contained a most compli- 
 mentary though guarded account of the famous charadesof which 
 Mrs. Becky had been the heroine — all these passed as in a haze 
 before Rawdon, as he sate waiting the arrival of the chief of the 
 family. 
 
 Punctually, as the shrill-toned bell of the black marble study 
 clock began to chime nine, Sir Pitt made his appearance, fresh, 
 neat, smugly shaved, with a waxy clean face, and stiff shirt 
 collar, his scanty hair combed and oiled, trimming his nails as 
 he descended the stairs majestically, in a starched cravat and a 
 gray flannel dressing-gown, — a real old English gentleman, in 
 a word, — a, model of neatness and every propriety. He started 
 when he saw poor Rawdon in his study in tumbled clothes, with 
 bloodshot eyes, and his hair over his face. He thought his 
 brother was not sober, and had been out all night on some orgy. 
 '' Good gracious, Rawdon," he said, with a blank face, " what 
 brings you here at this time of the morning? Why ain't you at 
 home?" 
 
 " Home," said Rawdon, with a wild laugh. " Don't be 
 frightened, Pitt. I'm not drunk. Shut the door; I want to 
 speak to you." 
 
 Pitt closed the door and came up to the table, where he sate 
 down in the other arm-chair, — that one placed for the reception 
 of the steward, agent, or confidential visitor who came to trans- 
 act business with the Baronet, — ^and trimmed his nails more 
 vehemently than ever. 
 
Sunday After the Battle 541 
 
 " Pitt, it's all over with me/' the Colonel said, after a pause. 
 
 " I'm done." 
 
 " I always said it would come to this/' the Baronet cried 
 peevishly, and beating a tune with his clean-trimmed nails. 
 " I warned you a thousand times. I can't help you any more. 
 Every shilling of my money is tied up. Even the hundred 
 pounds that Jane took you last night were promised to my 
 lawyer to-morrow morning; and the want of it will put me to 
 great inconvenience. I don't mean to say that I won't assist 
 you ultimately. But as for paying your creditors in full, I 
 might as well hope to pay the National Debt. It is madness, 
 sheer madness, to think of such a thing. You must come to a 
 compromise. It's a painful thing for the family; but every- 
 body does it. There was George Kitely, Lord Ragland's son, 
 went through the Court last week ; and was what they call white- 
 washed, I believe. Lord Ragland would not pay a shilling for 
 him, and " 
 
 " It's not money I want/' Rawdon broke in. " I'm not come 
 to you about myself. Never mind what happens to me " 
 
 " What is the matter then? " said Pitt, somewhat relieved. 
 
 " It's the boy," said Rawdon, in a husky voice. " I want 
 you to promise me that you will take the charge of him when 
 I'm gone. That dear good wife of yours has always been good 
 to him; and he's fonder of her than he is of his . . . — Damn it. 
 Look here, Pitt — you know that I was to have had Miss Crawley's 
 money. I wasn't brought up like a younger brother: but was 
 always encouraged to be extravagant and kep idle. But for 
 this I might have been quite a different man. I didn't do my 
 duty with the regiment so bad. You know how I was thrown 
 over about the money, and who got it." 
 
 " After the sacrifices I have made, and the manner in which 
 I have stood by you, I think this sort of reproach is useless," 
 Sir Pitt said. " Your marriage was your own doing, not mine." 
 
 " That's over now," said Rawdon. " That's over now." And 
 the words were wrenched from him with a groan which made 
 his brother start. 
 
 " Good God! is she dead? " Sir Pitt said, with a voice of 
 genuine alarm and commiseration. 
 
 " I wish I was," Rawdon replied. " If it wasn't for little 
 Rawdon I'd have cut my throat this morning, and that damned 
 villain's too." 
 
 Sir Pitt instantly guessed the truth, and surmised that Lord 
 Steyne was the person whose life Rawdon wished to take. The 
 
542 Vanity Fair 
 
 Colonel told his senior briefly, and in broken accents, the cir- 
 cumstances of the case. " It was a regular plan between that 
 scoundrel and her/* he said. " The bailiffs were put upon me: 
 I was taken as I was going out of his house: when I wrote to 
 her for money, she said she was ill in bed, and put me off to 
 another day. And when I got home I found her in diamonds 
 and sitting with that villain alone." He then went on to de- 
 scribe hurriedly the personal conflict with Lord Steyne. To an 
 affair of that nature, of course, he said, there was but one issue; 
 and after his conference with his brother, he was going away to 
 make the necessary arrangements for the meeting which must 
 ensue. " And as it may end fatally with me," Rawdon said 
 with a broken voice, " and as the boy has no mother, I must 
 leave him to you and Jane, Pitt — only it will be a comfort to me 
 if you will promise me to be his friend." 
 
 The elder brother was much affected, and shook Rawdon's 
 hand with a cordiality seldom exhibited by him. Rawdon 
 passed his hand over his shaggy eyebrows. " Thank you, 
 brother," said he. " I know I can trust your word." 
 
 " I will, upon my honour," the Baronet said. And thus, and 
 almost mutely, this bargain was struck between them. 
 
 Then Rawdon took out of his pocket the little pocket-book 
 which he had discovered in Becky's desk; and from which he 
 drew a bundle of notes which it contained. " Here's six 
 hundred," he said — " you didn't know I was so rich. I want 
 you to give the money to Briggs, who lent it to us — and who was 
 kind to the boy — ^and I've always felt ashamed of having taken 
 the poor old woman's money. And here's some more — I've 
 only kept back a few pounds — which Becky may as well have, 
 to get on with." As he spoke he took hold of the other notes 
 to give to his brother: but his hand shook, and he was so 
 agitated that the pocket-book fell from him, and out of it the 
 thousand-pound note which had been the last of the unlucky 
 Becky's winnings. 
 
 Pitt stooped and picked them up, amazed at so much wealth. 
 " Not that," Rawdon said — " I hope to put a bullet into the 
 man whom that belongs to." He had thought to himself, it 
 would be a fine revenge to wrap a ball in the note, and kill 
 Steyne with it. 
 
 After this colloquy the brothers once more shook hands and 
 parted. Lady Jane had heard of the Colonel's arrival, and was 
 waiting for her husband in the adjoining dining-room, with 
 female instinct auguring evil,. The door of the dining-room 
 
Sunday After the Battle 543 
 
 happened to be left open, and the lady of course was issuing 
 from it as the two brothers passed out of the study. She held 
 out her hand to Rawdon, and said she was glad he was come to 
 breakfast; though she could perceive, by his haggard unshorn 
 face, and the dark looks of her husband, that there was very 
 little question of breakfast between them. Rawdon muttered 
 some excuses about an engagement, squeezing hard the timid 
 little hand which his sister-in-law reached out to him. Her 
 imploring eyes could read nothing but calamity in his face; but 
 he went away without another word. Nor did Sir Pitt vouch- 
 safe her any explanation. The children came up to salute him, 
 and he kissed them in his usual frigid manner. The mother 
 took both of them close to herself, and held a hand of each of 
 them as they knelt down to prayers, which Sir Pitt read to 
 them, and to the servants in their Sunday suits or liveries, 
 ranged upon chairs on the other side of the hissing tea-urn. 
 Breakfast was so late that day, in consequence of the delays 
 which had occurred, that the church-bells began to ring whilst 
 they were sitting over their meal: and Lady Jane was too ill, she 
 said, to go to church, though her thoughts had been entirely 
 astray during the period of family devotion. 
 
 Rawdon Crawley meanwhile hurried on from Great Gaunt 
 Street, and knocking at the great bronze Medusa's head which 
 stands on the portal of Gaunt House, brought out the purple 
 Silenus in a red and silver waistcoat who acts as porter of that 
 palace. The man was scared also by the Colonel's dishevelled 
 appear^^nce, and barred the way as if afraid that the other was 
 going to force it. But Colonel Crawley only took out a card and 
 enjoined him particularly to send it in to Lord Steyne, and to 
 mark the address written on it, and say that Colonel Crawley 
 would be all day after one o'clock at the Regent Club in St. 
 James's Street — ^not at home. The fat red-faced man looked 
 after him with astonishment as he strode away; so did the people 
 in their Sunday clothes who were out so early; the charity 
 boys with shining faces, the greengrocer lolling at his door, 
 and the publican shutting his shutters in the sunshine, against 
 service commenced. The people joked at the cab-stand about 
 his appearance, as he took a carriage there, and told the driver 
 to drive him to Knightsbridge Barracks. 
 
 All the bells were jangling and tolling as he reached that place. 
 He might have seen his old acquaintance Amelia on her way 
 from Brompton to Russell Square had he been looking out. 
 Troops of schools were on their march to church, the shiny 
 
544 Vanity Fair 
 
 pavement and outsides of coaches in the suburbs were thronged 
 with people out upon their Sunday pleasure; but the Colonel 
 was much too busy to take any heed of these phenomena, and, 
 arriving at Knightsbridge, speedily made his way up to the 
 room of his old friend and comrade Captain Macmurdo, who 
 Crawley found, to his satisfaction, was in barracks. 
 
 Captain Macmurdo, a veteran officer and Waterloo man, 
 greatly liked by his regiment, in which want of money alone pre- 
 vented him from attaining the highest ranks, was enjoying the 
 forenoon calmly in bed. He had been at a fast supper-party 
 given the night before by Captain the Honourable George 
 Cinqbars, at his house in Brompton Square, to several young 
 men of the regiment, and a number of ladies of the corps de 
 ballet, and old Mac, who was at home with people of all ages and 
 ranks, and consorted with generals, dog-fanciers, opera-dancers, 
 bruisers, and every kind of person, in a word, was resting him- 
 self after the night's labours, and, not being on duty, was in bed. 
 
 His room was hung round with boxing, sporting, and dancing 
 pictures, presented to him by comrades as they retired from the 
 regiment, and married and settled into quiet life. And as he 
 was now nearly fifty years of age, twenty-four of which he had 
 passed in the corps, he had a singular museum. He was one 
 of the best shots in England, and, for a heavy man, one of the 
 best riders; indeed, he and Crawley had been rivals when the 
 latter was in the army. To be brief, Mr. Macmurdo was lying 
 in bed, reading in BelVs Life an account of that very fight 
 between the Tutbury Pet and the Barking Butcher, which has 
 been before mentioned — a venerable bristly warrior, with a 
 Httle close-shaved grey head, with a silk nightcap, a red face and 
 nose, and a great dyed moustache. 
 
 When Rawdon told the Captain he wanted a friend, the latter 
 knew perfectly well on what duty of friendship he was called to 
 act, and indeed had conducted scores of affairs for his acquain- 
 tances with the greatest prudence and skill. His Royal High- 
 ness the late lamented Commander-in-Chief had had the greatest 
 regard for Macmurdo on this account; and he was the common 
 refuge of gentlemen in trouble. 
 
 "What's the row about, Crawley, my boy!" said the old 
 warrior. " No more gambling business, hey, like that when 
 we shot Captain Marker? " 
 
 '* It's about — about my wife," Crawley answered, casting 
 down his eyes and turning very red. 
 
 The other gave a whistle, " 1 always said she'd throw you 
 
Sunday After the Battle 545 
 
 over," he began ; indeed there were bets in the regiment and at 
 the clubs regarding the probable fate of Colonel Crawley, so 
 lightly was his wife's character esteemed by his comrades and 
 the world; but seeing the savage look with which Rawdon 
 answered the expression of this opinion^ Macmurdo did not 
 think fit to enlarge upon it further. 
 
 " Is there no way out of it, old boy? " the Captain continued 
 in a grave tone. " Is it only suspicion, you know, or — or what 
 is it.f* Any letters? Can't you keep it quiet? Best not 
 make any noise about a thing of that sort if you can help it." 
 " Think of his only finding her out now," the Captain thought 
 to himself, and remembered a hundred particular conversations 
 at the mess-table^ in which Mrs. Crawley's reputation had been 
 torn to shreds. 
 
 " There's no way but one out of it," Rawdon replied — " and 
 there's only a way out of it for one of us^ Mac — do you under- 
 stand? I was put out of the way: arrested: I found 'em alone 
 together. I told him he was a liar and a coward, and knocked 
 him down and thrashed him." 
 
 " Serve him right/' Macmurdo said. " Who is it? " 
 
 Rawdon answered it was Lord Ste3me. 
 
 " The deuce ! a Marquis 1 they said he — that is, they said 
 you " 
 
 " What the devil do you mean? " roared out Rawdon; " do 
 you mean that you ever heard a fellow doubt my wife, and didn't 
 tell m.e, Mac? " 
 
 " The world's very censorious, old boy," the other replied. 
 " What the deuce was the good of my telling you what any tom- 
 fools talked about? " 
 
 "It was damned unfriendly, Mac!" said Rawdon, quite 
 overcome; and, covering his face with his hands, he gave way 
 to an emotion, the sight of which caused the tough old cam- 
 paigner opposite him to wince with sympathy. " Hold up, old 
 boy," he said; " great man or not, we'll put a bullet in him, 
 damn him. As for women, they're all so." 
 
 " You don't know how fond I was of that one," Rawdon said, 
 half inarticulately. " Damme, I followed her like a footman. 
 I gave up everything I had to her. I'm a beggar because I 
 would marry her. By Jove, sir, I've pawned my own watch 
 in order to get her anything she fancied : and she — she's been 
 making a purse for herself all the time, and grudged me a 
 hundred pound to get me out of quod." He then fiercely and 
 incoherently, and with an agitation under which his counsellor 
 
546 Vanity Fair 
 
 had never before seen him labour, told Macmurdo the circum- 
 stances of the story. His adviser caught at some stray hints 
 in it. 
 
 " She may be innocent, after all," he said. " She says so. 
 Steyne has been a hundred times alone with her in the house 
 before." 
 
 " It may be so," Rawdon answered sadly; " but this don't 
 look very innocent: " and he showed the Captain the thousand- 
 pound note which he had found in Becky's pocket-book. " This 
 is what he gave her, Mac: and she kep it unknown to me: and 
 with this money in the house, she refused to stand by me when 
 I was locked up." The Captain could not but own that the 
 secreting of the money had a very ugly look. 
 
 Whilst they were engaged in their conference, Rawdon 
 despatched Captain Macmurdo's servant to Curzon Street, with 
 an order to the domestic there to give up a bag of clothes of 
 which the Colonel had great need. And during the man's 
 absence, and with great labour and a Johnson's Dictionary^ 
 which stood them in much stead, Rawdon and his second com- 
 posed a letter, which the latter was to send to Lord Steyne. 
 Captain Macmurdo had the honour of waiting upon the Marquis 
 of Steyne, on the part of Colonel Rawdon Crawley, and begged 
 to intimate that he was empowered by the Colonel to make any 
 arrangements for the meeting which, he had no doubt, it was 
 his Lordship's intention to demand, and which the circum- 
 stances of the morning had rendered inevitable. Captain Mac- 
 murdo begged Lord Steyne, in the most polite manner, to 
 appoint a friend, with whom he (Captain M'M.) might com- 
 municate, and desired that the meeting might take place with 
 as little delay as possible. In a postscript the Captain stated 
 that he had in his possession a bank-note for a large amount, 
 which Colonel Crawley had reason to suppose was the property 
 of the Marquis of Steyne. And he was anxious, on the Colonel's 
 behalf, to give up the note to its owner. 
 
 By the time tiiis note was composed, the Captain's servant 
 returned from his mission to Colonel Crawley's house in Curzon 
 Street, but without the carpet-bag and portmanteau, for which 
 he had been sent: and with a very puzzled and odd face. 
 
 " They won't give 'em up," said the man; " there's a regular 
 shinty in the house; and everything at sixes and sevens. The 
 landlord's come in and took possession. The servants was 
 a drinkin' up in the drawing-room. They said — they said you 
 had gone ofi with the plate. Colonel " — the man added after a 
 
Sunday After the Battle 547 
 
 pause: — "One of the servants is off already. And Simpson, 
 the man as was very noisy and drunk indeed, says nothing shall 
 go out of the house until his wages is paid up." 
 
 The account of this little revolution in May fair astonished 
 and gave a little gaiety to an otherwise very triste conversation. 
 The two officers laughed at Rawdon's discomfiture. 
 
 " I'm glad the little 'un isn't at home," Rawdon said, biting 
 his nails. " You remember him, Mac, don't you, in the Riding 
 School } How he sat the kicker to be sure ! didn't he ? " 
 
 " That he did, old boy," said the good-natured Captain. 
 
 Little Rawdon was then sitting, one of fifty gown boys, in the 
 chapel of Whitefriars School: thinking, not about the sermon, 
 but about going home next Saturday, when his father would 
 certainly tip him, and perhaps would take him to the play. 
 
 " He's a regular trump, that boy," the father went on, still 
 musing about his son. " I say, Mac, if anything goes wrong — 
 if I drop — I should like you to — to go and see him, you know; 
 and say that I was very fond of him, and that. And — dash it — 
 old chap, give him these gold sleeve-buttons: it's all I've got." 
 He covered his face with his black hands: over which the tears 
 Tolled and made furrows of white. Mr. Macmurdo had also 
 occasion to take off his silk nightcap and rub it across his eyes. 
 
 " Go down and order some breakfast," he said to his man in 
 a loud cheerful voice, — " What'll you have, Crawley.? Some 
 devilled kidneys and a herring — let's say. And, Clay, lay out 
 some dressing things for the Colonel: we were always pretty 
 much of a size, Rawdon, my boy, and neither of us ride so light 
 as we did when we first entered the corps." With which, and 
 leaving the Colonel to dress himself, Macmurdo turned round 
 towards the wall, and resumed the perusal of BelVs Lije, until 
 such time as his friend's toilette was complete, and he was at 
 liberty to commence his own. 
 
 This, as he v/as about to meet a lord. Captain Macmurdo per- 
 formed with particular care. He waxed his mustachios into a 
 state of brilliant polish, and put on a tight cravat and a trim 
 buff waistcoat: so that all the young officers in the mess-room, 
 whither Crawley had preceded his friend, complimented Mac on 
 his appearance at breakfast, and asked if he was going to be 
 married that Sunday? 
 
548 Vanity Fair 
 
 CHAPTER LV 
 
 IN WHICH THE SAME SUBJECT IS PURSUED 
 
 Becky did not rally from the state of stupor and confusion in 
 which the events of the previous night had plunged her intrepid 
 spirit^ until the bells of the Curzon Street chapels were ringing 
 for afternoon service;, and rising from her bed she began to ply 
 her own bell^ in order to summon the French maid who had left 
 her some hours before. 
 
 Mrs. Rawdon Crawley rang many times in vain; and though^ 
 on the last occasion, she rang with such vehemence as to pull 
 down the bell-ropC;, Mademoiselle Fifine did not make her 
 appearance, — no, not though her mistress, in a great pet, and 
 with the bell-rope in her hand, came out to the landing-place 
 with her hair over her shoulders, and screamed out repeatedly 
 for her attendant. 
 
 The truth is, she had quitted the premises for many hours, 
 and upon that permission which is called French leave among us. 
 After picking up the trinkets in the drawing-room. Mademoiselle 
 had ascended to her own apartments, packed and corded her 
 own boxes there, tripped out and called a cab for herself, brought 
 down her trunks with her own hand, and without ever so much 
 as asking the aid of any of the other servants, who would pro- 
 bably have refused it, as they hated her cordially, and without 
 wishing anyone of them good-bye, had made her exit from 
 Curzon Street. 
 
 The game, in her opinion, was over in that little domestic 
 establishment. Fifine went off in a cab, as we have known 
 more exalted persons of her nation to do under similar circum- 
 stances: but, more provident or lucky than these, she secured 
 not only her own property, but some of her mistress's (if indeed 
 that lady could be said to have any property at all) — and not 
 only carried off the trinkets before alluded to, and some favourite 
 dresses on which she had long kept her eye, but four richly gilt 
 Louis Quatorze candlesticks, six gilt Albums, Keepsakes, and 
 Books of Beauty, a gold enamelled snuff-box which had once 
 belonged to Madame du Barri, and the sweetest little inkstand 
 and mother-of-pearl blotting book, which Becky used when she 
 composed her charming little pink notes, had vanished from the 
 premises in Curzon Street together with Mademoiselle Fifine, 
 
Sunday After the Battle 549 
 
 and all the silver laid on the table for the little fesitn which 
 Rawdon interrupted. The plated ware Mademoiselle left behind 
 her was too cumbrous, probably for which reason, no doubt, 
 she also left the fire-irons, the chimney-glasses, and the rose- 
 wood cottage piano. 
 
 A lady very like her subsequently kept a milliner's shop in 
 the Rue du Helder at Paris, where she lived with great credit 
 and enjoyed the patronage of my Lord Steyne. This person 
 always spoke of England as of the most treacherous country in 
 the world, and stated to her young pupils that she had been 
 affreusemeni vole by natives of that island. It was no doubt 
 compassion for her misfortunes which induced the Marquis of 
 Steyne to be so very kind to Madame de Saint- Amaranthe. 
 May she flourish as she deserves, — she appears no more in our 
 quarter of Vanity Fair. 
 
 Hearing a buzz and a stir below, and indignant at the im- 
 pudence of those servants who would not answer her summons, 
 Mrs. Crawley flung her morning robe round her, and descended 
 majestically to the drawing-room, whence the noise proceeded. 
 
 The cook was there with blackened face, seated on the beau- 
 tiful chintz sofa by the side of Mrs. Raggles, to whom she 
 was administering Maraschino. The page with the sugar-loaf 
 buttons, who carried about Becky's pink notes, and jumped 
 about her little carriage with such alacrity, was now engaged 
 putting his fingers into a cream dish; the footman was talking 
 to Raggles, who had a face full of perplexity and woe — and yet, 
 though the door was open, and Becky had been screaming a half 
 dozen of times a few feet off, not one of her attendants had 
 obeyed her call. " Have a httle drop, do'ee now, Mrs. Raggles," 
 the cook was saying as Becky entered, the white cashmere 
 dressing-gown flouncing around her. 
 
 "Simpson! Trotter!" the mistress of the house cried in 
 great wrath. " How dare you stay here when you heard me 
 call? How dare you sit down in my presence? Where's my 
 maid ? " The page withdrew his fingers from his mouth with 
 a momentary terror; but the cook took off a glass of Maraschino, 
 of which Mrs. Raggles had had enough, staring at Becky over 
 the little gilt glass as she drained its contents. The liquor 
 appeared to give the odious rebel courage. 
 
 " Your sofy, indeed ! " Mrs. Cook said. " I'm a settin' on 
 Mrs. Raggles's sofy. Don't you stir, Mrs. Raggles, Mum. I'm 
 a settin' on Mr. and Mrs. Raggles's sofy, which they bought 
 with honest money, and very dear it cost 'em, too. And I'm 
 
550 Vanity Fair 
 
 thinkin' if I set here until I'm paid my wages^ I shall set a 
 precious long time, Mrs. Raggies; and set I will, too — ha! ha!" 
 and with this she filled herself another glass of the liquor, and 
 drank it with a more hideously satirical air. 
 
 "Trotter! Simpson! turn that drunken wretch out," 
 screamed Mrs. Crawley. 
 
 " I shawn't," said Trotter the footman: " turn out yourself. 
 Pay our selleries, and turn me out too. We^ll go fast enough." 
 
 "Are you all here to insult me?" cried Becky in a fury; 
 " when Colonel Crawley comes home I'll " 
 
 At this the servants burst into a horse haw-haw, in which, 
 however, Raggles, who still kept a most melancholy counten- 
 ance, did not join. " He ain't a coming back," Mr. Trotter 
 resumed. " He sent for his things, and I wouldn't let 'em go, 
 although Mr. Raggles would: and I don't b'lieve he's no more 
 a Colonel than I am. He's hoff : and I suppose you're a goin' 
 after him. You're no better than swindlers, both on you. 
 Don't be a builyin' me. I won't stand it. Pay us our selleries, 
 I say. Pay us our selleries." It was evident, from Mr. Trotter's 
 flushed countenance and defective intonation, that he, too, had 
 had recourse to vinous stimulus. 
 
 " Mr. Raggles," said Becky, in a passion of vexation, " you 
 will not surely let me be insulted by that drunken man.? " 
 " Hold your noise. Trotter; do now," said Simpson the page. 
 He was affected by his mistress's deplorable situation, and 
 succeeded in preventing an outrageous denial of the epithet 
 " drunken " on the footman's part. 
 
 " Mam," said Raggles, " I never thought to live to see this 
 year day. I've known the Crawley family ever since I was born. 
 I lived butler with Miss Crawley for thirty years; and I little 
 thought one oi that family was a goin' to ruing me — yes, ruing 
 me " — said the poor fellow, with tears in his eyes. " Har you 
 a goin' to pay me? You've lived in this 'ouse four year. 
 You've 'ad my substance: my plate and linning. You ho me 
 a milk and butter bill of two 'undred pound, you must 'ave 
 noo-laid heggs for your homlets, and cream for you spanil 
 dog." 
 
 " She didn't care what her own flesh and blood had," inter- 
 posed the cook. " Many's the time he'd have starved but 
 for me." 
 
 " He's a charaty boy now. Cooky," said Mr. Trotter, with a 
 drunken "Ha! ha!" — and honest Raggles continued, in a 
 lamentable tone, an enumeration of his griefs. All he said was 
 
Sunday After the Battle 551 
 
 true. Becky and her husband had ruined him. He had bills 
 coming due next week and no means to meet them. He would 
 be sold up and turned out of his shop and his house^, because he 
 had trusted to the Crawley family. His tears and lamentations 
 made Becky more peevish than ever. 
 
 " You all seem to be against me/' she said bitterly. " What 
 do you want? I can't pay you on Sunday. Come back to- 
 morrow, and I'll pay you everything. I thought Colonel 
 Crawley had settled with you. He will to-morrow. I declare 
 to you upon my honour that he left home this morning with 
 fifteen hundred pounds in his pocket-book. He has left me 
 nothing. Apply to him. Give me a bonnet and shawl and let 
 me go out and find him. There was a difference between us 
 this morning. You all seem to know it. I promise you upon 
 my word that you shall ail be paid. He has got a good appoint- 
 ment. Let me go out and find him." 
 
 This audacious statement caused Raggles and the other 
 personages present to look at one another with a wild surprise, 
 and with it Rebecca left them. She went upstairs and dressed 
 herself this time without the aid of her French maid. She went 
 into Rawdon's room, and there saw that a trunk and bag were 
 packed ready for removal, with a pencil direction that they 
 should be given when called for; then she went into the French- 
 woman's garret; everything was clean, and all the drawers 
 emptied there. She bethought herself of the trinkets which 
 had been left on the ground, and felt certain that the woman 
 had fled. " Good Heavens! was ever such ill luck as mine! " 
 she said; " to be so near, and to lose all. Is it all too late? " 
 No; there was one chance more. 
 
 She dressed herself and went away unmolested this time, but 
 alone. It was four o'clock. She went swiftly down the streets 
 (she had no money to pay for a carriage), and never stopped 
 until she came to Sir Pitt Crawley's door, in Great Gaunt Street. 
 Where was Lady Jane Crawley? She was at church. Becky 
 was not sorry. Sir Pitt was in his study, and had given orders 
 not to be disturbed — she must see him — she slipped by the 
 sentinel in hvery at once, and was in Sir Pitt's room before the 
 astonished Baronet had even laid down the paper. 
 
 He turned red and started back from her with a look of great 
 alarm and horror. 
 
 " Do not look so," she said. " I am not guilty, Pitt, dear 
 Pitt; you were my friend once. Before God, I am not guilty. 
 I seem so. Everything is against me. And oh! at such a 
 
552 Vanity Fair 
 
 moment! just when all my hopes were about to be realised; 
 just when happiness was in store for us." 
 
 " Is this true, what I see in the paper, then? " Sir Pitt said — 
 a paragraph in which had greatly surprised him. 
 
 *' It is true. Lord Steyne told me on Friday night, the night 
 of that fatal ball. He has been promised an appointment any 
 time these six months. Mr. Martyr, the Colonial Secretary, 
 told him yesterday that it was made out. That unlucky arrest 
 ensued ; that horrible meeting. I was only guilty of too much 
 devotedness to Rawdon's service. I have received Lord Ste3nie 
 alone a hundred times before. I confess I had money of which 
 Rawdon knew nothing. Don't you know how careless he is of 
 it, and could I dare to confide it to him? " And so she went on 
 with a perfectly connected story, which she poured into the ears 
 of her perplexed kinsman. 
 
 It was to the following effect. Becky owned, and with per- 
 fect frankness, but deep contrition, that having remarked Lord 
 Steyne's partiality for her (at the mention of which Pitt blushed)^ 
 and being secure of her own virtue, she had determined to turn 
 the great peer's attachment to the advantage of herself and her 
 family. " I looked for a peerage for you, Pitt," she said (the 
 brother-in-law again turned red). " We have talked about it. 
 Your genius and Lord Steyne's interest made it more than 
 probable, had not this dreadful calamity come to put an end to 
 all our hopes. But, first, I own that it was my object to rescue 
 my dear husband, — him whom I love in spite of all his ill-usage 
 and suspicions of me, — to remove him from the poverty and 
 ruin which was impending over us. I saw Lord Steyne's parti- 
 ality for me," she said, casting down her eyes. " I own that I 
 did everything in my power to make myself pleasing to him^ 
 and as far as an honest woman may, to secure his — his esteem. 
 It was only on Friday morning that the news arrived of the 
 death of the Governor of Coventry Island, and my Lord in- 
 stantly secured the appointment for my dear husband. It was 
 intended as a surprise for him, — he was to see it in the papers 
 to-day. Even after that horrid arrest took place (the expenses 
 of which Lord Steyne generously said he would settle, so that I 
 was in a manner prevented from coming to my husband's assist- 
 ance), my Lord was laughing with me, and saying that my 
 dearest Rawdon would be consoled when he read of his appoint- 
 ment in the paper, in that shocking spun — bailiff's house. And 
 then — then he came home. His suspicions were excited, — the 
 dreadful scene took place between my Lord and my cruel, cruel 
 
Sunday After the Battle 553 
 
 Rawdon — and, my God, what will happen next? Pitt, dear 
 Pitt! piL\ me, and reconcile us! " And as she spoke she flung 
 herself down on her knees, and bursting into tears, seized hold 
 of Pitt's hand, which she kissed passionately. 
 
 It was in this very attitude that Lady Jane, who, returning 
 from church, ran to her husband's room directly she heard Mrs. 
 Rav/don Crawley was closeted there, found the Baronet and his 
 sister-in-law. 
 
 " I am surprised that woman has the audacity to enter this 
 house," Lady Jane said, trembling in every limb, and turning 
 quite pale. (Her Ladyship had sent out her maid directly after 
 breakfast, who had communicated with Raggles and Rawdon 
 Crawley's household, who had told her all, and a great deal 
 more than they knew, of that story, and many others besides.) 
 " How dare Mrs. Crawley to enter the house of — of an honest 
 family?" 
 
 Sir Pitt started back, amazed at his wife's display of vigour. 
 Becky still kept her kneeling posture, and clung to Sir Pitt's 
 hand. 
 
 " Tell her that she does not know all. Tell her tha,t I am 
 innocent, dear Pitt," she whimpered out. 
 
 " Upon my word, my love, I think you do Mrs. Crawley in- 
 justice," Sir Pitt said; at v/hich speech Rebecca was vastly 
 relieved. '* Indeed I believe her to be " 
 
 " To be what? " cried out Lady Jane, her clear voice thrilling, 
 and her heart beating violently as she spoke. " To be a wicked 
 woman — a heartless mother, a false wife ! She never loved her 
 dear little boy, who used to fly here and tell me of her cruelty to 
 him. She never came into a family but she strove to bring 
 misery with her, and to weaken the most sacred affections with 
 her wicked flattery and falsehoods. She has deceived her 
 husband, as she has deceived everybody; her soul is black 
 with vanity, worldliness, and all sorts of crime. I tremble 
 when I touch her. I keep my children out of her sight. 
 I" 
 
 " Lady Jane!" cried Sir Pitt, starting up, " tliis is really 
 language " 
 
 " I have been a true and faithful wife to you, Sir Pitt," Lady 
 Jane continued intrepidly; " I have kept my marriage vow as 
 I made it to God, and have been obedient and gentle as a wife 
 should. But righteous obedience has its limits, and I declare 
 that I will not bear that — that woman again under my roof: 
 if she enters it, I and my children will leave it. She is not worthy 
 
554 Vanity Fair 
 
 to sit down with Christian people. You — you must choose, sir, 
 between her and me; " and with this my Lady swept out of the 
 room, fluttering with her own audacity, and leaving Rebecca 
 and Sir Pitt not a little astonished at it. 
 
 As for Becky, she was not hurt; nay, she was pleased. " It 
 was the diamond clasp you gave me," she said to Sir Pitt, reach- 
 ing him out her hand; and before she left him (for which event 
 you may be sure my Lady Jane was looking out from her dress- 
 ing-room window in the upper storey) the Baronet had promised 
 to go and seek out his brother, and endeavour to bring about a 
 reconciliation. 
 
 RawdOn found some of the young fellows of the regiment 
 seated in the mess-room at breakfast, and was induced without 
 much difficulty to partake of that meal, and of the devilled 
 legs of fowls and soda-water with which these young gentlemen 
 fortified themselves. Then they had a conversation befitting 
 the day and their time of life: about the next pigeon-match at 
 Battersea, with relative bets upon Ross and Osbaldiston : about 
 Mademoiselle Ariane of the French Opera, and who had left her, 
 and how she was consoled by Panther Carr; and about the fight 
 between the Butcher and the Pet, and the probabilities that it 
 was a cross. Young Tandyman, a hero of seventeen, laboriously 
 endeavouring to get up a pair of mustachios, had seen the fight, 
 and spoke in the most scientific manner about the battle, and the 
 condition of the men. It was he who had driven the Butcher on 
 to the ground in his drag, and passed the whole of the previous 
 night with him. Had there not been foul play he must have 
 won it. All the old files of the ring were in it: and Tandyman 
 wouldn't pay; no, dammy, he wouldn't pay. — It was but a year 
 since the young Comet, now so knowing a hand in Cribb's 
 parlour, had a still lingering hking for toffy, and used to be 
 birched at Eton. 
 
 So they went on talking about dancers, fights, drinking^ 
 demireps, until Macmurdo came down and joined the boys and 
 the conversation. He did not appear to think that any especial 
 reverence was due to their boyhood; the old fellow cut in with 
 stories to the full as choice as any the youngest rake present 
 had to tell; — nor did his own grey hairs nor their smooth faces 
 detain him. Old Mac was famous for his good stories. He was 
 not exactly a lady's man ; that is, men asked him to dine rather 
 at the houses of their mistresses than of their mothers. There 
 can scarcely be a life lower, perhaps, than his; but he was quite 
 
Sunday After the Battle 555 
 
 contented with it, such as it was, and led it in perfect good nature, 
 simphcity, and modesty of demeanour. 
 
 By the time Mac had finished a copious breakfast, most of the 
 others had concluded their meal. Young Lord Varinas was 
 smoking an immense meerschaum pipe, while Captain Hugues 
 was employed with a cigar: that violent Httle devil Tandyman, 
 with his little bull-terrier between his legs, was tossing for 
 shillings with all his might (that fellow was always at some game 
 or other) against Captain Deuceace; and Mac and Rawdon 
 walked off to the Club, neither, of course, having given any hint 
 of the business which was occupying their minds. Both, on the 
 other hand, had joined pretty gaily in the conversation; for why- 
 should they interrupt it ? Feasting, drinking, ribaldry, laughter, 
 go on alongside of all sorts of other occupations in Vanity Fair, 
 — ^the crowds were pouring out of church as Rawdon and his 
 friend passed down St. James's Street and entered into their 
 Club. 
 
 The old bucks and habitues, who ordinarily stand gaping and 
 grinning out of the great front window of the Club, had not 
 arrived at their posts as yet, — the newspaper-room was almost 
 empty. One man was present whom Rawdon did not know; 
 another to whom he owed a little score for whist, and whom, in 
 consequence, he did not care to meet; a third was reading the 
 Royalist (a periodical famous for its scandal and its attachment 
 to Church and King) Sunday paper at the table, and, looking 
 up at Crawley with some interest, said, " Crawley, I congratulate 
 you." 
 
 " What do you mean? " said the Colonel. 
 
 '' It's in the Observer and the Royalist too," said Mr. Smith.- 
 
 " What? " Rawdon cried, turning very red. He thought 
 that the affair with Lord Steyne was already in the public prints. 
 Smith looked up wondering and smiling at the agitation which 
 the colonel exhibited as he took up the paper, and trembling, 
 began to read. 
 
 Mr. Smith and Mr. Brown (the gentleman with whom Rawdon 
 had the outstanding whist account) had been talking about the 
 Colonel just before he came in. 
 
 " It is come just in the nick of time," said Smith* " I sup- 
 pose Crawley had not a shiUing in the world." 
 
 " It's a wind that blows everybody good," Mr. Brown said,- 
 " He can't go away without paying me a pony he owes me." 
 
 " What's the salary? " asked Smith. 
 
 " Two or three thousand," answered the other. " But the 
 
556 Vanity Fair 
 
 climate's so infernal, they don't enjoy it long. Liverseege died 
 after eighteen months of it : and the man before went off in six 
 weeks J I hear." 
 
 " Some people say his brother is a very clever man. I always 
 
 found him a d bore/' Smith ejaculated. " He must have 
 
 good interest, though. He must have got the Colonel the place." 
 
 " He 1 " said Brown, with a sneer — " Pooh. It was Lord 
 Steyne got it." 
 
 " How do you mean? " 
 
 " A virtuous woman is a crown to her husband/' answered 
 the other enigmatically, and went to read his papers. 
 
 Rawdon, for his part, read in the Royalist the following 
 astonishing paragraph: — 
 
 " Governorship of Coventry Island. — H.M.S. Yellowjack, 
 Commander Jaunders, has brought letters and papers from Coventry- 
 Island. H. E. Sir Thomas Liverseege had fallen a victim to the 
 prevailing fever at Swampton. His loss is deeply felt in the flourish- 
 ing colony. We hear that the Governorship has been offered to 
 Colonel Rawdon Crawley, C.B., a distinguished Waterloo officer. 
 We need not only men of acknowledged bravery, but men of ad- 
 ministrative talents to superintend the affairs of our colonies; and 
 we have no doubt that the gentleman selected by the Colonial Office 
 to fill the lamented vacancy which has occurred at Coventry Island 
 is admirably calculated for the post which he is about to occupy." 
 
 " Coventry Island ! where was it? who had appointed him to 
 the government? You must take me out as your secretary, 
 old boy," Captain Macmurdo said, laughing; and as Crawley and 
 his friend sat wondering and perplexed over the announcement, 
 the Club waiter brought in to the Colonel a card, on which the 
 name of Mr. Wenham was engraved, who begged to see Colonel 
 Crawley. 
 
 The Colonel and his aide-de-camp went out to meet the 
 gentleman, rightly conjecturing that he was a.n emissary of 
 Lord Steyne. " How d'ye do, Crawley? I am glad to see you," 
 said Mr. Wenham, with a bland smile and grasping Crawley's 
 hand with great cordiality. 
 
 " You come, I suppose, from " 
 
 " Exactly," said Mr. Wenham. 
 
 " Then this is my friend Captain Macmurdo, of the Life 
 Guards Green." 
 
 " Delighted to know Captain Macmurdo, I'm sure," Mr. 
 Wenham said, and tendered another smile and shake of the hand 
 to the second, as he had done to the principal. Mac put out one 
 
Sunday After the Battle 557 
 
 finger, armed with a buckskin glove, and made a very frigid bow 
 to Mr. Wenham over his tight cravat. He was, perhaps, dis- 
 contented at being put in communication with a pekin, and 
 thought that Lord Steyne should have sent him a Colonel at 
 the very least. 
 
 " As Macmurdo acts for me, and knows what I mean," 
 Crawley said, " I had better retire and leave you together.'* 
 
 " Of course," said Macmurdo. 
 
 " By no means, my dear Colonel," Mr. Wenham said; " the 
 interview which I had the honour of requesting was with you 
 personally, though the company of Captain Macmurdo cannot 
 fail to be also most pleasing. In fact, Captain, I hope that our 
 conversation will lead to none but the most agreeable results, 
 very different from those which my friend Colonel Crawley 
 appears to anticipate." 
 
 "Humph!" said Captain Macmurdo. — Be hanged to these 
 civilians, he thought to himself, they are always for arranging 
 and speechifying. Mr. Wenham took a chair which was not 
 offered to him — took a paper from his pocket, and resumed — 
 
 " You have seen this gratifying announcement in the papers 
 this morning. Colonel? Government has secured a most 
 valuable servant, and you, if you accept office, as I presume you 
 will, an excellent appointment. Three thousand a year, delight- 
 ful climate, excellent government-house, all your own way in the 
 Colony, and a certain promotion. I congratulate you with all 
 my heart. I presume you know, gentlemen, to whom my friend 
 is indebted for this piece of patronage? " 
 
 " Hanged if I know," the Captain said: his principal turned 
 very red. 
 
 " To one of the most generous and kindest men in the world, 
 as he is one of the greatest — to my excellent friend, the Marquis 
 of Steyne." 
 
 " I'll see him d before I take his place," growled out 
 
 Rawdon. 
 
 " You are irritated against my noble friend," Mr. Wenham 
 calmly resumed: " and now, in the name of common sense and 
 justice, tell me why? " 
 
 " Why ? " cried Rawdon in surprise. 
 
 "Why? Dammy!" said the Captain, ringing his stick on 
 the ground. 
 
 " Damm)'-, indeed," said Mr. Wenham, with the most agree- 
 able smile; " still, look at the matter as a man of the world — as 
 an honest man, and see if you have not been in the wrong. 
 
^^S Vanity Fair 
 
 You come home from a journey, and find — what? — my Lord 
 Stejme supping at your house in Curzon Street with Mrs. 
 Crawley. Is the circumstance strange or novel? Has he not 
 been a hundred times before in the same position? Upon my 
 honour and word as a gentleman " (Mr. Wenham here put his 
 hand on his waistcoat with a parliamentary air) — " I declare I 
 think that your suspicions are monstrous and utterly unfounded^, 
 and that they injure an honourable gentleman who has proved 
 his goodwill towards you by a thousand benefactions — and a 
 most spotless and innocent lady." 
 
 "You don't mean to say that — that Crawley's mistaken? " 
 said Mr. Macmurdo. 
 
 " I believe that Mrs. Crawley is as innocent as my wife, Mrs. 
 Wenham," Mr. Wenham said, with great energy. " 1 believe 
 that, misled by an infernal jealousy, my friend here strikes a 
 blow against not only an infirm and old man of high station, his 
 constant friend and benefactor, but against his wife, his own 
 dearest honour, his son's future reputation, and his own prospect 
 in hfe. 
 
 " I will tell you what happened," Mr. Wenham continued 
 with great solemnity; " I was sent for this morning by my 
 Lord Steyne, and found him in a pitiable state, as, I need hardly 
 inform Colonel Crawle}^, any man of age and infirmity would be 
 after a personal conflict with a man of your strength. I say to 
 your face, it was a cruel advantage you took of that strength. 
 Colonel Crawley. It was not only the body of my noble and 
 excellent friend which was wounded, — his heart, sir, was bleed- 
 ing. A man whom he had loaded with benefits and regarded 
 with affection, had subjected him to the foulest indignity. 
 What was this very appointment, which appears in the journals 
 of to-day, but a proof of his kindness to you ? When I saw his 
 Lordship this morning I found him in a state pitiable indeed to 
 see: and as anxious as you are to revenge the outrage committed 
 upon him, by blood. You know he has given his proofs, I 
 presume, Colonel Crawley." 
 
 " He has plenty of pluck," said the Colonel. " Nobody ever 
 said he hadn't." 
 
 " His first order to me was to write a letter of challenge, and 
 to carry it to Colonel Crawley. One or other of us," he said, 
 " must not survive the outrage of last night." 
 
 Crawley nodded. " You're coming to the point, Wenham," 
 he said. 
 
 ** I tried my utmost to calm Lord Steyne. ' Good God ! sir/ 
 
Sunday After the Battle 559 
 
 I said, ' how I regret that Mrs. Wenham and myself had not 
 accepted Mrs. Crawley's invitation to sup with her! ' " 
 
 ■' She asked you to sup with her? " Captain Macmurdo said. 
 
 " After the Opera. Here's .-the note of invitation — stop — no, 
 this is another paper — I thought I had it, but it's of no conse- 
 quence, and I pledge you my word to the fact. If we had come 
 — and it was only one of Mrs. Wenham's headaches which pre- 
 vented us — she suffers under them a good deal, especially in 
 the spring — if we had come, and you had returned home, there 
 would have been no quarrel, no insult, no suspicion — and so it 
 is positively because my poor wife has a headache that you 
 are to bring death down upon two men of honour, and plunge 
 two of the most excellent and ancient families in the kingdom 
 into disgrace and sorrow." 
 
 Mr. Macmurdo looked at his principal with the air of a man 
 profoundly puzzled : and Rawdon felt with a kind of rage that 
 his prey was escaping him. He did not believe a word of the 
 story, and yet, how discredit or disprove it } 
 
 Mr. Wenham continued with the same fluent oratory, which 
 in his place in Parliament he had so often practised — '' I sate 
 for an hour or more by Lord Steyne's bedside, beseeching, im- 
 ploring Lord Steyne to forego his intention of dem.anding a 
 meeting. I pointed out to him that the circumstances were 
 after all suspicious — they were suspicious. I acknowledge it 
 — any man in your position might have been taken in — I said 
 that a man furious with jealousy is to all intents and purposes a 
 madman, and should be as such regarded — that a duel between 
 you must lead to the disgrace of all parties concerned — that a 
 man of his Lordship's exalted station had no right in these days, 
 when the most atrocious .revolutionary principles, and the 
 most dangerous levelling doctrines are preached among the 
 vulgar, to create a public scandal ; and that, however innocent, 
 the common people would insist that he was guilty. In fine, 
 I implored him not to send the challenge." 
 
 " I don't believe one word of the whole story," said Rawdon, 
 
 grinding his teeth. " I believe it a d lie, and that you're 
 
 in it, Mr. Wenham. If the challenge don't come from him, by 
 Jove, it shall come from me." 
 
 Mr. Wenham turned deadly pale at this savage interruption 
 of the Colonel, and looked towards the door. 
 
 But he found a champion in Captain Macmurdo. That 
 gentleman rose up with an oath, and rebuked Rawdon for his 
 language. " You put the affair into my hands, and you shall 
 
560 Vanity Fair 
 
 act as I think fit, by Jove, and not as you do. You have no 
 right to insult Mr. Wenham with this sort of language; and 
 dammy, Mr. Wenham, you deserve an apology. And as for a 
 challenge to Lord Steyne, you may get somebody else to carry 
 it, I won't. If my Lord, after being thrashed, chooses to sit 
 still, dammy let him. And as for the affair with — v/ith Mrs. 
 Crawley, my belief is, there's nothing proved at all: that your 
 wife's innocent, as innocent as Mr. Wenham says she is: and at 
 
 any rate, that you would be a d fool not to take the place 
 
 and hold your tongue." 
 
 " Captain Macmurdo, you speak like a man of sense," Mr. 
 Wenham cried out, immensely relieved — " I forget any words 
 that Colonel Crawley has used in the irritation of the moment." 
 
 " I thought you would," Rawdon said, with a sneer. 
 
 " Shut your mouth, you old stoopid," the Captain said good- 
 naturedly. ''Mr. Wenham ain't a fighting man; and quite 
 right, too." 
 
 '* This matter, in my belief," the Steyne emissary cried, 
 " ought to be buried in the most profound oblivion. A word 
 concerning it should never pass these doors. I speak in the 
 interest of my friend, as well as of Colonel Crawley, who persists 
 in considering me his enemy." 
 
 " I suppose Lord Steyne won't talk about it very much," 
 said Captain Macmurdo; " and I don't see why our side should. 
 The affair ain't a very pretty one, any way you take it; and the 
 less said about it the better. It's you are thrashed, and not us; 
 and if you are satisfied, why, I think, we should be." 
 
 Mr. Wenham took his hat upon this, and Captain Macmurdo 
 following him to the door, shut it upon himself and Lord Steyne's 
 agent, leaving Rawdon chafing within. When the two were on 
 the other side, Macmurdo looked hard at the other ambassador, 
 and with an expression of anything but respect on his round 
 jolly face. 
 
 " You don-'t stick at a trifle, Mr. Wenham," he said. 
 
 ** You flatter me. Captain Macmurdo," answered the other, 
 with a smile. " Upon my honour and conscience now, Mrs. 
 Crawley did ask us to sup after the Opera." 
 
 " Of course; and Mrs. Wenham had one of her headaches. 
 I say, I've got a thousand-pound note here, which I vvill give 
 you if you will give me a receipt, please; and I will put the 
 note up in an envelope for Lord Steyne. My man shan't fight 
 him. But we had rather not take his money." 
 
 " It was all a mistake, — all a mistake, my dear sir," the other 
 
Sunday After the Battle 561 
 
 said, with the utmost innocence of manner; and was bowed 
 down the Club steps by Captain Macmurdo, just as Sir Pitt 
 Crawley ascended them. There was a slight acquaintance 
 between these two gentlemen; and the Captain, going back 
 with the Baronet to the room where the latter's broiiier was^ 
 told Sir Pitt, in confidence, that he had made the afiair all right 
 between Lord Steyne and the Colonel. 
 
 Sir Pitt was well pleased, of course, at this intelligence; and 
 congratulated his brother warmly upon the peaceful issue of the 
 affair, making appropriate moral remarks upon the evils of 
 duelling, and the unsatisfactory nature of that sort of settle- 
 ment of disputes. 
 
 And after this preface, he tried with all his eloquence to effect 
 a reconciliation between Rawdon and his wife. He recapitu- 
 lated the statements which Becky had made, pointed out the 
 probabilities of their truth, and asserted his own belief in her 
 innocence. 
 
 But Pvav/don would not hear of it. " She has kep money 
 concealed from me these ten years," he said. " She swore, last 
 night only, she had none from Steyne. She knew it was all up, 
 directly I found it. If she's not guilty, Pitt, she's as bad as 
 guilty; and I'll never see her again, — never." His head sank 
 down on his chest as he spoke the words; and he looked quite 
 broken and sad. 
 
 " Poor old boy," Macmurdo said, shaking his head. 
 
 Rav/don Crawley resisted for some time the idea of taking the 
 place which had been procured for him by so odious a patron: 
 and was also for removing the boy from the school where Lord 
 Steyne's interest had placed him. He was induced, however, 
 to acquiesce in these benefits by the entreaties of his brother 
 and Macmurdo: but mainly by the latter pointing out to him 
 what a fury Steyne would be in, to think that his enemy's for- 
 tune was made through his means. 
 
 When the Marquis of Steyne came abroad after his accident, 
 the Colonial Secretary bowed up to him and congratulated him- 
 self and the Service upon having made so excellent an appoint- 
 ment. These congratulations were received with a degree of 
 gratitude which may be imagined on the part of Lord Steyne. 
 
 The secret of the rencontre between him and Colonel Crawley 
 was buried in the profoundest oblivion, as W'enham said ; that 
 is, by the seconds and the principals. But before that evening 
 was over it was talked of at fifty dinner-tables in \'a.nity I'air. 
 Little Crackleby him.self went to seven evening pari) and told 
 
562 Vanity Fair 
 
 the story with comments and emendations at each place. How 
 Mrs. Washington White revelled in it ! The Bishopess of Ealing 
 was shocked beyond expression: the Bishop went and wrote 
 his name down in the visiting-book at Gaunt House that very 
 day. Little Southdown was sorry: so you may be sure was 
 his sister Lady Jane very sorry. Lady Southdown wrote it off 
 to her other daughter at the Cape of Good Hope. It was town- 
 talk for at least three days^ and was only kept out of the news- 
 papers by the exertions of Mr. Wagg, acting upon a hint from 
 Mr. Wenham. 
 
 The bailiffs and brokers seized upon poor Raggles in Curzon 
 Street, and the late fair tenant of that poor little mansion was 
 in the meanwhile — where? Who cared? Who asked after a 
 day or two ? Was she guilty or not ? We all know how charit- 
 able the world is, and how the verdict of Vanity Fair goes when 
 there is a doubt. Some people said she had gone to Naples 
 in pursuit of Lord Steyne; whilst others averred that his Lord- 
 ship quitted that city, and fled to Palermo on hearing of Becky's 
 arrival; some said she was living in Bierstadt; and had become 
 a dame d'honneur to the Queen of Bulgaria ; some that she was 
 at Boulogne; and others, at a boarding-house at Cheltenham. 
 
 Rawdon made her a tolerable annuity; and we may be sure 
 that she was a woman who could make a little money go a 
 great way, as the saying is. He would have paid his debts on 
 leaving England, could he have got any insurance ofhce to take 
 his life; but the climate of Coventry Island was so bad that he 
 could borrow no money on the strength of his salary. He 
 remitted, however, to his brother punctually, and wrote to his 
 little boy regularly every mail. He kept Macmurdo in cigars; 
 and sent over quantities of shells, cayenne pepper, hot pickles, 
 guava jelly, and colonial produce to Lady Jane. He sent his 
 brother home the Swamp Town Gazette, in which the new 
 Governor was praised with immense enthusiasm; whereas the 
 Swamp Town Sentinel, whose wife was not asked to Govern- 
 ment House, declared that His Excellency was a tyrant, com- 
 pared to whom Nero was an enlightened philanthropist. Little 
 Rawdon used to like to get the papers and read about His 
 Excellency. 
 
 His mother never made any movement to see the child. He 
 went home to his aunt for Sundays and holidays ; he soon knew 
 every bird's nest about Queen's Crawley, and rode out with Sir 
 Huddlestone's hounds, which he admired so on his first well- 
 remembered visit to Hampshire. 
 
Georgy is Made a Gentleman 563 
 
 CHAPTER LVI 
 
 GEORGY IS MADE A GENTLEMAN 
 
 George Osborne was now fairly established in his grandfather's 
 mansion in Russell Square: occupant of his father's room in 
 the house, and heir-apparent of all the splendours there. The 
 good looks, gallant bearing, and gentleman-like appearance of 
 the boy won the grandsire's heart for him. Mr. Osborne was 
 as proud of him as ever he had been of the elder George. 
 
 The child had many more luxuries and indulgences than had 
 been awarded to his father. Osborne's commerce had pros- 
 pered greatly of late years. His wealth and importance in the 
 City had very much increased. He had been glad enough in 
 former days to put the elder George to a good private school: 
 and a commission in the army for his son had been a source of 
 no small pride to him : for little George and his future prospects 
 the old man looked much higher. He would make a gentleman 
 of the little chap, was Mr. Osborne's constant saying regarding 
 little Georgy. He saw him in his mind's eye, a collegian, a 
 Parliament man, — a Baronet, perhaps. The old man thought 
 he would die contented if he could see his grandson in a fair 
 way to such honours. He would have none but a tip-top college 
 man to educate him — none of your quacks and pretenders — 
 no, no. A few years before, he used to be savage, and inveigh 
 against all parsons, scholars, and the like, — declaring that they 
 were a pack of humbugs, and quacks, that weren't fit to get 
 their living but by grinding Latin and Greek, and a set of super- 
 cilious dogs, that pretended to look down upon British mer- 
 chants and gentlemen, who could buy up half a hundred of 'em. 
 He would mourn now, in a very solemn manner, that his own 
 education had been neglected, and repeatedly point out, in 
 pomxpous orations to Georgy, the necessity and excellence of 
 classical acquirements. 
 
 ^When they met at dinner the grandsire used to ask the lad 
 what he had been reading during the day, and was greatly 
 interested at the report the boy gave of his own studies; pre- 
 tending to understand little George when he spoke regarding 
 them. He made a hundred blunders, and showed his ignorance 
 many a time. It did not increase the respect which the child 
 had for his senior, A quick brain and a better education else- 
 
564 Vanity Fair 
 
 where showed the boy very soon that his grandsire was a dullard ; 
 and he began accordingly to command him and to look dowTi 
 upon him; for his previous education, humble and contracted 
 as it had been, had made a much better gentleman of Georgy 
 than any plans of his grandfather could make him. He had 
 been brought up by a kind, weak, and tender woman, who had 
 no pride about anything but about him, and whose heart was so 
 pure and whose bearing was so meek and humble, that she could 
 not but needs be a true lady. She busied herself in gentle offices 
 and quiet duties; if she never said brilliant things, she never 
 spoke or thought unkind ones; guileless and artless, loving and 
 pure, indeed how could our poor httle Amelia be other than a 
 real gentlewoman! 
 
 Young Georgy lorded over this soft and yielding nature; and 
 the contrast of its simplicity and delicacy with the coarse 
 pomposity of the dull old man with whom he next came in con- 
 tact, made him lord over the latter too. If he had been a Prince 
 Royal he could not have been better brought up to think well 
 of himself. 
 
 Whilst his mother was yearning after him at home, and I do 
 believe every hour of the day, and during most hours of the sad 
 lonely nights, thinking of him, this young gentleman had a 
 number of pleasures and consolations administered to him, 
 which made him for his part bear the separation from Amelia 
 very easily. Little boys who cry when they are going to school 
 — cry because they are going to a very uncomfortable place. 
 It is only a very few who v/eep from sheer affection. When you 
 think that the eyes of your childhood dried at the sight of a piece 
 of gingerbread, and that a plum-cake was a compensation for 
 the agony of parting with your mamma and sisters; my 
 friend and brother, you need not be too confident of your own 
 fine feelings. 
 
 Well, then. Master George Osborne had every comfort and 
 luxury that a wealthy and lavish old grandfather thought fit to 
 provide. The coachman was instructed to purchase for him 
 the handsomest pony which could be bought for money; and 
 on this George was taught to ride, first at a riding-school, whence 
 after having performed satisfactorily without stirrups, and over 
 the leaping-bar, he was conducted through the New Road to 
 Regent's Park, and then to Hyde Park, where he rode in state 
 with Martin the coachman behind him. Old Osborne, who took 
 matters more easily in the City now, where he left his affairs to 
 his junior partners, would often ride out with Miss 0. in the 
 
Georgy is Made a Gentleman 565 
 
 same fashionable direction. As little Georgy came cantering 
 up with his dandified air, and his heels down, his grandfather 
 would nudge the lad's aunt, and say, " Look, Miss 0." And 
 he would laugh, and his face would grow red with pleasure, as 
 he nodded out of the window to the boy, as the groom saluted 
 the carriage, and the footman saluted Master George. Here 
 too his aunt, Mrs. Frederick Bull ck (whose chariot might daily 
 be seen in the Ring, with bullocks or emblazoned on the panels 
 and harness, and three pasty-faced little Bullocks, covered 
 with cockades and feathers, staring from the windows), — Mrs. 
 Frederick Bullock, I say, flung glances of the bitterest hatred 
 at the little upstart as he rode by with his hand on his side and 
 his hat on one ear, as proud as a lord. 
 
 Though he was scarcely eleven years of age. Master George 
 wore straps, and the most beautiful little boots like a man. He 
 had gilt spurs, and a gold-headed whip, and a fine pin in his 
 handkerchief; and the neatest little kid gloves which Lamb's 
 Conduit Street could furnish. His mother had given him a 
 couple of neckcloths, and carefully hemmed and made some 
 little shirts for him; but when her Samuel came to see the 
 widow, they were replaced by much finer linen. He had little 
 jewelled buttons in the lawn shirt-fronts. Her humble presents 
 had been put aside — I befieve Miss Osborne had given them to 
 the coachman's boy. Amelia tried to think she was pleased at 
 the change. Indeed, she was happy and charmed to see the boy 
 looking so beautiful. 
 
 She had had a little black profile of him done for a shilling; 
 and this was hung up by the side of another portrait over her 
 bed. One day the boy came on his accustomed visit, galloping 
 down the little street at Brompton, and bringing, as usual, all 
 the inhabitants to the windows to admire his splendour, and 
 with great eagerness, and a look of triumph in his face, he pulled 
 a case out of his greatcoat — (it was a natty white greatcoat, 
 with a cape and a velvet collar) — pulled out a red morocco case, 
 which he gave her. 
 
 " I bought it with my own money, mamm.a," he said. " I 
 thought you'd like it." 
 
 Amelia opened the case, and giving a little cry of delighted 
 affection, seized the boy and embraced him a hundred times. 
 It was a miniature of himself, very prettily done (though not 
 half handsome enough, we may be sure, the widow thought). 
 His grandfather had wished to have a picture of him by an 
 artist whose works, exhibited in a shop window in Southampton 
 
566 Vanity Fair 
 
 Row, had caught the old gentleman's eyes; and George, who 
 had plenty of money, bethought him of asking the painter how 
 much a copy of the little portrait would cost, saying that he 
 would pay for it out of his own money, and that he wanted to 
 give it to his mother. The pleased painter executed it for a 
 small price; and old Osborne himself, when he heard of the 
 incident, growled out his satisfaction, and gave the boy twice 
 as many sovereigns as he paid for the miniature. 
 
 But what was the grandfather's pleasure compared to Amelia's 
 ecstasy ? That proof of the boy's affection charmed her so, that 
 she thought no child in the world was like hers for goodness. 
 For long weeks after, the thought of his love made her happy. 
 She slept better with the picture under her pillow; and how 
 many many times did she kiss it, and weep and pray over it! 
 A small kindness from those she loved made that timid heart 
 grateful. Since her parting with George she had had no such 
 joy and consolation. 
 
 At his new home Master George ruled like a lord : at dinner he 
 invited the ladies to drink wine with the utmost coolness, and 
 took off his champagne in a way which charmed his old grand- 
 father. " Look at him," the old man would say, nudging his 
 neighbour, with a delighted purple face, " did you ever see such 
 a chap? Lord, lord! he'll be ordering a dressing-case next, 
 and razors to shave with; I'm blessed if he won't," 
 
 The antics of the lad did not, however, delight Mr. Osborne's 
 friends so much as they pleased the old gentleman. It gave 
 Mr. Justice Coffin no pleasure to hear Georgy cut into the con- 
 versation and spoil his stories. Colonel Fogey was not interested 
 in seeing the little boy half tipsy. Mr. Serjeant Toffy's lady 
 felt no particular gratitude, when, with a twist of his elbow, he 
 tilted a glass of port-wine over her yellow satin, and laughed at 
 the disaster: nor was she better pleased, although old Osborne 
 was highly delighted, when Georgy " whopped " her third boy 
 (a young gentleman a year older than Georgy, and by chance 
 home for the holidays from Dr. Tickleus's at Ealing School) in 
 Russell Square. George's grandfather gave the boy a couple 
 of sovereigns for that feat, and promised to reward him 
 further for every boy above his own size and age whom he 
 whopped in a similar manner. It is difficult to say what good 
 the old man saw in these combats; he had a vague notion that 
 quarrelling made boys hardy, and that tyranny was a useful 
 accomplishment for them to leam. English youth have been so 
 educated time out of mind, and we have hundreds of thousands 
 
Georgy is Made a Gentleman 567 
 
 of apologists and admirers of injustice, misery, and brutality, as 
 perpetrated among children. Flushed with praise and victory 
 over Master Toffy, George wished naturally to pursue his 
 conquests further, and one day as he was strutting about in 
 prodigiously dandified new clothes, near St. Pancras, and a young 
 baker's boy made sarcastic comments upon his appearance, the 
 youthful patrician pulled off his dandy jacket with great spirit, 
 and giving it in charge to the friend who accompanied him 
 (Master Todd, of Great Coram Street, Russell Square, son of 
 the junior partner of the house of Osborne & Co.)— -George tried 
 to whop the little baker. But the chances of war were unfavour- 
 able this time, and the little baker whopped Georgy: who came 
 home with a rueful black eye and all his fine shirt-frill dabbled 
 with the claret drawn from his own little nose. He told his 
 grandfather that he had been in combat with a giant; and 
 frightened his poor mother at Brompton with long, and by no 
 means authentic, accounts of the battle. 
 
 This young Todd, of Coram Street, Russell Square, was 
 Master George's great friend and admirer. They both had a 
 taste for painting theatrical characters; for hardbake and 
 raspberry tarts; for sliding and skating in the Regent's Park 
 and the Serpentine, when the weather permitted; for going to 
 the play, whither they were often conducted by Mr. Osborne's 
 orders, by Rowson, Master George's appointed body-servant; 
 with whom they sate in great comfort in the pit. 
 
 In the company of this gentleman they visited all the principal 
 theatres of the metropolis — knew the names of all the actors 
 from Drury Lane to Sadler's Wells; and performed, indeed, 
 many of the plays to the Todd family, and their youthful friends, 
 with West's famous characters, on their pasteboard theatre. 
 Rowson, the footman, who was of a generous disposition, would 
 not unfrequently, when in cash, treat his young master to 
 oysters after the play, and to a glass of rum-shrub for a night- 
 cap. We may be pretty certain that Mr. Rowson profited in his 
 turn by his young master's liberality and gratitude for the 
 pleasures to which the footman inducted him. 
 
 A famous tailor from the West End of the town — Mr. Osborne 
 would have none of your City or Holborn bunglers, he said, for 
 the boy (though a City tailor was good enough for him), — was 
 summoned to ornament little George's person, and was told to 
 spare no expense in so doing. So, Mr. Woolsey, of Conduit 
 Street, gave a loose to his imagination, and sent the child home 
 fancy trousers, fancy waistcoats, and fancy jackets enough to 
 
568 Vanity Fair 
 
 furnish a school of little dandies. Georgy had little white 
 waistcoats for evening parties, and little cut velvet waistcoats 
 for dinners, and a dear httle darling shawl dressing-gown, for all 
 the world like a little man. He dressed for dinner every day_, 
 " like a regular West End swell," as his grandfather remarked; 
 one of the domestics was affected to his special service, attended 
 him at his toilette, answered his bell, and brought him his 
 letters always on a silver tray. 
 
 Georgy, after breakfast, would sit in the armchair in the 
 dining-room, and read the Morning Post, just like a grown-up 
 man. " How he du dam and swear," the servants would 
 cry, deligiited at his precocity. Those who remembered the 
 Capta n his father, declared Master George was his Pa every 
 inch of him. He made the house lively by his activity, 
 his imperiousness, his scolding, and his good-nature. 
 
 George's education was confided to a neighbouring scholar 
 and private pedagogue who " prepared young noblemen and 
 gentlemen for the Universities, the senate, and the learned pro- 
 fessions : whose system did not embrace the degrading corporal 
 severities still practised at the ancient places of education, and 
 in whose family the pupils would find the elegances of refined 
 society and the confidence and affection of a home." It was in 
 this way that the Reverend Lawrence Veal of Hart Street, 
 Bloomsbury, and Domestic Chaplain to the Earl of Bareacres, 
 strove with Mrs. Veal his wife to entice pupils. 
 
 By thus advertising and pushing sedulousl)'', the Domestic 
 Chaplain and his Lady generally succeeded in having one or 
 two scholars by them : who paid a high figure : and were thought 
 to be in uncommonly comfortable quarters. There was a large 
 West Indian, whom nobody came to see, with a mahogany com- 
 plexion, a woolly head, and an exceedingly dandified appear- 
 ance; there was another hulking boy of three-and-twenty whose 
 education had been neglected, and whom Mr. and Mrs. Veal 
 were to introduce into the polite world: there were two sons of 
 Colonel Bangles of the East India Company's Service: these 
 four sate down to dinner at Mrs. Veal's genteel board, when 
 Georgy was introduced to her establishment. 
 
 Georgy was, like some dozen other pupils, only a day boy; 
 he arrived in the morning under the guardianship of his friend 
 Mr. Rowson, and if it was fine, would ride away in the afternoon 
 on his pony, followed by the groom. The wealth of his grand- 
 father was reported in the school to be prodigious. The Rev. Mr. 
 Veal used to compliment Georgy upon it personally, warning 
 
Georgy is Made a Gentleman 569 
 
 him that he was destined for a high station; that it became him 
 to prepare, by seduHty and docility in youth, for the lofty duties 
 to which he would be called in mature age; that obedience in 
 the child was the best preparation for command in the man; 
 and that he therefore begged George would not bring toffy into 
 the school, and ruin the health of the Masters Bangles, who had 
 everything they wanted at the elegant and abundant table of 
 Mrs. Veal. 
 
 With respect to learning, " the Curriculum," as Mr. Veal 
 loved to call it, was of prodigious extent: and the young gentle- 
 men in Hart Street might learn a something of every known 
 science. The Rev. Mr. Veal had an orrery, an electrifying 
 machine, a turning-lathe, a theatre (in the wash-house), a 
 chemical apparatus, and Mdiat he called a select library of all 
 the works of the best authors of ancient and modem times and 
 languages. He took the boys to the British Museum, and 
 descanted upon the antiquities and the specimens of natural 
 history there, so that audiences would gather round him as he 
 spoke, and all Bloomsbury highly admired him as a prodigiously 
 well-informed man. And whenever he spoke (which he did 
 almost always), he took care to produce the very finest and 
 longest words of which the vocabulary gave him the use; 
 rightly judging, that it was as cheap to employ a handsome, 
 large, and sonorous epithet, as to use a little stingy one. 
 
 Thus he would say to George in school, " I observed on my 
 return home from taking the indulgence of an evening's scientific 
 conversation with my excellent friend Doctor Bulders — a true 
 archaeologian, gentlemen, a true archseologian — that the 
 windows of your venerated grandfather's almost princely 
 mansion in Russell Square were illuminated as if for the pur- 
 poses of festivity. Am I right in my conjecture, that Mr. 
 Osborne entertained a society of chosen spirits round his sump- 
 tuous board last night? " 
 
 Little Georgy, who had considerable humour, and used to 
 mimic Mr. Veal to his face with great spirit and dexterity, 
 would reply, that Mr. V. was quite correct in his surmise. 
 
 " Then those friends who had the honour of partaking of Mr. 
 Osborne's hospitality, gentlemen, had no reason, I will lay any 
 wager, to complain of their repast. I myself have been more 
 than once so favoured. (By the way. Master Osborne, you 
 came a little late this morning, and have been a defaulter in this 
 respect more than once.) I myself, I say, gentlemen, humble 
 as I am, have been found not unworthy to share Mr. Osborne's 
 
570 Vanity Fair 
 
 elegant hospitality. And though I have feasted with the great 
 and noble of the world — for I presume that I may call my 
 excellent friend and patron, the Right Honourable George, Earl 
 of Bareacres, one of the number — yet I assure you that the 
 board of the British merchant was to the full as richly served, 
 and his reception as gratifying and noble. Mr. Bluck, sir, we 
 will resume, if you please, that passage of Eutropius, which 
 was interrupted by the late arrival of Master Osborne." 
 
 To this great man George's education was for some time in- 
 trusted. Amelia was bewildered by his phrases, but thought 
 him a prodigy of learning. That poor widow made friends of 
 Mrs. Veal, for reasons of her own. She liked to be in the house^ 
 and see Georgy coming to school there. She liked to be asked 
 to Mrs. Veal's conversazioni, which took place once a month (as 
 you were informed on pink cards, with A6HNH engraved on 
 them), and where the professor welcomed his pupils and their 
 friends to weak tea and scientific conversation. Poor little 
 Amelia never missed one of these entertainments, and thought 
 them delicious so long as she might have Georgy sitting by her. 
 And she would walk from Brompton in any weather, and embrace 
 Mrs. Veal with tearful gratitude for the delightful evening she 
 had passed, when, the company having retired and Georgy gone 
 off with Mr. Rowson, his attendant, poor Mrs. Osborne put on 
 her cloaks and her shawls preparatory to walking home. 
 
 As for the learning which Georgy imbibed under this valuable 
 master of a hundred sciences, to judge from the weekly reports 
 which the lad took home to his grandfather, his progress was 
 remarkable. The names of a score or more of desirable branches 
 of knowledge were printed in a table, and the pupil's progress 
 in each was marked by the professor. In Greek Georgy was 
 pronounced aristos, in Latin optimus, in French tres bien, and 
 so forth; and everybody had prizes for everything at the end 
 of the year. Even Mr. Swartz, the woolly-headed young 
 gentleman, and half-brother to the Honourable Mrs. MacMuli, 
 and Mr. Bluck, the neglected young pupil of three-and-twenty 
 from the agricultural districts, and that idle young scapegrace 
 of a Master Todd before mentioned, received little eighteen- 
 penny books, with " Athene " engraved on them, and a pompous 
 Latin inscription from the professor to his young friends. 
 
 The family of this Master Todd were hangers-on of the house 
 of Osborne. The old gentleman had advanced Todd from being 
 a clerk to be a junior partner in his establishment. 
 
 Mr, Osborne was the godfather of young Master Todd (who 
 
Georgy is Made a Gentleman 571 
 
 in subsequent life wrote Mr. Osborne Todd on his cards, and 
 became a man of decided fashion), while Miss Osborne had 
 accompanied Miss Maria Todd to the font, and gave her protegee 
 a prayer-book, a collection of tracts, a volume of very Low 
 Church poetry, or some such memento of her goodness, every 
 year. Miss 0. drove the Todds out in her carriage now and 
 then: when they were ill, her footman, in large plush smalls 
 and waistcoat, brought jellies and delicacies from Russell Square 
 to Coram Street. Coram Street trembled and looked up to 
 Russell Square indeed ; and Mrs. Todd, who had a pretty hand 
 at cutting out paper trimmings for haunches of mutton, and 
 could make flowers, ducks, etc., out of turnips and carrots in a 
 very creditable manner, would go to '* the Square," as it was 
 called, and assist in the preparations incident to a great dinner, 
 without even so much as thinking of sitting down to the banquet. 
 If any guest failed at the eleventh hour, Todd was asked to dine. 
 Mrs. Todd and Maria came across in the evening, slipped in with 
 a muffled knock, and were in the drawing-room by the time 
 Miss Osborne and the ladies under her convoy reached that 
 apartment; and ready to fire off duets and sing until the gentle- 
 men came up. Poor Maria Todd; poor young lady! How 
 she had to work and thrum at these duets and sonatas in the 
 Street, before they appeared in public in the Square ! 
 
 Thus it seemed to be decreed by fate, that Georgy was to 
 domineer over everybody with whom he came in contact, and 
 that friends, relatives, and domestics were all to bow the knee 
 before the little fellow. It must be owned that he accom- 
 modated himself very willingly to this arrangement. Most 
 people do so. And Georgy Hked to play the part of master, 
 and perhaps had a natural aptitude for it. 
 
 In Russell Square everybody was afraid of Mr. Osborne, and 
 Mr. Osborne was afraid of Georgy. The boy's dashing manners, 
 and offhand rattle about books and learning, his likeness to his 
 father (dead unreconciled in Brussels yonder), awed the old 
 gentleman, and gave the young boy the mastery. The old man 
 would start at some hereditary feature or tone unconsciously 
 used by the little lad, and fancy that George's father was again 
 before him. He tried by indulgence to the grandson to make 
 up for harshness to the elder George. People were surprised 
 at his gentleness to the boy. He growled and swore at Miss 
 Osborne as usual: and would smile when George came down 
 late for breakfast. 
 
 Miss Osborne, George's aunt, was a faded old spinster, broken 
 
572 Vanity Fair 
 
 down by more than forty years of dulness and coarse usage. It 
 was easy for a lad of spirit to master her. And wiienever George 
 wanted anything from her^ from tiie jam-pots in her cupboards, 
 to the cracked and dry old colours in her paint-box (the old 
 paint-box which she had had when she was a pupil of Mr. Smee, 
 and was still almost young and blooming), Georgy took pos- 
 session of the object of his desire, which obtained he took no 
 further notice of his aunt. 
 
 For his friends and cronies, he had a pompous old school- 
 master, who flattered him, and a toady, his senior, whom he 
 could thrash. It was dear Mrs. Todd's delight to leave him 
 with her youngest daughter, Rosa Jemima, a darling child of 
 eight years old. The little pair looked so well together, she 
 would say (but not to the folks in " the Square," we may be 
 sure), — " Who knows what might happen? Don't they make 
 a pretty little couple? " the fond mother thought. 
 
 The broken-spirited old maternal grandfather was likewise 
 subject to the little tyrant. He could not help respecting a 
 lad who had such fine clothes, and rode with a groom behind 
 him. Georgy, on his side, was in the constant habit of hearing 
 coarse abuse and vulgar satire levelled at John Sedley, by his 
 pitiless old enemy, Mr. Osborne. Osborne used to call the other 
 the old pauper, the old coal-man, the old bankrupt, and by 
 many other such names of brutal contumely. How was little 
 George to respect a man so prostrate ? A few months after he 
 was with his paternal grandfather, Mrs. Sedley died. There 
 had been little love between her and the child. He did not care 
 to show much grief. He came down to visit his mother in a 
 fine new suit of mourning, and was very angry that he could 
 not go to a play upon which he had set his heart. 
 
 The illness of that old lady had been the occupation and 
 perhaps the safeguard of Amelia. What do men know about 
 women's martyrdoms? We should go mad had we to endure 
 the hundredth part of those daily pains which are meekly borne 
 by many women. Ceaseless slavery meeting with no reward; 
 constant gentleness and kindness met by cruelty as constant; 
 love, labour, patience, v/atchfulness, without even so much as 
 the acknowledgment of a good word; all this, how many of 
 them have to bear in quiet, and appear abroad with cheerful 
 faces as if they felt nothing. Tender slaves that they are, they 
 must needs be hypocrites and weak. 
 
 From her chair Amelia's mother had taken to her bed, which 
 she had never left: and from which Mrs. Osborne herself was 
 
Georgy is Made a Gentleman 573 
 
 never absent except when she ran to see George. The old lady 
 grudged her even those rare visits; she, who had been a kind, 
 smiling, good-natured mother once, in the days of her prosperity, 
 but whom poverty and infirmities had broken down. Her ill- 
 ness or estrangement did not affect Amelia. They rather 
 enabled her to support the other calamity under which she was 
 suffering, and from the thoughts of which she was kept by the 
 ceaseless calls of the invalid. Amelia bore her harshness quite 
 gently; smoothed the uneasy pillow; was always ready with a 
 soft answer to the watchful, querulous voice: soothed the 
 sufferer with words of hope, such as her pious simple heart 
 could best feel and utter, and closed the eyes that had once 
 looked so tenderly upon her. 
 
 Then all her time and tenderness were devoted to the con- 
 solation and comfort of the bereaved old father, who was stunned 
 by the blow which had befallen him and stood utterly alone in 
 the world. His wife, his honour, his fortune, everything he 
 loved best had fallen away from him. There v/as only Amelia 
 to stand by and support with her gentle arms the tottering, 
 heart-broken old man. We are not going to write the history: 
 it would be too dreary and stupid. I can see Vanity Fair 
 yawning over it d'avance. 
 
 One day as the j'-oung gentlemen were assembled in the study 
 at the Rev. Mr. Veal's, and the domestic chaplain to the Right 
 Honourable the Earl of Bareacres was spouting away as usual 
 — a smart carriage drove up to the door decorated with the 
 statue of Athene, and two gentlemen stepped out. The young 
 Masters Bangles rushed to the window, with a vague notion 
 that their father might have arrived from Bombay. The great 
 hulking scholar of three-and-twenty, who was crying secretly 
 over a passage of Eutropius, flattened his neglected nose against 
 the panes, and looked at the drag, as the laquais de place sprang 
 from the box and let out the persons in the carriage. 
 
 " It's a fat one and a thin one," Mr. Bluck said, as a thunder- 
 ing knock came to the door. 
 
 Everybody was interested, from the domestic chaplain him- 
 self, who hoped he saw the fathers of some future pupils, down 
 to Master Georgy, glad of any pretext for laying his book down. 
 
 The boy in the shabby livery, with the faded copper buttons, 
 who always thrust himself into the tight coat to open the door, 
 came into the study and said, "Two gentlemen want to see 
 Master Osborne," The professor had had a trifling altercation 
 
574 Vanity Fair 
 
 in the morning with that young gentleman, owing to a differ- 
 ence about the introduction of crackers in school-time; but his 
 face resumed its habitual expression of bland courtesy, as he 
 said, " Master Osborne, I give you full permission to go and see 
 your carriage friends, — to whom I beg you to convey the respect- 
 ful compliments of myself and Mrs. Veal." 
 
 Georgy went into the reception-room, and saw two strangers, 
 whom he looked at with his head up, in his usual haughty 
 manner. One was fat, with mustachios, and the other was 
 lean and long, in a blue frock-coat, with a brown face, and a 
 grizzled head. 
 
 " My God, how like he is ! " said the long gentleman, with a 
 start. " Can you guess who we are, George? " 
 
 The boy's face flushed up, as it did usually when he was 
 
 moved, and his eyes brightened. " I don't know the other," 
 
 «he said, " but I should think you must be Major Dobbin." 
 
 0^ _Iijd££d-_iL-Wasour old_J[nend^ His voice trembled with 
 
 ^ pleasure as he greeteS the boy, and taking both the other's 
 
 hands in his own, drew the lad to him. 
 
 ^' Your mother has talked to you about me — has she? " he 
 said. 
 
 " That she has," Georgy answered, " hundreds and hundreds 
 of times." 
 
 CHAPTER LVII 
 
 EOTHEN 
 
 It was one of the many causes for personal pride with which 
 old Osborne chose to recreate himself, that Sedley, his ancient 
 rival, enemy, and benefactor, was in his last days so utterly 
 defeated and humiliated, as to be forced to accept pecuniary 
 obligations at the hands of the man who had most injured and 
 insulted him. The successful man of the world cursed the old 
 pauper, and relieved him from time to time. As he furnished 
 George with money for his mother, he gave the boy to under- 
 stand by hints, delivered in his brutal, coarse way, that George's 
 maternal grandfather was but a wretched old bankrupt and 
 dependant, and that John Sedley might thank the man to 
 whom he already owed ever so much money, for the aid which 
 his generosity now chose to administer, George carried the 
 
Eothen 575 
 
 pompous supplies to his mother and the shattered old widower 
 whom it was now the main business of her life to tend and 
 comfort. The little fellow patronised the feeble and dis- 
 appointed old man. 
 
 It may have shown a want of " proper pride " in Amelia that 
 she chose to accept these money benefits at the hands of her 
 father's enemy. But proper pride and this poor lady had never 
 had much acquaintance together. A disposition naturally 
 simple and demanding protection ; a long course of poverty and 
 humility, of daily privations and hard words, of kind offices and 
 no returns, had been her lot ever since womanhood alm.ost, or 
 since her luckless marriage with George Osborne. You who see 
 your betters bearing up under this shame every day, meekly 
 suffering under the slights of fortune, gentle and unpitied, poor, 
 and rather despised for their poverty, do you ever step down 
 from your prosperity, and wash the feet of these poor wearied 
 beggars } The very thought of them is odious and low. " There 
 must be classes — there must be rich and poor," Dives says, 
 smacking his claret — (it is well if he even sends the broken meat 
 out to Lazarus sitting under the window). Very true; but 
 think how mysterious and often unaccountable it is — that 
 lottery of life which gives to this man the purple and fine linen, 
 and sends to the other rags for garments and dogs for com* 
 forters. 
 
 So I must own, that without much repining, on the contrary 
 with something akin to gratitude, Amelia took the crumbs that 
 her father-in-law let drop now and then, and with them fed her 
 own parent. Directly she understood it to be her duty, it was this 
 young woman's nature (ladies, she is but thirty still, and we 
 choose to call her a young woman even at that age) — it was, I 
 say, her nature to sacrifice herself and to fling all that she had at 
 the feet of the beloved object. During what long thankless 
 nights had she worked out her fingers for little Georgy whilst at 
 home with her; what buffets, scorns, privations, poverties had 
 she endured for father and mother! And in the midst of all 
 these solitary resignations and unseen sacrifices, she did not 
 respect herself any more than the world respected her; but I 
 believe thought in her heart that she was a poor-spirited, 
 despicable little creature, whose luck in fife was only too good 
 for her merits. you poor women ! O you poor secret mart^TS 
 and victims, whose life is a torture, who are stretched on racks 
 in your bedrooms, and who lay your heads down on the block 
 daily at the drawing-room table; every man who watches your 
 
57^ Vanity Fair 
 
 pains, or peers into those dark places where the torture is ad- 
 ministered to you, must pity you — and — and thank God that 
 he has a beard. I recollect seeing, years ago, at the prisons for 
 idiots and madmen at Bicetre, near Paris, a poor wretch bent 
 down under the bondage of his imprisonment and his personal 
 infirmity, to whom one of our party gave a halfpennyworth of 
 snuff in a cornet or " screw "of paper. The kindness was too 
 much for the poor epileptic creature. He cried in an anguish of 
 delight and gratitude: if anybody gave you and me a thousand 
 a year, or saved our lives, we could not be so affected, and so, 
 if you properly tyrannise over a woman, you will find a half- 
 p'orth of kindness act upon her, and bring tears into her eyes, 
 as though you were an angel benefiting her. 
 
 Some such boons as these were the best which Fortune 
 allotted to poor Httle Amelia. Her life, begun not unpros- 
 perously, had come down to this — to a mean prison and a long, 
 ignoble bondage. Little George visited her captivity some- 
 times, and consoled it with feeble gleams of encouragement. 
 Russell Square was the boundary of her prison : she might walk 
 thither occasionally, but was always back to sleep in her cell 
 at night; to perform cheerless duties: to watch by thankless 
 sick-beds; to suffer the harassment and tyranny of querulous 
 disappointed old age. How many thousands of people are 
 there, women for the most part, who are doomed to endure this 
 long slavery? — who are hospital nurses without wages,— sisters 
 of Charity, if you like, without the romance and the sentiment 
 of sacrifice, — who strive, fast, watch, and suffer, unpitied; and 
 fade away ignobly and unknown. 
 
 The hidden and awful Wisdom which apportions the destinies 
 of mankind is pleased so to humiliate and cast down the tender, 
 good, and wise; and to set up the selfish, or foolish, or the 
 wicked. Oh, be humble, my brother, in your prosperity! Be 
 gentle with those who are less lucky, if not more deserving. 
 Think, what right have you to be scornful, whose virtue is a 
 deficiency of temptation, whose success may be a chance, whose 
 rank may be an ancestor's accident, whose prosperity is very- 
 likely a satire. 
 
 They buried Amelia's mother in the churchyard at Brompton; 
 upon just such a rainy, dark day, as Amelia recollected when first 
 she had been there to marry George. Her httle boy sate by her 
 side in pompous new sables. She remembered the old pew- 
 woman and clerk. Her thoughts were away in other times as 
 
Eothen 577 
 
 the parson read. But that she held George's hand in her own, 
 perhaps she would have liked to change places with . . . 
 Then, as usual, she felt ashamed of her selfish thoughts, and 
 prayed inwardly to be strengthened to do her duty. 
 
 So she determined with all her might and strength to try and 
 make her old father happy. She slaved, toiled, patched, and 
 mended, sang and played backgammon, read out the newspaper, 
 cooked dishes, for old Sedley, walked him out sedulously into 
 Kensington Gardens or the Broinpton Lanes, listened to his 
 stories with untiring smiles and affectionate hypocrisy, or sate 
 musing by his side and communing with her own thoughts 
 and reminiscences, as the old man, feeble and querulous, sunned 
 himself on the garden benches and prattled about his wrongs or 
 his sorrows. What sad, unsatisfactory thoughts those of the 
 widow were 1 The children running up and down the slopes and 
 broad paths in the gardens, reminded her of George who was 
 taken from her: the first George was taken from her : her selfish 
 guilty love, in both instances, had been rebuked and bitterly 
 chastised. She strove to think it was right that she should be 
 so punished. She was such a miserable wicked sinner. She 
 was quite alone in the world. 
 
 I know that the account of this kind of solitary imprisonment 
 is insufferably tedious, unless there is some cheerful or humor- 
 ous incident to enhven it, — a tender gaoler, for instance, or a 
 waggish commandant of the fortress, or a mouse to come out 
 and play about Latude's beard and whiskers, or a subterranean 
 passage under the castle, dug by Trenck with his nails and a 
 toothpick: the historian has no sucii enlivening incident to 
 relate in the narrative of Amelia's captivity. Fancy her, if you 
 please, during this period, very sad, but always ready to smile 
 when spoken to ; in a very mean, poor, not to say vulgar position 
 of hfe; singing songs, making puddings, playing cards, mending 
 stockings, for her old father's benefit. So, never mind, whether 
 she be a heroine or no; or you and I, however old, scolding and 
 bankrupt; — may we have in our last days a kind soft shoulder 
 on which to lean, and a gentle hand to soothe our gouty old 
 pillows. 
 
 Old Sedley grew very fond of his daughter after his wife's 
 death; and Amelia had her consolation in doing her duty by 
 the old man. 
 
 But we are not going to leave these two people long in such 
 a low and ungenteel station of life. Better days, as far as 
 worldly prosperity went, were in store for both. Perhaps the 
 
578 Vanity Fair 
 
 ingenious reader lias guessed who was the stout gentleman who 
 called upon George at his school in company with our old friend 
 Major Dobbin. It was another old acquaintance returned to 
 England, and at a time when his presence was likely to be of 
 great comfort to his relatives there. 
 
 Major Dobbin having easily succeeded in getting leave from 
 his good-natured commandant to proceed to Madras, and thence 
 probably to Europe, on urgent private affairs, never ceased 
 travelling night and day until he reached his journey's end, and 
 had directed his march with such celerity, that he arrived at 
 Madras in a high fever. His servants who accompanied him 
 brought him to the house of the friend with whom he had 
 resolved to stay until his departure for Europe in a state of 
 delirium : and it was thought for many, many days that he would 
 never travel farther than the bur5-ing-ground of the church of 
 St. George's, where the troops should fire a salvo over his grave^ 
 and where many a gallant officer lies far away from his home. 
 
 Here, as the poor fellow lay tossing in his fever, the people 
 who watched him might have heard him raving about Amelia. 
 The idea that he should never see her again depressed him in his 
 lucid hours. He thought his last day was come; and he made 
 his solemn preparations for departure: setting his affairs in this 
 world in order, and leaving the little property of which he was 
 possessed to those whom he most desired to benefit. The 
 friend in whose house he was located witnessed his testament. 
 He desired to be buried with a little brown hair-chain which 
 he wore round his neck, and which, if the truth must be known, 
 he bad got from Amelia's maid at Brussels, when the young 
 widow's hair was cut off, during the fever which prostrated her 
 after the death of George Osborne on the plateau of Mount St. 
 John. 
 
 He recovered, rallied, relapsed again, having undergone such 
 a process of blood-letting and calomel as showed the strength 
 of his original constitution. He was almost a skeleton when 
 they put him on board the Ramchunder East Indiaman, Cap- 
 tain Bragg, from Calcutta, touching at Madras; and so weak 
 and prostrate, that his friend who had tended him through his 
 illness, prophesied that the honest Major would never survive 
 the voyage, and that he would pass some morning, shrouded 
 in flag and hammock, over the ship's side, and carrying down 
 to the sea with him the relic that he wore at his heart. But 
 whether it was the sea air, or the hope which sprung up in him 
 afresh, from the day that the ship spread her canvas and stood 
 
Eothen 579 
 
 out of the roads towards home, our friend began to amend, and 
 he was quite well (though as gaunt as a greyhound) before they 
 reached the Cape. " Kirk will be disappointed of his majority 
 this time," he said, with a smile; " he will expect to find him- 
 self gazetted by the time the regiment reaches home." For it 
 must be premised that while the Major was lying ill at Madras, 
 having made such prodigious haste to go thither, the gallant 
 — th, which had passed many years abroad, which after its 
 return from the West Indies had been baulked of its stay at 
 home by the Waterloo campaign, and had been ordered from 
 Flanders to India, had received orders home; and the Major 
 might have accompanied his comrades, had he chosen to wait 
 for their arrival at Madras. 
 
 Perhaps he was not inclined to put himself in his exhausted 
 state again under the guardianship of Glorvina. " I think Miss 
 O'Dowd would have done for me," he said laughingly, to a 
 feUow-passenger, " if we had had her on board, and when she 
 had sunk me, she would have fallen upon you, depend upon it^ 
 and carried you in as a prize to Southampton, Jos, my boy." 
 
 For indeed it was no other than our stout friend who was also 
 a passenger on board the Ramchunder. He had passed ten 
 years in Bengal. Constant dinners, tiffins, pale ale and claret^ 
 the prodigious labour of cutcherry, and the refreshment of 
 brandy-pawnee which he was forced to take there, had their 
 effect upon Waterloo Sedley. A voyage to Europe was pro- 
 nounced necessary for him — and having served his full time in 
 India, and had fine appointments, which had enabled him to 
 lay by a considerable sum of money, he was free to come home 
 and stay with a good pension, or to return and resume that 
 rank in the service to which his seniority and his vas.t talents 
 entitled him. 
 
 He was rather thinner than when we last saw him, but had 
 gained in majesty and solemnity of demeanour. He had 
 resumed the mustachios to which his services at Waterloo 
 entitled him, and swaggered about on deck in a magnificent 
 velvet cap with a gold band, and a profuse ornamentation of 
 pins and jewellery about his person. He took breakfast in his 
 cabin, and dressed as solemnly to appear on the quarter-deck, 
 as if he were going to turn out for Bond Street, or the Course 
 at Calcutta. He brought a native servant with him, who was 
 his valet and pipe-bearer; and who wore the Sedley crest in 
 silver on his turban. That Oriental menial had a wretched life 
 under the tyranny of Jos Sedley, Jos was as vain of his person 
 
580 Vanity Fair 
 
 as a woman, and took as long a time at his toilette as any fading 
 beauty. The youngsters among the passengers, young Chaffers 
 of the 150th, and poor little Ricketts, coming home after his 
 third fever, used to draw out Sedley at the cuddy-table, and 
 make him tell prodigious stories about himself and his exploits 
 against tigers and Napoleon. He was great when he visited 
 the Emperor's tomb at Longwood, when to these gentlemen 
 and the young officers of the ship, Major Dobbin not being by, 
 he described the whole battle of Waterloo, and all but an- 
 nounced that Napoleon never would have gone to St. Helena 
 at all but for him, Jos Sedley. 
 
 After leaving St. Helena he became very generous, disposing 
 of a great quantity of ship stores, claret, preserved meats, and 
 great casks packed with soda-water, brought out for his private 
 delectation. There were no ladies on board: the Major gave 
 the pas of precedency to the civilian, so that he was the first 
 dignitary at table; and treated by Captain Bragg, and the 
 officers of the Ramchunder, with the respect which his rank 
 warranted. He disappeared rather in a panic during a two- 
 days' gale, in which he had the port-holes of his cabin battened 
 down; and remained in his cot reading the " Washerwoman of 
 Finchley Common," left on board the Ramchunder by the 
 Right Honourable the Lady Emily Hornblower, wife of the 
 Rev. Silas Hornblower, when on their passage out to the Cape, 
 where the reverend gentleman was a missionary: but, for 
 common reading, he had brought a stock of novels and plays 
 which he lent to the rest of the ship, and rendered himself 
 agreeable to all by his kindness and condescension. 
 
 Many and many a night, as the ship was cutting through 
 the roaring dark sea, the moon and stars shining overhead, and 
 the bell singing out the watch, Mr. Sedley and the Major would 
 sit on the quarter-deck of the vessel talking about home, as the 
 Major smoked his cheroot, and the civilian puffed at the hookah 
 which his servant prepared for him. 
 
 In these conversations it was wonderful with what persever- 
 ance and ingenuity Major Dobbin would manage to bring the 
 talk round to the subject of Amelia and her little bo)^ Jos, a 
 little testy about his father's misfortunes and unceremonious 
 appHcations to him, was soothed down by the Major, who 
 pointed out the elder's ill fortunes and old age. He would not 
 perhaps like to live with the old couple: whose ways and hours 
 might not agree with those of a younger man, accustomed to 
 different society (Jos bowed at this compliment): but, the 
 
Eothen 581 
 
 Major pointed out, how advantageous it would be for Jos Sedley 
 to have a house of his own in London, and not a mere bachelor's 
 establishment as before: how his sister Amelia would be the 
 very person to preside over it; how elegant, how gentle she was, 
 and of what refined good manners. He recounted stories of the 
 success which Mrs. George Osborne had had in former days at 
 Brussels, and in London, where she was much admired by people 
 of very great fashion: and he then hinted how becoming it 
 would be for Jos to send Georgy to a good school and make a 
 man of him; for his mother and her parents would be sure to 
 spoil him. In a word, this artful Major made the civilian 
 promise to take care of Amelia and her unprotected child. 
 He did not know as yet what events had happened in the little 
 Sedley family: and how death had removed the mother, and 
 riches had carried off George from Amelia. But the fact is, 
 that every day and always, this love-smitten and middle-aged 
 gentleman was thinking about Mrs. Osborne, and his whole 
 heart was bent upon doing her good. He coaxed, wheedled, 
 cajoled, and complimented Jos Sedley with a perseverance and 
 cordiality of which he was not aware himself, very likely; but 
 some men who have unmarried sisters or daughters even, may 
 remember how uncommonly agreeable gentlemen are to the 
 male relations when they are courting the females; and per- 
 haps this rogue of a Dobbin was urged by a similar hypocrisy. 
 
 The truth is, when Major Dobbin came on board the Ram- 
 chunder, very sick, and for the three days she lay in the Madras 
 Roads, he did not begin to rally, nor did even the appearance 
 and recognition of his old acquaintance, Mr. Sedley, on board 
 much cheer him, until after a conversation which they had one 
 day, as the Major was laid languidly on the deck. He said then 
 he thought he was doomed; he had left a httle something to 
 his godson in his will; and he trusted Mrs. Osborne would 
 remember him kindly, and be happy in the marriage she was 
 about to make. "Married? not the least," Jos answered: 
 " he had heard from her: she made no mention of the marriage, 
 and by the way, it was curious, she wrote to say that Major 
 Dobbin was going to be married, and hoped that he would be 
 happy." What were the dates of Sedley's letters to Europe? 
 The civilian fetched them. They were two months later than 
 the Major's ; and the ship's surgeon congratulated himself upon 
 the treatment adopted by him towards his new patient, who 
 had been consigned to shipboard by the Madras practitioner 
 with very small hopes indeed; for, from that day, the very day 
 
582 Vanity Fair 
 
 that he changed the draught, Major Dobbin began to mend. 
 And thus it was that deserving officer, Captain Kirk, was dis- 
 appointed of his majority. 
 
 After they passed St. Helena, Major Dobbin's gaiety and 
 strength was such as to astonish all his fellow-passengers. He 
 larked with the midshipmen, played single-stick with the mates, 
 ran up the shrouds like a boy, sang a comic song one night to 
 the amusement of the whole party assembled over their grog 
 after supper, and rendered himself so gay, hvely, and amiable, 
 that even Captain Bragg, who thought there was nothing in his 
 passenger, and considered he was a poor-spirited feller at first, 
 was constrained to own that the Major was a reserved but 
 well-informed and meritorious officer. " He ain't got distangy 
 manners, dammy," Bragg observed to his first mate; "he 
 wouldn't do at Government House, Roper, where his Lordship 
 and Lady William was as kind to me, and shook hands with 
 me before the whole company, and asking me at dinner to 'take 
 beer with him, before the Commander-in-Chief himself; he 
 
 ain't got manners, but there's something about him " 
 
 And thus Captain Bragg showed that he possessed discrimina- 
 tion as a man, as well as ability as a commander. 
 
 But a calm taking place when the Ramchunder was within 
 ten days' sail of England, Dobbin became so impatient and ill- 
 humoured as to surprise those comrades who had before admired 
 his vivacity and good temper. He did not recover until the 
 breeze sprang up again, and was in a highly excited state when 
 the pilot came on board. Good God, how his heart beat as the 
 two friendly spires of Southampton came in sights 
 
 CHAPTER LVIII 
 
 OUR FRIEND THE MAJOR 
 
 Our Major had rendered himself so popular on board the Ram- 
 chunder, that when he and Mr. Sedley descended into the 
 welcome shore-boat which was to take them from the ship, the 
 whole crew, men and officers, the great Captain Bragg himself 
 leading off, gave three cheers for Major Dobbin, who blushed 
 very much, and ducked his head in token of thanks. Jos, who 
 very Hkely thought the cheers were for himself, took off his 
 
Our Friend the Major 583 
 
 gold-laced cap and waved it majestically to his friends, and 
 they were pulled to shore and landed with great dignity at the 
 pier, whence they proceeded to the Royal George Hotel. 
 
 Althought the sight of that magnificent round of beef, and the 
 silver tankard suggestive of real British home-brewed ale and 
 porter, which perennially greet the eyes of the traveller return- 
 ing from foreign parts, who enters the coffee-room of the George, 
 are so invigorating and delightful, that a man entering such a 
 comfortable snug homely English inn, might well like to stop 
 some days there, yet Dobbin began to talk about a post-chaise 
 instantly, and was no sooner at Southampton than he wished to 
 be on the road to London. Jos, however, would not hear of 
 moving that evening. Why was he to pass a night in a post- 
 chaise instead of a great large undulating downy feather bed, 
 which was there ready to replace the horrid little narrow crib 
 in which the portly Bengal gentleman had been confined during 
 the voyage? He could not think of moving till his baggage 
 was cleared, or of travelling until he could do so with his chillum. 
 So the Major was forced to wait over that night, and despatched 
 a letter to his family announcing his arrival; entreating from Jos 
 a promise to write to his own friends. Jos promised, but didn't 
 keep his promise. The Captain, the surgeon, and one or two 
 passengers came and dined with our two gentlemen at the inn; 
 Jos exerting himself in a sumptuous way in ordering the dinner: 
 and promising to go to town the next day with the Major. The 
 landlord said it did his eyes good to see Mr. Sedley take off his 
 first pint of porter. If I had time and dared to enter into 
 digressions, I would write a chapter aboqt that first pint of 
 porter drunk upon EngHsh ground. Ah, how good it is ! It is 
 worth while to leave home for a year, just to enjoy that one 
 draught. 
 
 Major Dobbin made his appearance the next morning very 
 neatly shaved and dressed, according to his wont. Indeed, it 
 was so early in the morning, that nobody was up in the house 
 except that wonderful Boots of an inn who never seems to want 
 sleep: and the Major could hear the snores of the various 
 inmates of the house roaring through the corridors as he creaked 
 about in those dim passages. Then the sleepless Boots went 
 shirking round from door to door, gathering up at each the 
 Bluchers, Wellingtons, Oxonians, which stood outside. Then 
 Jos's native servant arose and began to get ready his masters 
 ponderous dressing apparatus, and prepare his hookah: then 
 the maid-servants got up, and meeting the dark man in the 
 
584 Vanity Fair 
 
 passages, shrieked, and mistook him for the devil. He and 
 Dobbin stumbled over their pails in the passages as they were 
 scouring the decks of the Royal George. When the first un- 
 shorn waiter appeared and unbarred the door of the inn, the 
 Major thought that the time for departure was arrived, and 
 ordered a post-chaise to be fetched instantly, that they might 
 set off. 
 
 He then directed his steps to Mr. Sedley's room and opened 
 the curtains of the great large family bed wherein Mr. Jos was 
 snoring. " Come up! Sedley," the Major said, '' It's time to 
 be off; the chaise will be at the door in half-an-hour." 
 
 Jos growled from under the counterpane to know what the 
 time was: but when he at last extorted from the blushing 
 Major (who never told fibs, however they might be to his advan- 
 tage) what was the real hour of the morning, he broke out into 
 a volley of bad language, which we will not repeat here, but by 
 which he gave Dobbin to understand that he would jeopardise 
 his soul if he got up at that moment, that the Major might go 
 and be hanged, that he would not travel with Dobbin, and that 
 it was most unkind and ungentlemanlike to disturb a man out 
 of his sleep in that way; on which the discomfited Major was 
 obliged to retreat, leaving Jos to resume his interrupted slumbers. 
 
 The chaise came up presently, and the Major would wait no 
 longer. 
 
 If he had been an English nobleman travelling on a pleasure 
 tour, or a newspaper courier bearing despatches (government 
 messages are generally carried much more quietly), he could 
 not have travelled more quickly. The post-boys wondered at 
 the fees he flung amongst them. How happy and green the 
 country looked as the chaise whirled rapidly from milestone to 
 milestone, through neat country towns where landlords came 
 out to welcome him with smiles and bows; by pretty roadside 
 inns, where the signs hung on the elms, and horses and waggoners 
 were drinking under the chequered shadow of the trees ; by old 
 halls and parks; rustic hamlets clustered round ancient grey 
 churches — and through the charming friendly English land- 
 scape. Is there any in the world like it ? To a traveller return- 
 ing home it looks so kind — it seems to shake hands with you as 
 you pass through it. Well, Major Dobbin passed through all 
 this from Southampton to London, and without noting much 
 beyond the milestones along the road. You see he was so eager 
 to see his parents at Camberwell. 
 
 He grudged the time lost between Piccadilly and his old haunt 
 
Our Friend the Major 585 
 
 at the Slaughters', whither he drove faithfully. Long years had 
 passed since he saw it last, since he and George, as young men, 
 had enjoyed many a feast, and held many a revel there. He 
 had now passed into the stage of old-fellow-hood. His hair was 
 grizzled, and many a passion and feeling of his youth had grown 
 grey in that interval. There, however, stood the old waiter at 
 the door, in the same greasy blaci^ suit, with the same double 
 chin and flaccid face, with the same huge bunch of seals at his 
 fob, rattling his money in his pockets as before, and receiving 
 the Major as if he had gone away only a week ago. ** Put the 
 Major's things in twenty-three, that's his room," John said, 
 exhibiting not the least surprise. " Roast fowl for your dinner, 
 I suppose. You ain't got married ? They said you was married 
 — the Scotch surgeon of yours was here. No, it was Captain 
 Humby of the thirty-third, as was quartered with the — th in 
 Injee. Like any warm water? What do you come in a chay 
 for — ain't the coach good enough? " And with this the faithful 
 waiter, who knew and remembered every officer who used the 
 house, and with whom ten years were but as yesterday, led the 
 way up to Dobbin's old room, where stood the great moreen bed, 
 and the shabby carpet, a thought more dingy, and all the 
 old black furniture with faded chintz, just as the Major recol- 
 lected them in his youth. 
 
 He remembered George pacing up and down the room, and 
 biting his nails, and swearing that the governor must come round, 
 and that if he didn't, he didn't care a straw, on the day before 
 he was married. He could fancy him walking in, banging the 
 door of Dobbin's room and his own hard by — 
 
 " You ain't got young," John said, calmly surveying his 
 friend of former days. 
 
 Dobbin laughed. " Ten years and a fever don't make a man 
 young, John," he said. " It is you that are always young; — ^no, 
 you are always old." 
 
 "What became of Captain Osborne's widow?" John said. 
 " Fine young fellow that. Lord, how he used to spend his 
 money. He never came back after that day he was married 
 from here. He owes me three pounds at this minute. Look 
 here, I have it in my book. ' April 10, 181 5, Captain Osborne: 
 £3.' 1 wonder whether his father vyould pay me," and so saying 
 John of the Slaughters' pulled out the very morocco pocket-book 
 in which he had noted his loan to the Captain, upon a greasy 
 faded, page still extant, with many other scrawled memoranda 
 regarding the bygone frequenters of the house, 
 ♦■J" 29^ 
 
586 Vanity Fair 
 
 Having inducted hi3 customer into the room, John retired 
 with perfect calmness; and Major Dobbin, not without a blush 
 and a grin at his own absurdity, chose out of his kit the 
 ifery smartest and most becoming civil costume he possessed, 
 and laughed at his own tanned face and grey hair, as he 
 surveyed them in the dreary little toilet-glass on the dressing- 
 table. 
 
 " I'm glad old John didn't forget me," he thought. " She'll 
 know me, too, I hope." And he sallied out of the inn, bending 
 his steps once more in the direction of Brompton. 
 
 Every minute incident of his last meeting with Amelia was 
 present to the constant man's mind as he walked towards her 
 house. The arch and the Achilles statue were up since he had 
 last been in Piccadilly; a hundred changes had occurred which 
 his eye and mind vaguely noted. He began to tremble as he 
 walked up the lane from Brompton, that well-remembered lane 
 leading to the street where she lived. Was she going to be 
 married or not.? If he were to meet her with the little boy — 
 good God, what should he do ? He saw a woman coming to him 
 with a child of five years old — was that she ? He began to shake 
 at the mere possibility. When he came up to the row of houses, 
 at last, where she lived, and to the gate, he caught hold of it and 
 paused. He might have heard the thumping of his own heart. 
 " May God Almighty bless her, whatever has happened," he 
 thought to himself. *' Psha! she may be gone from here," he 
 said, and went in through the gate. 
 
 The window of the parlour which she used to occupy was open, 
 and there were no inmates in the room. The Major thought he 
 recognised the piano, though, with the picture over it, as it used 
 to be in former days, and his perturbations were renewed. Mr. 
 Clapp's brass plate was still on the door, at the knocker of whieh 
 Dobbin performed a summons. 
 
 A buxom-looking lass of sixteen, with bright eyes and purple 
 cheeks, came to answer the knock, and looked hard at the 
 Major as he leant back against the little porch. 
 
 He was as pale as a ghost, and could hardly falter out the 
 words — " Does Mrs. Osborne live here.? " 
 
 She looked him hard in the face for a moment — and then turn- 
 ing white too, said, ^' Lord bless me — it's Major Dobbin." She 
 held out both her hands shaking — " Don't you remember me? " 
 she said. " I used to call you Major Sugarplums." On which, 
 and I believe it was for the first time that he ever so conducted 
 himself in his life, the Major took the girl in his arms and kissed 
 
Our Friend the Major 587 
 
 her. She began to laugh and cry hysterically, and calling out 
 *' Ma, Pa! " with all her voice, brought up those worthy people, 
 who had already been surveying the Major from the casement 
 of the ornamental kitchen, and were astonished to find their 
 daughter in the httle passage in the embrace of a great taD man 
 in a blue frock-coat and white duck trousers. 
 
 " I'm an old friend," he said — not without blushing though. 
 " Don't you remember me, Mrs, Clapp, and those good cakes 
 you used to make for tea? — Don't you recollect me, Clapp? 
 I'm George's godfather, and just come back from India," A 
 great shaking of hands ensued — Mrs. Clapp was greatly affected 
 and delighted; she called upon Heaven to interpose a vast 
 many times in that passage. 
 
 The landlord and landlady of the house led the worthy Major 
 into the Sedley's room (whereof he remembered every single 
 article of furniture, from the old brass ornamented piano, once 
 a natty little instrument, Stothard maker, to the screens and 
 the alabaster miniature tombstone, in the midst of which ticked 
 Mr. Sedley's gold watch), and there, as he sat down in the 
 lodger's vacant arm-chair, the father, the mother, and the 
 daughter, with a thousand ejaculatory breaks in the narrative, 
 informed Major Dobbin of what we know already, but of parti- 
 culars in Amelia's history of which he was not aware — namely, 
 of Mrs. Sedley's death, of George's reconcilement with his grand- 
 father Osborne, of the way in which the widow took on at leaving 
 him, and of other particulars of her life. Twice or thrice he was 
 going to ask about the marriage question, but his heart failed 
 him. He did not care to lay it bare to these people. Finally, 
 he was informed that Mrs. 0. was gone to walk with her pa in 
 Kensington Gardens, whither she always went with the old 
 gentleman (who was very weak and peevish now, and led her a 
 sad life, though she behaved to him like an angel, to be sure), 
 of a fine afternoon, after dinner. 
 
 " I'm very much pressed for time," the Major said, " and have 
 business to-night of importance. I should Hke to see Mrs. 
 Osborne though. Suppose Miss Polly would come with me and 
 show me the way." 
 
 Miss Polly was charmed and astonished at this proposal. 
 She knew the way. She would show Major Dobbin. She had 
 often been with Mr. Sedley when Mrs. 0. was gone — was gone 
 Russell Square way: and knew the bench w^here he liked to sit. 
 She bounced away to her apartment, and appeared presently 
 in her best bonnet and her mamma's yellow shawl and large 
 
588 Vanity Fair 
 
 pebble brooch, of which she assumed the loan in order to make 
 herself a worthy companion for the Major. 
 
 That officer, then, in his blue frock-coat and buckskin gloves, 
 gave the young lady his arm, and they walked away very gaily. 
 He was glad to have a friend at hand for the scene which he 
 dreaded somehow. He asked a thousand more questions from 
 his companion about Amelia: his kind heart grieved to think 
 that she should have had to part with her son. How did she 
 bear it? Did she see him often .? Was Mr. Sedley pretty com- 
 fortable now in a worldly point of view? Polly answered all 
 these questions of Major Sugarplums to the very best of her 
 power. 
 
 And in the midst of their walk an- incident occurred which, 
 though very simple in its nature, was productive of the greatest 
 delight to Major Dobbin. A pale young man with feeble 
 whiskers and a stiff white neckcloth came walking down the lane, 
 en sandwich ; — having a lady, that is, on each arm. One was 
 a tall and commanding middle-aged female, with features and a 
 complexion similar to those of the clergyman of the Church of 
 England by whose side she marched, and the other a stunted 
 little woman with a dark face, ornamented by a fine new bonnet 
 and white ribbons, and in a smart pelisse, with a rich gold watch 
 in the midst of her person. The gentleman, pinioned as he was 
 by these two ladies, carried further a parasol, shawl, and basket, 
 so that his arms were entirely engaged, and of course he was 
 unable to touch his hat in acknowledgment of the curtsey with 
 which Miss Mary Clapp greeted him. 
 
 He merely bowed his head in reply to her salutation, which 
 the two ladies returned with a patronising air, and at the same 
 time looking severely at the individual in the blue coat and 
 bamboo cane who accompanied Miss Polly. 
 
 " Who's that? " asked the Major, amused by the group, and 
 after he had made way for the three to pass up the lane. Mary 
 looked at him rather roguishly. 
 
 *' That is our curate, the Reverend Mr. Binny " (a twitch 
 from Major Dobbin), " and his sister Miss B. Lord bless us, how 
 she did use to worret us at Sunday-school ; and the other lady, 
 the little one with a cast in her eye, and the handsome watch, 
 is Mrs. Binny — Miss Grits that was; her pa was a grocer, and 
 kept the Little Original Gold Tea Pot in Kensington Gravel 
 Pits. They were married last month, and are just come back 
 from Margate. She's five thousand pound to her fortune ; but 
 her and Miss B., who made the match, have quarrelled already." 
 
Our Friend the Major 589 
 
 If the Major had twitched before, he started now, and slapped 
 the bamboo on the ground with an emphasis which made Miss 
 Clapp cry " Law/' and laugh too. He stood for a moment 
 silent with open mouth, looking after the retreating young 
 couple, while Miss Mary told their history; but he did not hear 
 beyond the announcement of the reverend gentleman's marriage; 
 his head was swimming with felicity. After this rencontre he 
 began to walk double quick towards the place of his destination; 
 and yet they were too soon (for he was in a great tremor at the 
 idea of a meeting for which he had been longing any time these 
 ten years) — through the Brompton lanes, and entering at the 
 little old portal in Kensington Garden wall. 
 
 " There they are," said Miss Polly, and she felt him again 
 start back on her arm. She was a confidante at once of the 
 whole business. She knew the story as well as if she had read 
 it in one of her favourite novel-books — " Fatherless Fanny," or 
 the " Scottish Chiefs." 
 
 " Suppose you were to run on and tell her," the Major said. 
 Polly ran forward, her yellow shawl streaming in the breeze. 
 
 Old Sedley was seated on a bench, his handkerchief placed 
 over his knees, prattling away according to his wont, with some 
 old story about old times, to which Amelia had listened, and 
 awarded a patient smile many a time before. She could of late 
 think of her own affairs, and smile or make other marks of 
 recognition of her father's stories, scarcely hearing a word of the 
 old man's tales. As Mary came bouncing along, and Amelia 
 caught sight of her, she started up from her bench. Her first 
 thought was, that something had happened to Georgy; but the 
 sight of the messenger's eager and happy face dissipated that 
 fear in the timorous mother's bosom. 
 
 " News ! News ! " cried the emissary of Major Dobbin. 
 " He's come ! He's come ! " 
 
 '' Who is come.^ " said Emmy, still thinking of her son. 
 
 " Look there," answered Miss Clapp, turning round and 
 pointing; in which direction Amelia looking, saw Dobbin's lean 
 figure and long shadow stalking across the grass. Amelia 
 started in her turn, blushed up, and, of course, began to cry. 
 At all this simple little ciesLture^s /eies, the grandes eaux were 
 accustomed to play. 
 
 He looked at her — oh, how fondly — as she came running 
 towards him, her hands before her, ready to give them to him. 
 She wasn't changed. She was a little pale: a little stouter in 
 figure. Her eyes were the same, the kind trustful eyes. There 
 
59^ Vanity Fair 
 
 were scarce three fines of silver in her soft brown hair. She gave 
 him both her hands as she looked up flushing and smiling 
 through her tears into his honest homely face. He took the 
 two little hands between his two, and held them there. He was 
 speechless for a moment. Why did he not take her in his arms, 
 and swear that he would never leave her? She must have 
 yielded: she could not but have obeyed him. 
 
 " I — I've another arrival to announce/' he said, after a 
 pause. 
 
 " Mrs. Dobbin? " Amelia said, making a movement back — 
 Why didn't he speak ? 
 
 ''No," he said, letting her hands go: "Who has told you 
 those lies? — I mean, your brother Jos came in the same ship 
 with me, and is come home to make you all happy." 
 
 "Papa, papa!" Enmiy cried out, "here are news! My 
 brother is in England. He is come to take care of yoiu, — Here is 
 Major Dobbin." 
 
 Mr. Sedley started up, shaking a great deal, and gathering up 
 his thoughts. Then he stepped forward and made an old- 
 fashioned bow to the Major, whom he called Mr. Dobbin, and 
 hoped his worthy father, Sir William, was quite well. He pro- 
 posed to call upon Sir William who had done him the honour 
 of a visit a short time ago. Sir William had not called upon the 
 old gentleman for eight years — it was that visit he was thinking 
 of returning. 
 
 " He is very much shaken," Emmy whispered, as Dobbin 
 went up and cordially shook hands with the old man. 
 
 Although he had such particular business in London that 
 evening, the Major consented to forego it upon Mr. Sedley's 
 invitation to him to come home and partake of tea. Amelia 
 put her arm under that of her young friend with the yellow 
 shawl, and headed the party on their return homewards, so that 
 Mr. Sedley fell to Dobbin's share. The old man walked very 
 slowly and told a number of ancient histories about himself and 
 his poor Bessy, his former prosperity, and his bankruptcy. His 
 thoughts, as is usual with failing old men, were quite in former 
 times. The present, with the exception of the one catastrophe 
 which he felt, he knew little about. The Major was glad to let 
 him talk on. His eyes were fixed upon the figure in front of 
 him — the dear little figure always present to his imagination and 
 in his prayers, and visiting his dreams or slumbering. 
 
 Amelia was very happy, smiling and active all that evening, 
 
Our Friend the Major 591 
 
 performing her duties as hostess of the little entertainment 
 with the utmost grace and propriety, as Dobbin thought. His 
 eyes followed her about as they sate in the twilight. How 
 many a time had he longed for that moment, and thought of her 
 far away under hot winds and in weary marches, gentle and 
 happy, kindly ministering to the wants of old age, and decorating 
 poverty with sweet submission — as he saw her now. I do not 
 say that his taste was the highest, or that it is the duty of great 
 intellects to be content with a bread-and-butter paradise, such 
 as sufficed our simple old friend; but his desires were of this 
 sort, whether for good or bad; and with Amelia to help him, he 
 was as ready to drink as many cups of tea as Doctor Johnson. 
 
 Amelia seeing this propensity, laughingly encouraged it; and 
 looked exceedingly roguish as she administered to him cup after 
 cup. It is true she did not know that the Major had had no 
 dinner, and that the cloth was laid for him at the Slaughters', 
 and a plate laid thereon to mark that the table was retained, in 
 that very box in which the Major and George had sate many a 
 time carousing, when she was a child just come home from Miss 
 Pinkerton's school. 
 
 The first thing Mrs. Osborne showed the Major was Georgy^s 
 miniature, for which she ran upstairs on her arrival at home. 
 It was not half handsome enough of course for the boy, but 
 wasn't it noble of him to think of bringing it to his mother? 
 Whilst her papa was awake she did not talk much about Georgy. 
 To hear about Mr. Osborne and Russell Square was not agreeable 
 to the old man, who very likely was unconscious that he had been 
 living for some months past mainly on the bounty of his richer 
 rival; and lost his temper if allusion was made to the other. 
 
 Dobbin told him all, and a Httle more perhaps than all, that 
 had happened on board the Ramchunder; and exaggerated 
 Jos's benevolent dispositions towards his father, and resolution 
 to make him comfortable in his old days. The truth is, that 
 during the voyage the Major had impressed this duty most 
 strongly upon his fellow-passenger, and extorted promises from 
 him that he would take charge of his sister and her child. He 
 soothed Jos's irritation with regard to the bills which the old 
 gentleman had drawn upon him, gave a laughing account of his 
 own sufferings on the same score, and of the famous consign- 
 ment of wine with which the old man had favoured him: and 
 brought Mr. Jos, who was by no means an ill-natured person 
 when well pleased and moderately flattered, to a very good state 
 of feeling regarding his relatives in Europe. 
 
592 Vanity Fair 
 
 And in fine I am ashamed to say that the Major stretched the 
 truth so far as to tell old Mr. Sedley that it was mainly a desire 
 to see his parent which brought Jos once more to Europe. 
 
 At his accustomed hour Mr. Sedley began to doze in his chair, 
 and then it was Amelia's opportunity to commence the conversa- 
 tion, which she did with great eagerness ; — it related exclusively 
 to Georgy. She did not talk at all about her own sufferings at 
 breaking from him, for indeed, this worthy woman, though she 
 was half-killed by the separation from the child, yet thought it 
 was very wicked in her to repine at losing him ; but everything 
 concerning him, his virtues, talents, and prospects, she poured 
 out. She described his angelic beauty; narrated a hundred 
 instances of his generosity and greatness of mind whilst living 
 with her: how a Royal Duchess had stopped and admired him 
 in Kensington Gardens; how splendidly he was cared for now, 
 and how he had a groom and a pony; what quickness and 
 cleverness he had, and v/hat a prodigiously well-bred and delight- 
 ful person the Reverend Lawrence Veal was, George's master. 
 " He knows everything" Amelia said. " He has the most de- 
 lightful parties. You who are so learned yourself, and have 
 read so much, and are so clever and accomplished — don't shake 
 your head and say no — He always used to say you were— you 
 will be charmed with Mr. Veal's parties. The last Tuesday in 
 every month. He says there is no place in the bar or the senate 
 that Georgy may not aspire to. Look here," and she went to 
 the piano-drawer and drew out a theme of Georg^^'s composition. 
 This great effort of genius, which is still in the possession of 
 George's mother, is as follows: — 
 
 On Selfishness. — Of all the vices which degrade the human char- 
 acter, Selfishness is the most odious and contemptible. An undue 
 love of Self leads to the most monstrous crimes; and occasions the 
 greatest misfortunes both in States and Families. As a selfish man 
 will impoverish his family and often bring them to ruin: so a selfish 
 king brings ruin on his people and often plunges them into war. 
 
 Example: The selfishness of Achilles, as remarked by the poet 
 Homer, occasioned a thousand woes to the Greeks — ixvpl 'Axatols 
 aX7e ^e-qKc — (Horn. //. A. 2). The selfishness of the late Napoleon 
 Bonaparte occasioned innumerable wars in Europe, and caused him 
 to perish, himself, in a miserable island — that of Saint Helena in 
 the Atlantic Ocean. 
 
 We see by these examples that we are not to consult our own 
 interest and ambition, but that we are to consider the interests of 
 others as well as our own. 
 
 George S. Osborne. 
 
 Athene House, 24th April, 1827, 
 
The Old Piano 593 
 
 " Tliink of him writing such a hand, and quoting Greek too, 
 at his age," the delighted mother said. " O William," she added, 
 holding out her hand to the Major — " what a treasure Heaven 
 has given me in that boy ! He is the comfort of my life — ^and he 
 is the image of — of him that's gone ! " 
 
 " Ought I to be angry with her for being faithful to him? " 
 William thought. " Ought I to be jealous of my friend in the 
 grave, or hurt that such a heart as Amelia's can love only once 
 and for ever? George, George, how Httle you knew the prize 
 you had, though." This sentiment passed rapidly through 
 William's mind, as he was holding Amelia's hand, whilst the 
 handkerchief was veiling her eyes. 
 
 '' Dear friend," she said, pressing the hand which held hers, 
 " how good, how kind you always have been to me 1 See, papa 
 is stirring. You will go and see Georgy to-morrow, won't you ? " 
 
 " Not to-morrow," said poor old Dobbin. " I have business." 
 He did not Hke to own that he had not as yet been to his parents 
 and his dear sister Ann — a remissness for which I am sure every 
 well-regulated person will blame the Major. And presently he 
 took his leave, leaving his address behind him for Jos, against 
 the iatter's arrival. And so the first day was over, and he had 
 seen her. 
 
 When he got back to the Slaughters', the roast fowl was of 
 course cold, in which condition he ate it for supper. And known- 
 ing what early hours his family kept, and that it would be need- 
 less to disturb their slumbers at so late an hour, it is on record 
 that Major Dobbin treated himself to half-price at the Hay- 
 market Theatre tiiat evening, where let us hope he enjoyed 
 himself. 
 
 CHAPTER LIX 
 
 THE OLD PIANO 
 
 The Major's visit left old John Sedley in a great state of agita- 
 tion and excitement. His daughter could not induce him to 
 settle down to his customary occupations or amusements that 
 night. He passed the evening fumbling amongst his boxes and 
 desks, untying his papers with trembling hands, and sorting and 
 arranging them against Jos's arrival. He had them in the 
 greatest order — ^his tapes and his files, his receipts, and his letters 
 
594 Vanity Fair 
 
 with lawyers and correspondents; the documents relative to 
 the Wine Project (which failed from a most unaccountable acci- 
 dent, after commencing with the most splendid prospects), the 
 Coal Project (which only a want of capital prevented from be- 
 coming the most successful scheme ever put before the public), 
 the Patent Sawmills and Sawdust Consolidation Project, etc. etc. 
 All night, until a very late hour, he passed in the preparation of 
 these documents, trembling about from one room to another, 
 with a quivering candle and shaky hands. " Here's the wine 
 papers, here's the sawdust, here's the coals ; here's my letters to 
 Calcutta and Madras, and replies from Major Dobbin, C.B., and 
 Mr. Joseph Sedley to the same. He shall find no irregularity 
 about me, Emmy," the old gentleman said. 
 
 Emmy smiled. " I don't think Jos will care about seeing 
 those papers, papa," she said. 
 
 " You don't know anything about business, my dear," 
 answered the sire, shaking his head with an important air. And 
 it must be confessed, that on this point Emmy was very ignorant, 
 and that is a pity, some people are so knowing. All these two- 
 penny documents arranged on a side table, old Sedley covered 
 them carefully over with a clean bandanna handkerchief (one 
 out of Major Dobbin's lot), and enjoined the maid and landlady 
 of the house, in the most solemn way, not to disturb those papers 
 which were arranged for the arrival of Mr. Joseph Sedley the 
 next morning, " Mr. Joseph Sedley of the Honourable East India 
 Company's Bengal Civil Service." 
 
 Amelia found him up very early the next morning, more eager, 
 more hectic, and more shaky than ever, " I didn't sleep much, 
 Emmy, my dear," he said. " I was thinking of my poor Bessy. 
 I wish she was alive, to ride in Jos's carriage once again. She 
 kept her own, and became it very well." And his eyes filled 
 with tears, which trickled down his furrowed old face. Amelia 
 wiped them away, and smilingly kissed him, and tied the old 
 man's neckcloth in a smart bow, and put his brooch into his 
 best shirt frill, in which, in his Sunday suit of mourning, he sat 
 from six o'clock in the morning awaiting the arrival of his son. 
 
 There are some splendid tailors' shops in the High Street of 
 Southampton, in the fine plate-glass windows of which hang 
 gorgeous waistcoats of all sorts, of silk and velvet, and gold and 
 crimson, and pictures of the last new fashions, in which those 
 wonderful gentlemen with quizzing glasses, and holding on to 
 little boys with the exceeding large eyes and curly hair, ogle ladies 
 
The Old Piano 595 
 
 m riding habits prancing by the statue of Achilles at Apsley 
 House. Jos, although provided with some of the most splendid 
 vests that Calcutta could furnish^ thought he could not go to town 
 until he was supplied with one or two of these garments, and 
 selected a crimson satin, embroidered with gold butterflies, and 
 a black and red velvet tartan with white stripes and a rolling 
 collar, with which, and a rich blue satin stock and a gold pin, 
 consisting of a five-barred gate with a horseman in pink enamel 
 jumping over it, he thought he might make his entry into London 
 with some dignity. For Jos's former shyness and blundering 
 blushing timidity had given way to a more candid and courage- 
 ous self-assertion of his worth. " I don't care about owning it," 
 Waterloo Sedley would say to his friends, ^' I am a dressy man; " 
 and though rather uneasy if the ladies looked at him at the 
 Government House balls, and though he blushed and turned 
 away alarmed under their glances, it was chiefly from a dread 
 lest they should make love to him that he avoided them, being 
 averse to m_arriage altogether. But there was no such swell in 
 Calcutta as Waterloo Sedley, I have heard say: and he had the 
 handsomest turn-out, gave the best bachelor dinners, and had 
 the finest plate in the whole place. 
 
 To make these waistcoats for a man of his size -and dignity 
 took at least a day, part of which he employed in hiring a servant 
 to wait upon him and his native; and in instructing the agent 
 who cleared his baggage, his boxes, his books, which he never 
 read ; his chests of mangoes, chutney, and currie-powders ; his 
 shawls for presents to people whom he didn't know as yet; and 
 the rest of his Persicos apparatus. 
 
 At length, he <4rove leisurely to London on the third day, and 
 in the new waistcoat: the native, with chattering teeth, shudder- 
 ing in a shawl on the box by the side of the new European 
 servant; Jos puffing his pipe at intervals within, and looking 
 so majestic, that the little boys cried Hooray, and many people 
 thought he must be a Governor-General. He, I promise, did 
 not decline the obsequious invitation of the landlords to alight 
 and refresh himself in the neat country towns. Having par- 
 taken of a copious breakfast, with fish, and rice, and hard eggs, 
 at Southampton, he had so far rallied at Winchester as to think 
 a glass of sherry necessary. At Alton he stepped out of the 
 carriage at his servant's request, and imbibed some of the ale 
 for which the place is famous. At Farnham he stopped to view 
 the Bishop's Castle, and to partake of a light dinner of stewed 
 eels, veal cutlets, and French beans, with a bottle of claret. He 
 
596 Vanity Fair 
 
 was cold over Bagshot Heath, where the native chattered more 
 and more, and Jos Sahib took some brandy-and- water; in fact, 
 when he drove into town he was as full of wine, beer, meat, 
 pickles, cherry- brandy, and tobacco, as the steward's cabin of 
 a steam-packet. It was evening when his carriage thundered 
 up to the little door in Brompton, whither the affectionate 
 fellow drove first, and before hieing to the apartments secured 
 for him by Mr. Dobbin at the Slaughters'. 
 
 All the faces in the street were in the windows; the little 
 maid-servant flew to the wicket-gate, the Mesdames Clapp 
 looked out from the casement of the ornamented kitchen; 
 Emmy, in a great flutter, was in the passage among the hats and 
 coats, and old Sedley in the parlour inside shaking all over. Jos 
 descended from the post-chaise and down the creaking swa}'ing 
 Steps in awful state, supported by the new valet from South- 
 ampton and the shuddering native, whose brown face was now 
 livid with cold, and of the colour of a turkey's gizzard. He 
 created an immense sensation in the passage presently, where 
 Mrs. and Miss Clapp, coming perhaps to listen at the parlour 
 door, found Loll Jewab shaking upon the hall-bench under the 
 coats, moaning in a strange piteous way, and showing his yellow 
 eyeballs and white teeth. 
 
 For, you see, we have adroitly shut the door upon the meeting 
 between Jos and the old father, and the poor little gentle sister 
 inside. The old man was very much affected: so, of course 
 was his daughter: nor was Jos without feeling. In that long 
 absence of ten years, the most selfish will think about home and 
 early ties. Distance sanctifies both. Long brooding over those 
 lost pleasures exaggerates their charm and sweetness. Jos was 
 unaffectedly glad to see and shake the hand of his father, 
 between whom and himself there had been a coolness — glad to 
 see his little sister, whom he remembered so pretty and smiling, 
 and pained at the alteration which time, grief, and misfortune 
 had made in the shattered old man. Emmy had come out to 
 the door in her black clothes and whispered to him of her 
 mother's death, and not to speak of it to their father. There 
 was no need of this caution, for the elder Sedley himself began 
 immediately to speak of the event, and prattled about it, and 
 wept over it plenteously. It shocked the Indian not a little, 
 and made him think of himself less than the poor fellow was 
 accustomed to do. 
 
 The result of the interview must have been very satisfactory, 
 for when Jos had reascended his post-chaise, and had driven 
 
The Old Piano 597 
 
 away to his hotel, Emmy embraced her father tenderly, appeal- 
 ing to him with an air of triumph whether she did not always 
 say that her brother had a good heart ? 
 
 Indeed, Joseph Sedley, affected by the humble position in 
 which he found his relations, and in the expansiveness and over- 
 flowing of heart occasioned by the first meeting, declared that 
 they would never suffer want or discomfort any more, that he 
 was at home for some time at any rate, during which his house 
 and everything he had should be theirs : and that Amelia would 
 look very pretty at the head of his table : until she would accept 
 one of her own. 
 
 She shook her head sadly, and had, as usual, recourse to the 
 waterworks. She knew what he meant. She and her young 
 confidante, Miss Mary, had talked over the matter most fully, 
 the very night of the Major's visit: beyond which time the 
 impetuous Polly could not refrain from talking of the discovery 
 wluch she had made, and describing the start and tremor of 
 joy by which Major Dobbin betrayed himself when Mr. Binny 
 passed with his bride, and the Major learned that he had no 
 longer a rival to fear. " Didn't you see how he shook all over 
 when you asked if he was married, and he said, ' Who told you 
 those lies? ' Ma'am," Polly said, " he never kept his eyes 
 off you: and I'm sure he's grown grey a-thinking of you." 
 
 But Amelia, looking up at her bed, over which hung the 
 portraits of her husband and son, told her young protegee, never, 
 never to speak on that subject again; that Major Dobbin had 
 been her husband's dearest friend, and her own and George's 
 most kind and affectionate guardian: that she loved him as a 
 brother — but that a woman who had been married to such an 
 angel as that, and she pointed to the wall, could never think 
 of any other union. Poor Polly sighed : she thought what she 
 should do if young Mr. Tomkins, at the surgery, who always 
 looked at her so at church, and who, by those mere aggressive 
 glances had put her timorous little heart into such a flutter that 
 she was ready to surrender at once, — what she should do if he 
 were to die ? She knew he was consumptive, his cheeks were so 
 red, and he was so uncommon thin in the waist. 
 
 Not that Emmy, being made aware of the honest Major's 
 passion, rebuffed him in any way, or felt displeased with him. 
 Such an attachment from so true and loyal a gentleman could 
 make no woman angry. Desdemona was not angry with 
 Cassio, though there is very little doubt she saw the Lieutenant's 
 
59^ Vanity Fair 
 
 partiality for her (and I for my part believe that many more 
 things took place in that sad affair than the worthy Moorish 
 officer ever knew of); why, Miranda was even very kind to 
 Caliban, and we may be pretty sure for the same reason. Not 
 that she would encourage him in the least — the poor uncouth 
 monster — of course not. No more would Emmy by any 
 means encourage her admirer, the Major. She would give him 
 that friendly regard, which so much excellence and fidelity 
 merited; she would treat him with perfect cordiality and frank- 
 ness until he made his proposals; and then it would be time 
 enough for her to speak, and to put an end to hopes which never 
 could be realised. 
 
 She slept, therefore, very soundly that evening, after the con- 
 versation with Miss Polly, and was more than ordinarily happy, 
 in spite of Jos's delaying. " I am glad he is not going to marry 
 that Miss O'Dowd," she thought. "Colonel O'Dowd never 
 could have a sister fit for such an accomplished man as Major 
 Wilham." Who was there amongst her httle circle who would 
 make him a good wife ! Not Miss Binny, she was too old and 
 ill-tempered; Miss Osborne? — too old too. Little Polly was' 
 too young. Mrs. Osborne could not find anybody to suit the 
 Major before she went to sleep. 
 
 However, when the postman made his appearance, the little 
 party were put out of suspense by the receipt of a letter from 
 Jos to his sister, who announced, that he felt a little fatigued 
 after his voyage, and should not be able to move on that day, 
 but that he would leave Southampton early the next morning, 
 and be with his father and mother at evening. Amelia, as she 
 read out the letter to her father, paused over the latter word; 
 her brother, it was clear, did not know what had happened in 
 the family. Nor could he: for the fact is that, though the Major 
 rightly suspected that his travelling companion never would be 
 got into motion in so short a space as twenty-four hours, and 
 would find some excuse for delaying, yet Dobbin had not written 
 to Jos to inform him of the calamity which had befallen the 
 Sedley family : being occupied in talking with Amelia until long 
 after post-hour. 
 
 The same morning brought Major Dobbin a letter to the 
 Slaughters' Coffee-House from his friend at Southampton; beg- 
 ging dear Dob to excuse Jos for being in a rage when awakened 
 the day before (he had a confounded headache, and was just in 
 his first sleep), and entreating Dob to engage comfortable rooms 
 at the Slaughters' for Mr. Sedley and his servants. The Major 
 
The Old Piano 599 
 
 had become necessary to Jos during the voyage. He was 
 attached to him, and hung upon him. The other passengers 
 were away to London. Young Ricketts and httle Chaffers went 
 away on the coach that day — Ricketts on the box, and taking 
 the reins from Botley; the Doctor was off to his family at 
 Portsea; Bragg gone to town to his co-partners: and the first 
 mate busy in the unloading of the Ramchunder. Mr. Jos was 
 very lonely at Southampton, and got the landlord of the George 
 to take a glass of wine with him that day; at the very hour at 
 which Major Dobbin was seated at the table of his father, Sir 
 William, where his sister found out (for it was impossible for the 
 Major to tell fibs) that he had been to see Mrs. George Osborne. 
 
 Jos was so comfortably situated in St. Martin's Lane, he could 
 enjoy his hookah there with such perfect ease, and could swagger 
 down to the theatres, when minded, so agreeably, that, perhaps, 
 he would have remained altogether at the Slaughters' had not 
 his friend, the Major, been at his elbow. That gentleman would 
 not let the Bengalee rest until he had executed his promise of 
 having a home for Amelia and his father. Jos was a soft fellow 
 in anybody's hands ; Dobbin most active in anybody's concerns 
 but his own; the civilian was, therefore, an easy victim to the 
 guileless arts of this good-natured diplomatist, and was ready 
 to do, to purchase, hire, or relinquish whatever his friend thought 
 fit. Loll Jewab, of whom the boys about St. Martin's Lane 
 used to make cruel fun whenever he showed his dusky coun- 
 tenance in the street, was sent back to Calcutta in the Lady 
 Kicklebury East Indiaman, in which Sir William Dobbin had 
 a share; having previously taught Jos's European the art of 
 preparing curries, pilaus, and pipes. It was a matter of great 
 delight and occupation to Jos to superintend the building of a 
 smart chariot, which he and the Major ordered in the neigh- 
 bouring Long Acre: and a pair of handsome horses were jobbed, 
 with which Jos drove about in state in the Park, or to call upon 
 his Indian friends. Amelia was not seldom by his side on these 
 excursions, when also Major Dobbin would be seen in the back 
 seat of the carriage. At other times old Sedley and his daughter 
 took advantage of it: and Miss Clapp, who frequently accom- 
 panied hei friend, had great pleasure in being recognised as she 
 sate in the carriage, dressed in the famous yellow shawl, by the 
 young gentleman at the surgery, whose face might commonly 
 be seen over the window-blinds as she passed. 
 
 Shortly after Jos's first appearance at Brompton, a dismal 
 
6oo Vanity Fair 
 
 scene, indeed, took place at that humble cottage, at which the 
 Sedleys had passed the last ten years of their life. Jos's carriage 
 (the temporary one, not the chariot under construction) arrived 
 one day and carried off old Sedley and his daughter — to return 
 no more. The tears that were shed by the landlady and the 
 landlady's daughter at that event were as genuine tears of sorrow 
 as any that have been outpoured in the course of this history. 
 In their long acquaintanceship and intimacy they could not 
 recall a harsh word that had been uttered by Amelia. She had 
 been all sweetness and kindness, always thankful, always gentle, 
 even when Mrs. Clapp lost her own temper, and pressed for the 
 rent. When the kind creature was going away for good and all, 
 the landlady reproached herself bitterly for ever having used 
 a rough expression to her — how she wept, as they stuck up with 
 wafers on the window, a paper notifying that the little rooms 
 so long occupied were to let! They never would have such 
 lodgers again, that was quite clear. After-life proved the truth 
 of this melancholy prophecy: and Mrs. Clapp revenged herself 
 for the deterioration of mankind by levying the most savage 
 contributions upon the tea-caddies and legs of mutton of her 
 locataires. Most of them scolded and grumbled ; some of them 
 did not pay; none of them stayed. The landlady might well 
 regret these old, old friends who had left her. 
 
 As for Miss Mary, her sorrow at Amelia's departure was such 
 as I shall not attempt to depict. From childhood upwards she 
 had been with her daily, and had attached herself so passion- 
 ately to that dear good lady, that when the grand barouche 
 came to carry her off into splendour, she fainted in the arms of 
 her friend, who was indeed scarcely less affected than the good- 
 natured girl. Amelia loved her like a daughter. During eleven 
 years the girl had been her constant friend and associate. The 
 separation was a very painful one indeed to her. But it was 
 of course arranged that Mary was to come and stay often at the 
 grand new house whither Mrs. Osborne was going; and where 
 Mary was sure she would never be so happy as she had been in 
 their humble cot, as Miss Clapp called it, in the language of the 
 novels which she loved. 
 
 Let us hope she was wrong in her judgment. Poor Emmy's 
 days of happiness had been very few in that humble cot. A 
 gloomy Fate had oppressed her there. She never liked to come 
 back to the house after she had left it, or to face the landlady 
 who had tyrannised over her when ill-humoured and unpaid, or 
 when pleased had treated her v/ith a coarse familiarity scarcely 
 
The Old Piano 60 1 
 
 less odious. Her servility and fulsome compliments when 
 Emmy was in prosperity were not more to that lady's liking. 
 She cast about notes of admiration all over the new house, ex- 
 tolling every article of furniture or ornament; she fingered Mrs. 
 Osborne's dresses, and calculated their price. Nothing could 
 be too good for that sweet lady, she vowed and protested. But 
 in the vulgar sycophant who now paid court to her, Emmy 
 always remembered the coarse tyrant who had made her 
 miserable many a time, to whom she had been forced to put up 
 petitions for time, when the rent was overdue ; who cried out at 
 her extravagance if she bought delicacies for her ailing mother 
 or father; who had seen her humble and trampled upon her. 
 
 Nobody ever heard of these griefs, which had been part of our 
 poor little woman's lot in life. She kept them secret from her 
 father, whose improvidence was the cause of much of her misery. 
 She had to bear all the blame of his misdoings, and indeed was 
 so utterly gentle and humble as to be made by nature for a 
 victim. 
 
 I hope she is not to suffer much more of that hard usage. 
 And, as in all grief there is said to be some consolation,- 1 -may 
 mention that poor Mary, when left at her friend's departure 
 in a hysterical condition, was placed under the medical treat- 
 ment of the young fellow from the surgery, under whose care she 
 rallied after a short period. Emmy, when she went away from 
 Brompton, endowed Mary with every article of furniture that 
 the house contained: only taking away her pictures (the two 
 pictures over the bed) and her piano — that httle old piano which 
 had now passed into a plaintive jingling old age, but which she 
 loved for reasons of her own. She was a child when first she 
 played on it : and her parents gave it her. It had beert given 
 to her again since, as the reader may remember, when her 
 father's house was gone to ruin, and the instrument was re- 
 covered out of the wreck. 
 
 Major Dobbin was exceedingly pleased v/hen, as he was 
 superintending the arrangements of Jos's new house, which the 
 Major insisted should be very handsome and comfortable, the 
 cart arrived from Bromipton, bringing the trunks and bandboxes 
 of the emigrants from that village, and with them the old piano. 
 Amelia would have it up in her sitting-room, a neat little apart- 
 ment on the second floor, adjoining her father's chamber: and 
 where the old gentleman sate commonly of evenings. 
 
 When the men appeared then bearing this old music-box, and 
 Amelia gave orders that it should be placed in the chamber 
 
6o2 Vanity Fair 
 
 aforesaid, Dobbin was quite elated. " I'm glad you've kept 
 it/' he said in a very sentimental manner. " 1 was afraid you 
 didn't care about it." 
 
 " I value it more than anything I have in the world/' said 
 Amelia. 
 
 " Do you, Amelia? " cried the Major. The fact was, as he 
 had bought it himself, though he never said anything about it, 
 it never entered into his head to suppose that Emmy should 
 think anybody else was the purchaser, and as a matter of course 
 he fancied that she knew the gift came from him. " Do you, 
 Amelia? " he said; and the question, the great question of all, 
 was trembling on his lips, when Emmy replied — 
 
 " Can I do otherwise? — did not he give it me? " 
 
 " I did not know," said poor old Dob, and his countenance 
 fell. 
 
 Emmy did not note the circumstance at the time, nor take 
 immediate heed of the very dismal expression which honest 
 Dobbin's countenance assumed, but she thought of it after- 
 wards. And then it struck her, with inexpressible pain and 
 mortification too, that it was William who was the giver of the 
 piano ; and not George, as she had fancied. It was not George's 
 gift ; the only one which she had received from her lover, as she 
 thought — the thing she had cherished beyond all others, her 
 dearest relic and prize. She had spoken to it about George: 
 played his favourite airs upon it: sate for long evening hours, 
 touching, to the best of her simple art, melancholy harmonies 
 on the keys, and weeping over them in silence. It was not 
 George's relic. ^ Jt was valueless now. The next time that old 
 Sedley asked her to play, she said it was shockingly out of tune, 
 that she had a headache, that she couldn't play. 
 
 Then, according to her custom, she rebuked herself for her 
 pettishness and ingratitude, and determined to make a repara- 
 tion to honest William for the slight she had not expressed to 
 him, but had felt for his piano. A few days afterwards, as they 
 were seated in the drawing-room, where Jos had fallen asleep 
 with great comfort after dinner, Amelia said with rather a 
 faltering voice to Major Dobbin, " I have to beg your pardon for 
 something." 
 
 " About what? " said he. 
 
 " About — ^about that little square piano. I never thanked 
 you for it when you gave it me; many, many years ago, before 
 I was married. I thought somebody else had given it. Thank 
 you, William," She held out her hand; but the poor little 
 
The Old Piano 603 
 
 woman's heart was bleeding; and as for her eyes, of course they 
 were at their work. 
 
 But William could hold no more. " Amelia, Amelia/' he said, 
 " I did buy it for you. I loved you then as I do now. I must 
 tell you. I think I loved you from the first minute that I saw 
 you, when George brought me to your house, to show me the 
 Amelia whom he was engaged to. You were but a girl, in 
 white, with large ringlets; you came down singing — do you 
 remember? — and we went to Vauxhall. Since then I have 
 thought of but one woman in the world, and that was you. I 
 think there is no hour in the day has passed for twelve years 
 that I haven't thought of you. I came to tell you this before I 
 went to India, but you did not care, and I hadn't the heart to 
 speak. You did not care whether I stayed or went," 
 
 " I was very ungrateful," Amelia said. 
 
 "No; only indifferent," Dobbin continued desperately. "I 
 have nothing to make a woman to be otherwise. I know what 
 you are feeling now. You are hurt in your heart at the dis- 
 covery about the piano ; and that it came from me and not from 
 George, I forgot, or I should never have spoken of it so. It is 
 for me to ask your pardon for being a fool for a moment, and 
 thinking that years of constancy and devotion might have 
 pleaded with you." 
 
 " It is you who are cruel now," Amelia said with some spirit., 
 " George is my husband, here and in heaven. How could I love 
 any other but him? I am his now as when you first saw me, 
 dear William. It was he who told me how good and generous 
 you were, and who taught me to love you as a brother. Have 
 you not been everything to me and my boy? Our dearest, 
 truest, kindest friend and protector? Had you come a few 
 months sooner perhaps you might have spared me that — that 
 dreadful parting. It nearly killed me, William — ^but you didn't 
 come, though I wished and prayed for you to come, and they 
 took him too away from me. Isn't he a noble boy, William? 
 Be his friend still and mine " — and here her voice broke, and 
 she hid her face on his shoulder. 
 
 The Major folded his arms round her, holding her to him as if 
 she was a child, and kissed her head. " I will not change, dear 
 iVmelia," he said. " I ask for no more than your love. I think 
 I would not have it otherwise. Only let me stay near you, and 
 see you often." 
 
 " Yes, often," Amelia said. And so William was at liberty 
 to look and long: as the poor boy at school who has no money 
 may sigh after the contents of the tart-woman's tray. 
 
6o4 Vanity Fair 
 
 CHAPTER LX 
 
 RETURNS TO THE GENTEEL WORLD 
 
 Good fortune now begins to smile upon Amelia. We are glad 
 to get her out of that low sphere in which she has been creeping 
 hitherto, and introduce her into a polite circle; not so grand and 
 refined as that in which our other female friend, Mrs. Becky, has 
 appeared, but still having no small pretensions to gentility and 
 fashion. Jos's friends were all from the three presidencies, and 
 his new house was in the comfortable Anglo-Indian district of 
 which Moira Place is the centre. Minto Square, Great Clive 
 Street, Warren Street, Hastings Street, Ochterlony Place, Plassy 
 Square, Assaye Terrace (" Gardens " was a felicitous word not 
 applied to stucco houses with asphalte terraces in front, so early 
 as 1827) — who does not know these respectable abodes of the 
 retired Indian aristocracy, and the quarter which Mr. Wenham 
 calls the Black Hole, in a word ? Jos's position in life was not 
 grand enough to entitle him to a house in Moira Place, where 
 none can Uve but retired Members of Council, and partners of 
 Indian firms (who break after having settled a hundred thousand 
 pounds on their wives, and *retire into comparative penury to a 
 country place and four thousand a year): he engaged a com- 
 fortable house of a second or third-rate order in Gillespie Street, 
 purchasing the carpets, costly mirrors, and handsome and ap- 
 propriate planned furniture by Seddons, from the assignees of 
 Mr. Scape, lately admitted partner into the great Calcutta House 
 of Fogle, Fake & Cracksman, in which poor Scape had embarked 
 seventy thousand pounds, the earnings of a long and honourable 
 life, taking Fake's place, who retired to a princely park in Sussex 
 (the Fogies have been long out of the firm, and Sir Horace Fogle 
 is about to be raised to the peerage as Baron Bandanna) — 
 admitted, I say, partner into the great agency house of Fogle & 
 Fake two years before it failed for a million, and plunged half 
 the Indian public into misery and ruin. 
 
 Scape, ruined, honest, and broken-hearted at sixty-five years 
 of age, went out to Calcutta to wind up the affairs of the house. 
 Walter Scape was withdrawn from Eton, and put into a mer- 
 chant's house. Florence Scape, Fanny Scape, and their mother 
 faded away to Boulogne, and will be heard of no more. To be 
 brief, Jos stepped in and bought their carpets and sideboards, 
 
Returns to the Genteel World 605 
 
 and admired himself in the mirrors which had reflected their 
 kind handsome faces. The Scape tradesmen^, all honourably- 
 paid, left their cards, and were eager to supply the new house- 
 hold. The large men in white waistcoats, who waited at Scape's 
 dinners, greengrocers, bank-porters, and milkmen in their 
 private capacity, left their addresses, and ingratiated themselves 
 with the butler. Mr. Chummy, the chimney-purifier, who had 
 swept the last three families, tried to coax the butler and the boy 
 under him, whose duty it was to go out covered with buttons 
 and with stripes down his trousers, for the protection of Mrs,: 
 Amelia whenever she chose to walk abroad. 
 
 It was a modest establishment. The butler was Jos's valet 
 also, and never was more drunk than a butler in a small family 
 should be, who has a proper regard for his master's wine. Emmy 
 was supplied with a maid, grown on Sir William Dobbin's 
 suburban estate; a good girl, whose kindness and humility dis- 
 armed Mrs. Osborne, who was at first terrified at the idea of 
 having a servant to wait upon herself, who did not in the least 
 laiow how to use one, and who always spoke to domestics with 
 the most reverential politeness. But this maid was very useful 
 in the family, in dexterously tending old Mr. Sedley, who kept 
 almost entirely to his own quarter of the house, and never mixed 
 in any of the gay doings which took place. there. 
 
 Numbers of people came to see Mrs. Osborne. Lady Dobbin 
 and daughters were delighted at her change of fortune, and 
 waited upon her. Miss Osborne from Russell Square came in 
 her grand chariot with the flaming hammercloth emblazoned 
 with the Leeds arms. Jos was reported to be immensely rich. 
 Old Osborne had no objection that Georgy should inherit his 
 uncle's property as well as his own. " Damn it, we will make 
 a man of the feller," he said; '' and I'll see him in Parliament 
 before I die. You may go and see his mother. Miss 0., though 
 I'll never set eyes on her: " and Miss Osborne came. Emmy, 
 you may be sure, was very glad to see her, and so be brought 
 nearer to George. That young fellow was allowed to come m_uch 
 more frequently than before to visit his mother. He dined once 
 or twice a week in Gillespie Street, and bullied the servants and 
 his relations there, just as he did in Russell Square. 
 
 He was always respectful to Major Dobbin, however, and 
 more modest in his demeanour when that gentleman was pre- 
 sent. He was a clever lad, and afraid of the Major. George 
 could not help admiring his friend's simplicity, his good humour, 
 his various learning quietly imparted, his general love of truth 
 
6o6 Vanity Fair 
 
 and justice. He had met no such man as yet in the course of 
 his experience^ and he had an instinctive liking for a gentleman. 
 He hung fondly by his godfather's side; and it was his delight 
 to walk in the Parks and hear Dobbin talk. William told 
 George about his father^ about India and Waterloo, about every- 
 thing but himself. When George was more than usually pert 
 and conceited, the Major made jokes at him, which Mrs. Osborne 
 thought very cruel. One day, taking him to the play, and the 
 boy declining to go into the pit because it was vulgar^ the 
 Major took him to the boxes, left him there, and went down 
 himself to the pit. He had not been seated there very long, 
 before he felt an arm thrust under his, and a dandy little 
 hand in a kid glove squeezing his arm. George had seen the 
 absurdity of his ways, and come down from the upper region. 
 A tender laugh of benevolence lighted up old Dobbin's face 
 -and eyes as he looked at the repentant Httle prodigal. He 
 loved the boy, as he did everything that belonged to Amelia. 
 How charmed she was when she heard of this instance of 
 George's goodness ! Her eyes looked more kindly on Dobbin 
 than they ever had done. She blushed, he thought, after 
 looking at him so. 
 
 Georgy never tired of his praises of the Major to his mother. 
 " I like him, mamma, because he knows such lots of things: and 
 he ain't like old Veal, who is always bragging and using such long 
 words, don't you know? The chaps call him ' Longtail ' at 
 school. I gave him the name: ain't it capital? but Dob reads 
 Latin like English, and French and that; and when we go out 
 together he tells me stories about my papa, and never about 
 himself; though I heard Colonel Buckler, at Grandpapa's, say 
 that he was one of the bravest officers in the army, arid had dis- 
 tinguished himself ever so much. Grandpapa was quite sur- 
 prised, and said, ' That feller! why, I didn't think he could say 
 Bo to a goose ' — but / know he could, couldn't he, mamma? " 
 
 Emmy laughed: she thought it was very likely the Major 
 could do thus much. 
 
 If there was a sincere liking between George and the Major, 
 it must be confessed that between the boy and his uncle no great 
 love existed. George had got a way of blowing out his cheeks, 
 and putting his hands in his waistcoat pockets, and saying 
 '' God bless my soul, you don't say so," so exactly after the 
 fashion of old Jos, that it was impossible to refrain from laughter. 
 The servants would explode at dinner if the lad, asking for 
 something which wasn't at table, put on that countenance and 
 
Returns to the Genteel World 607 
 
 used that favourite phrase. Even Dobbin would shoot out a 
 sudden peal at the boy's mimicry. If George did not mimic his 
 uncle to his face, it was only by Dobbin's rebukes and Amelia's 
 terrified entreaties that the little scapegrace was induced to 
 desist. And the worthy civilian being haunted by a dim con- 
 sciousness that the lad thought him an ass, and was inclined 
 to turn him into ridicule, used to be extremely timorous and, of 
 course, doubly pompous and dignified in the presence of Master 
 Georgy. When it was announced that the young gentleman 
 was expected in Gillespie Street to dine with his mother, Mr. 
 Jos commonly found that he had an engagement at the Club. 
 Perhaps nobody was much grieved at his absence. On those 
 days Mr. Sedley would commonly be induced to come out from 
 his place of refuge in the upper storeys; and there would be a 
 small family party, whereof Major Dobbin pretty generally 
 formed one. He was the ami de la maison ; old Sedley's friend, 
 Emmy's friend, Georgy's friend, Jos's counsel and adviser. 
 '' He might almost as well be at Madras for anything we see of 
 him," Miss Ann Dobbin remarked, at Camberwell. Ah! Miss 
 Ann, did it not strike you that it was not you whom the Major 
 wanted to marry? 
 
 Joseph Sedley then led a life of dignified otiosity such as 
 became a person of his eminence. His very first point, of course, 
 was to become a member of the Oriental Club; where he spent 
 his mornings in the company of his brother Indians, where he 
 dined, or whence he brought home men to dine. 
 
 Amelia had to receive and entertain these gentlemen and their 
 ladies. From these she heard how soon Smith would be in 
 Council; how many lacs Jones had brought home with him, how 
 Thomson's House in London had refused the bills drawn by 
 Thomson, Kibobjee & Co., the Bombay House, and how it was 
 thought the Calcutta House must go too; how very imprudent, 
 to say the least of it, Mrs. Brown's conduct (wife of Brown of 
 the Ahmednuggur Irregulars) had been with young Swankey 
 of the Body Guard, sitting up with him on deck until all hours, 
 and losing themselves as they were riding out at the Cape; how 
 Mrs. Hardyman had had out her thirteen sisters, daughters of 
 a country curate, the Rev. Felix Rabbits, and married eleven 
 of them, seven high up in the service; how Hornby was wild 
 because his wife would stay in Europe, and Trotter was ap- 
 pointed collector at Ummerapoora. This and similar talk took 
 place, at the grand dinners ail round. They had the same con- 
 versations; the same silver dishes: the same saddles of mutton, 
 
6o8 Vanity Fair 
 
 boiled turkeys, and entrees. Politics set in a short time after 
 dessert, when the ladies retired upstairs and talked about their 
 complaints and their children. 
 
 Mutato nomine, it is all the same. Don't the barristers' 
 wives talk about Circuit? — don't the soldiers' ladies gossip about 
 the Regiment? — don't the clergymen's ladies discourse about 
 Sunday Schools, and who takes whose duty? — don't the very 
 greatest ladies of all talk about that small clique of persons to 
 v/hom they belong, and why should our Indian friends not have 
 their own conversation ? — only I admit it is slow for the laymen 
 whose fate it sometimes is to sit by and listen. 
 
 Before long Emmy had a visiting-book, and was driving about 
 regularly in a carriage, calling upon Lady Bludyer (wife of 
 Major- General Sir Roger Bludyer, K.C.B., Bengal Army); 
 Lady Huff, wife of Sir G. Huff, Bombay ditto; Mrs. Pice, the 
 Lady of Pice the Director, etc. We are not long in using our- 
 selves to changes of life. That carriage came round to Gillespie 
 Street every day: that buttony boy sprang up and down from 
 the box with Emmy's and Jos's visiting-cards; at stated hours 
 Emmy and the tarriage went for Jos to the Club, and took him 
 an airing; or, putting old Sedley into the vehicle, she drove the 
 old man round the Regent's Park. The lady's maid and the 
 chariot, the visiting-book and the buttony page, became soon 
 as familiar to Amelia as the humble routine of Brompton. She 
 accommodated herself to one as to the other. If Fate had 
 ordained that she should be a duchess, she would even have done 
 that duty too. She was voted, in Jos's female society, rather a 
 pleasing young person — not much in her, but pleasing, and that 
 sort of thing. 
 
 The men, as usual, liked her artless kindriess and simple 
 refined demeanour. The gallant young Indian dandies at home 
 on furlough — immicnse dandies these — chained and moustached 
 — driving in tearing cabs, the pillars of the theatres, living at 
 West End hotels, — nevertheless admired Mrs. Osborne, liked to 
 bow to her carriage in the Park, and to be admitted to have the 
 honour of paying her a morning visit. Swankey of the Body 
 Guard himself, that dangerous youth, and the greatest buck of 
 all the Indian army now on leave, was one day discovered by 
 Major Dobbin tete-d-tete with Amelia, and describing the sport 
 of pig-sticking to her with great humour and eloquence ; and he 
 spoke afterwards of a d — d King's officer that's always hanging 
 about the house — a long, thin, queer-looking, oldish fellow — a dry 
 fellow though^ that took the shine out of a man in the talking line. 
 
Two Lights Are Put Out 609 
 
 Had the Major possessed a little more personal vanity he 
 would have been jealous of so dangerous a young buck as that 
 fascinating Bengal Captain. But Dobbin was of too simple and 
 generous a nature to have any doubts about Amelia. He was 
 glad that the young men should pay her respect; and that others 
 should admire her. Ever since her womanhood almost^ had she 
 not been persecuted and undervalued? It pleased him to see 
 how kindness brought out her good qualities^ and how her spirits 
 gently rose with her prosperity. Any person who appreciated 
 her paid a compliment to the Major's good judgment — that is, 
 if a man may be said to have good judgment who is under the 
 influence of Love's delusion. 
 
 After Jos went to Court, which we may be sure he did as a 
 loyal subject of his Sovereign (showing himself in his full Court 
 suit at the Club, whither Dobbin came to fetch him in a very 
 shabby old uniform), he who had always been a staunch Loyalist 
 and admirer of George IV., became such a tremendous Tory and 
 pillar of the State, that he was for having Amelia to go to a 
 Drawing-room, too. He somehow had worked himself up to 
 believe that he was implicated in the maintenance of the public 
 welfare, and that the Sovereign would not be happy unless Jos 
 Sedley and his family appeared to rally round him at St. James's. 
 
 Emmy laughed. " Shall I wear the family diamonds, Jos? " 
 she said. 
 
 " I wish you would let me buy you some," thought the Major. 
 " I should like to see any that were too good for you." 
 
 v/ ^'^ 
 
 CHAPTER LXI 
 
 IN WHICH TWO LIGHTS ARE PUT OUT 
 
 There came a day when the round of decorous pleasures and 
 solemn gaieties in which Mr. Jos Sedley's family indulged, was 
 interrupted by an event which happens in most houses. As you 
 ascend the staircase of your house from the drawing towards the 
 bedroom floors, you may have remarked a little arch in the wall 
 right before you, which at once gives light to the stair, which 
 leads from the second storey to the third (where the nursery 
 and servants' chambers commonly are) and serves for another 
 U298 
 
6io Vanity Fair 
 
 purpose of utility, of which the undertaker's men can give 
 you a notion. Tliey rest the coffins upon that arch, or pass 
 them through it so as not to disturb in any unseemly manner 
 the cold tenant slumbering within the black ark. 
 
 That second-floor arch in a London house, looking up and 
 down the well of the staircase, and commanding the main 
 thoroughfare by which the inhabitants are passing; by which 
 Cook lurks down before daylight to scour her pots and pans in 
 the kitchen; by which young Master stealthily ascends, having 
 left his boots in the hall, and let himself in after dawn from a 
 jolly night at the Club; down which Miss comes rustling in 
 fresh ribbons and spreading muslins, brilliant and beautiful, and 
 prepared for conquest and the ball; or Master Tommy slides, 
 preferring the banisters for a mode of conveyance, and disdain- 
 ing danger and the stair; down which the mother is fondly 
 carried smiling in her strong husband's arms, as he steps steadily 
 step by step, and followed by the monthly nurse, on the day 
 when the medical man has pronounced that the charming 
 patient may go downstairs; up which John lurks to bed, 
 yawning, with a sputtering tallow candle, and to gather up 
 before sunrise the boots which are awaiting him in the passages ; 
 — that stair, up or down which babies are carried, old people are 
 helped, guests are marshalled to the ball, the parson walks to 
 the christening, the doctor to the sick-room, and the under- 
 taker's men to the upper floor — what a memento of Life, Death, 
 and Vanity it is — that arch and stair — 'if you choose to consider 
 it, and sit on the ian8i»^ffS8^ing up. and down the well ! The 
 doctor will come up to us too for the last time there, my friend 
 in motley. The nurse will look in at the curtains, and you take 
 no notice — and then she will fling open the windows for a little, 
 and let in the air. Then they will pull down all the front blinds 
 of the house and live in the back rooms — then they will send 
 for the lawyer and other men in black, etc. — Your comedy and 
 mine will have been played then, and we shall be removed, 
 how far, from the trumpets, and the shouting, and the posture- 
 making. If we, are gentlefolks they; will put hatchments over 
 our late domicile, with gilt cherubim, and mottoes stating that 
 there is " Quiet in Heaven." Your son will new furnish the 
 house, or perhaps let it, and go into a more modem quarter; 
 your name will be among the " Members deceased " in the lists 
 of your clubs next year. However much you may be mourned, 
 your widow will like to have her weeds neatly made — the cook 
 will send or. come up to ask about dinner — the survivor will soon 
 
Two Lights Are Put Out 6ii 
 
 bear to look at your picture over the mantelpiece, which will 
 presently be deposed from the place of honour, to make way for 
 the portrait of the son who reigns. 
 
 Which of the dead are most tenderly and passionately de- 
 plored? Those who love the survivors the least, I believe. 
 The death of a child occasions a passion of grief and frantic 
 tears, such as your end, brother reader, will never inspire. The 
 death of an infant which scarce knew you, which a week's 
 absence from you would have caused to forget you, will strike 
 you down more than the loss of your closest friend, or your first- 
 born son — a m.an grown like yourself, with children of his own. 
 We may be harsh and stern with Judah and Simeon — our love 
 and pity gush out for Benjamin, the little one. And if you are 
 old, as some reader of this may be or shall be — old and rich, or 
 old and poor — you may one day be thinking for yourself — 
 *' These people are very good round about me; but they won't 
 grieve too m.uch when I am gone. I am very rich, and they 
 want my inheritance — or very poor, and they are tired of sup- 
 porting me." 
 
 The period of mourning for Mrs. Sedley's death was only just 
 concluded, and Jos scarcely had had time to cast off his black 
 and appear in the splendid waistcoats which he loved, when it 
 became evident to those about Mr. Sedley, that another event 
 was at hand, and that the old man was about to go seek for his 
 wife in the dark land whither she had preceded him. " The 
 state of my father's health," Jos Sedley solemnly remarked at 
 the Club, " prevents me from giving any large parties this 
 season: but if you will come in quietly at half-past six. Chutney, 
 my boy, and take a homely dinner with one or two of the old 
 set, I shall be always glad to see you." So Jos and his acquaint- 
 ances dined and drank their claret among themselves in silence; 
 whilst the sands of life were running out in the old man's glass 
 upstairs. The velvet-footed butler brought them their wine; 
 and they composed them.selves to a rubber after dinner; at 
 which Major Dobbin would sometimes come and take a hand; 
 and Mrs. Osborne would occasionally descend, when her patient 
 above was settled for the night, and had commenced one of 
 those lightly troubled slumbers which visit the pillow of old 
 age. 
 
 The old man clung to his daughter during this sickness. He 
 would take his broths and medicines from scarcely any other 
 hand. To tend him became almost the sole business of her life. 
 Her bed was placed dose by the door which opened into his 
 
PAH 
 
 612^ Vanity Fair 
 
 chamber, and she was alive at the slightest noise or disturbance 
 -from the couch of the querulous invalid. Though, to do him 
 justice, he lay awake many an hour, silent and without stirring, 
 unwilling to awaken his kind and vigilant nurse. 
 
 He loved his daughter with more fondness now, perhaps, than 
 ever he had done since the days of her childhood. In the dis- 
 charge of gentle offices and kind filial duties, this simple creature 
 shone most especially. " She walks into the room as silently as 
 a sunbeam," Mr. Dobbin thought, as he saw her passing in and 
 out from her father's room; a cheerful sweetness lighting up 
 her face as she moved to and fro, graceful and noiseless. When 
 women are brooding over their children, or busied in a sick- 
 room, who has not seen in their faces those sweet angelic beams 
 of love and pity? 
 
 A secret feud of some years' standing was thus healed: and 
 with a tacit reconciliation. In these last hours, and touched by 
 her love and goodness, the old man forgot all his grief against 
 her, and wrongs which he and his wife had many a long night 
 debated: how she had given up everything for her boy: how 
 she was careless of her parents in their old age and misfortune, 
 and only thought of the child: how absurdly and foolishly, 
 impiously indeed, she took on, when George was removed from 
 her. Old Sedley forgot these charges as he was making up his 
 last account, and did justice to the gentle and uncomplaining 
 little mart}T. One night when she stole into his room, she found 
 him awake, when the broken old man made his confession. " 
 Emmy, I've been thinking we were very unkind and unjust to 
 you," he said, and put out his cold and feeble hand to her. She 
 knelt down and prayed by his bedside, as he did too, having 
 still hold of her hand. When our turn comes, friend, may we 
 have such company in our prayers ! 
 
 Perhaps as he was lying awake then, his life may have passed 
 before him — his early hopeful struggles, his manly successes 
 and prosperity, his downfull in his declining years, and his 
 present helpless condition — no chance of revenge against 
 Fortune, which had had the better of him — neither name nor 
 money to bequeath — a spent-out, bootless life of defeat and 
 disappointment, and the end here! Which, I wonder, brother 
 reader, is the better lot, to die prosperous and famous, or poor 
 and disappointed? To have, and to be forced to yield; or to 
 sink out of life, having played and lost the game ? That must 
 be a strange feeling, when a day of our life comes, and we say, 
 " To-morrow, success or failure won't matter much: and the 
 
Two Lights Are Put Out 613 
 
 sun will rise, and all the myriads of mankind go to their work or 
 their pleasure as usual, but I shall be out of the turmoil." 
 
 So there came one morning and sunrise, when all the world 
 got up and set about its various works and pleasures, with the 
 exception of old John Sedley, who was not to fight with Fortune 
 or to hope or scheme any more: but to go and take up a quiet 
 and utterly unknown residence in a churchyard at Brompton 
 by the side of his old wife. 
 
 Major Dobbin, Jos, and Georgy followed his remains to the 
 grave, in a black cloth coach. Jos came on purpose from the 
 Star and Garter at Richmond, whither he retreated after the 
 deplorable event. He did not care to remain in the house, with 
 the — under the circumstances, you understand. But Emmy 
 stayed and did her duty as usual. She was bowed down by no 
 especial grief, and rather solemn than sorrowful. She prayed 
 that her own end might be as calm and painless, and thought 
 with trust and reverence of the words which she had heard from 
 her father during his illness, indicative of his faith, his resigna- 
 tion, and his future hope. 
 
 Yes, I think that will be the better ending of the two, after all. 
 Suppose you are particularly rich and well-to-do, and say on 
 that last day, " I am very rich; I am tolerably well known; I 
 have lived all my life in the best society, and, thank Heaven, 
 come of a most respectable family. I have served my King and 
 country with honour. I was in Parliament for several years, 
 where, I may say, my speeches were listened to, and pretty well 
 received. I don't owe any man a shilling: on the contrary, 1 
 lent my old college friend. Jack Lazarus, fifty pounds, for which 
 my executors will not press him. I leave my daughters with 
 ten thousand pounds apiece — very good portions for girls: I 
 bequeath my plate and furniture, my house in Baker Street, 
 with a handsome jointure, to my widow for her life; and my 
 landed property, besides money in the funds, and my cellar of 
 well-selected wine in Baker Street, to my son. I leave twenty 
 pound a year to my valet; and I defy any man after I have gone 
 to find anything against my character." Or suppose, on the 
 other hand, your swan sings quite a different sort of dirge, and 
 you say, " 1 am a poor, blighted, disappointed old fellow, and 
 have made an utter failure through life. I was not endowed 
 either with brains or with good fortune : and confess that I have 
 committed a hundred mistakes and blunders. I own to having 
 forgotten my duty many a time. I can't pay what I owe. On 
 my last bed I lie utterly helpless and humble: and I pray for- 
 
6 14 Vanity Fair 
 
 giveness for my weakness, and throw myself, with a contrite 
 heart, at the feet of the Divine Mercy," Which of these two 
 speeches, think you, would be the best oration for your own 
 funeral? Old Sedley made the last; and in that humble frame 
 of mind, and holding by the hand of his daughter, life and dis- 
 appointment and vanity sank away from under him. 
 
 "You see," said old Osborne to George, " what comes of 
 merit and industry, and judicious speculations, and that. Look 
 at me and my banker's account. Look at your poor grandfather 
 Sedley and his failure. And yet he was a better man than I 
 was, this day twenty years — ^a better man, I should say, by ten 
 thousand pounds." 
 
 Beyond these people and Mr. Clapp's family, who came over 
 from Brompton to pay a visit of condolence, not a single soul 
 alive ever cared a penny piece about old John Sedley, or remem- 
 bered the existence of such a person. 
 
 When old Osborne first heard from his friend Colonel Buckler 
 (as little Georgy has already informed us) how distinguished an 
 officer Major Dobbin was, he exhibited a great deal of scornful 
 incredulity, and expressed his surprise how ever such a feller as 
 that should possess either brains or reputation. But he heard 
 of the Major's fame from various members of his society. Sir 
 William Dobbin had a great opinion of his son, and narrated 
 many stories illustrative of the Major's learning, valour, and 
 estimation in the world's opinion. Finally, his name appeared 
 in the lists of one of two great parties of the nobility : and this 
 circumstance had a prodigious effect upon the old aristocrat of 
 Russell Square. 
 
 The Major's position, as guardian to Georgy, whose possession 
 had been ceded to his grandfather, rendered some meetings 
 between the two gentlemen inevitable; and it was in one of 
 these that old Osborne, a keen man of business, looking into the 
 Major's accounts with his ward and the boy's mother, got a hint 
 which staggered him very much, and at once pained and pleased 
 him, that it was out of William Dobbin's own pocket that a part 
 of the fund had been supplied upon which the poor widow and 
 the child had subsisted. 
 
 When pressed upon the point, Dobbin, who could not tell 
 lies, blushed and stammered a good deal, and finally confessed. 
 " The marriage," he said (at which his interlocutor's face grew 
 dark), *' was very much my doing. I thought my poor friend 
 had gone so far, that retreat from his engagement would have 
 
Two Lights Are Put Out 615 
 
 been dishonour to him, and death to Mrs. Osborne; and I could 
 do no less, when she was left without resources, than give what 
 money I could spare to maintain her." 
 
 " Major D.," Mr. Osborne said, looking hard at him, and turn- 
 ing very red too — " you did me a great injury; but give me 
 leave to tell you, sir, you are an honest feller. There's my hand, 
 sir, though I little thought that my flesh and blood was living 
 on you " — and the pair shook hands, with great confusion on 
 Major Dobbin's part, thus found out in his act of charitable 
 hypocrisy. 
 
 He strove to soften the old man, and reconcile him towards his 
 son's memory. " He was such a noble fellow," he said, " that 
 all of us loved him, and would have done anything for him. I, 
 as a young man in those days, was flattered beyond measure by 
 his preference for me; and was more pleased to be seen in his 
 company than in that of the Commander-in-Chief. I never saw 
 his equal for pluck and daring, and all the qualities of a soldier; " 
 and Dobbin told the old father as many stories as he could 
 remember regarding the gallantry and achievements of his son. 
 " And Georgy is so like him," the Major added. 
 
 " He's so like him that he makes me tremble sometimes," the 
 grandfather said. . 
 
 On one or two evenings the Major came to dine with Mr. 
 Osborne (it was during the time of the sickness of Mr. Sedley), 
 and as the two sate together in the evening after dinner all their 
 talk was about the departed hero. The father boasted about 
 him according to his wont, glorifying himself in recounting his 
 son's feats and gallantry, but his mood was at any rate better 
 and more charitable than that in which he had been disposed 
 until now to regard the poor fellow; and the Christian heart of 
 the kind Major was pleased at these symptoms of returning 
 peace and goodwill. On the second evening old Osborne called 
 Dobbin, William, just as he used to do at the time when Dobbin 
 and George were boys together: and the honest gentleman was 
 pleased by that mark of reconciliation. 
 
 On the next day at breakfast when Miss Osborne, with the 
 asperity of her age and character, ventured to make some remark 
 reflecting slightingly upon the Major's appearance or behaviour 
 — the master of the house interrupted her. " You'd have been 
 glad enough to get him for yourself, Miss 0. But them grapes 
 are sour. Ha! ha! Major William is a fine feller." 
 
 " That he is. Grandpapa," said Georgy approvingly: and 
 going up close to the old gentleman he took a hold of his large 
 
6i6 Vanity Fair 
 
 grey whiskers, and laughed in his face good-humouredly and 
 kissed him. And he told the story at night to his mother: who 
 fully agreed with the boy. " Indeed he is/' she said. " Your dear 
 father always said so. He is one of the best and most upright 
 of men." Dobbin happened to drop in very soon after this con- 
 versation, which made Amelia blush perhaps: and the young 
 scapegrace increased the confusion by telling Dobbin the other 
 part of the story. " I say, Dob/' he said, " there's such an un- 
 common nice girl wants to marry you. She's plenty of tin, she 
 wears a front, and she scolds the servants from morning till 
 night." 
 
 " Who is it? " asked Dobbin. 
 
 " It's Aunt 0.," the boy answered. " Grandpapa said so. 
 And I say. Dob, how prime it would be to have you for my 
 uncle." Old Sedley's quavering voice from the next room at 
 this moment weakly called for Amelia, and the laughing ended. 
 
 That Old Osborne's mind was changing, was pretty clear. 
 He asked George about his uncle sometimes, and laughed at tlie 
 boy's imitation of the way in which Jos said, " God-bless-my- 
 soul," and gobbled his soup. Then he said, " It's not respect- 
 ful, sir, of you younkers to be imitating of your relations. Miss 
 0., when you go out a-driving to-day, leave my card upon Mr. 
 Sedley, do you hear? There's no quarrel betwigst me and him 
 anyhow." 
 
 The card was returned, and Jos and the Major were asked to 
 dinner, — to a dinner the most splendid and stupid that perhaps 
 ever Mr. Osborne gave; every inch of the family plate was 
 exhibited, and the best company was asked. Mr. Sedley took 
 down Miss 0. to dinner, and she was very gracious to him; 
 whereas she hardly spoke to the Major, who sat apart from her, 
 and by the side of Mr. Osborne, very timid. Jos said, with great 
 solemnity, it was the best turtle soup he had ever tasted in his 
 life; and asked Mr. Osborne where he got his Madeira? 
 
 " It is some of Sedley's wine/' whispered the butler to his 
 master. — " I've had it a long time, and paid a good figure for 
 it, too," Mr. Osborne said aloud to his guest; and then whispered 
 to his right-hand neighbour how he had got it "at the old 
 chap's sale." 
 
 More than once he asked the Major about — ^about Mrs. George ! 
 Osborne — a theme on which the Major could be very eloquent 
 when he chose. He told Mr. Osborne of her sufferings — of her 
 passionate attachment to her husband, whose memory she 
 worshipped still — of the tender and dutiful manner in which she 
 
Two Lights Are Put Out 617 
 
 had supported her parents, and given up her boy, when it seemed 
 to her her duty to do so. " You don't know what she endured, 
 sir," said honest Dobbin with a tremor in his voice; " and I 
 hope and trust you will be reconciled to her. If she took your 
 son away from you, she gave hers to you; and however much 
 you loved your George, depend on it, she loved hers ten times 
 more." 
 
 '* By God, you are a good feller, sir," was all Mr. Osborne said. 
 It had never struck him that the widow would feel any pain at 
 parting from the boy, or that his having a fine fortune could 
 grieve her. A reconciliation was announced as speedy and in- 
 evitable ; and Amelia's heart already began to beat at the notion 
 of the awful meeting with George's father. 
 
 It was never, however, destined to take place. Old Sedley's 
 lingering illness and death supervened, after which a meeting 
 was for some time impossible. That catastrophe and other 
 events may have worked upon Mr. Osborne. He was much 
 shaken of late, and aged, and his mind was working inwardly. 
 He had sent for his lawyers, and probably changed something 
 in his will. The medical man who looked in, pronounced him 
 shaky, agitated, and talked of a little blood and the seaside; 
 but he took neither of these remedies. 
 
 One day when he should have come down to breakfast, his 
 servant missing him, went into his dressing-room, and found 
 him lying at the foot of the dressing-table in sl fit. Miss Osborne 
 was apprised; the doctors were sent for, Georgy stopped away 
 from school; the bleeders and cuppers came. Osborne partially 
 regained cognizance; but never could speak again, though he 
 tried dreadfully once or twice, and in four days he died. The 
 doctors went down, and the undertaker's men went up the 
 stairs; and all the shutters were shut towards the garden in 
 Russell Square. Bullock rushed from the City in a hurr}^ 
 " How much money had he left to that bo)''.'* — not half, surely.? 
 Surely share and share alike between the three? " It was an 
 agitating moment. ' ' - ----- ..^. _..--.. . 
 
 What was it that poor old man tried once or twice in vain to 
 say? I hope it was that he wanted to see Amelia, and be 
 reconciled before he left the world to the dear and faithful wife 
 of his son : it was most likely that ; for his will showed that the 
 hatred which he had so long cherished had gone out of his heart. 
 
 They found in the pocket of his dressing-gown the letter with 
 the great red seal, which George had written him from Waterloo. 
 He had looked vis^he other papers too, relative to his son, for 
 
 *u298 
 
6i8 Vanity Fair 
 
 the key of the box in which he kept them was also in his pocket, 
 and it was found the seals and the envelopes had been broken — 
 very likely on the night before the seizure — when the butler had 
 taken him tea into his study, and found him reading in the great 
 red family Bible. 
 
 When the will was opened, it was found that half the property , 
 was left to George, and the remainder between the two sisters; 
 Mr. Bullock to continue, for their joint benefit, the affairs of 
 the commercial house, or to go out, as he thought fit. An 
 annuity of five hundred pounds, chargeable on George's pro- 
 perty, was left to his mother, " the widow of my beloved son, 
 George Osborne," who was to resume the guardianship of the 
 boy. 
 
 " Major William Dobbin, my beloved son's friend," was 
 appointed executor; " and as out of his kindness and bounty, 
 and with his own private funds, he maintained my grandson and 
 my son's widow, when they were otherwise without means of 
 support " (the testator went on to say), " I hereby thank him 
 heartily for his love and regard for them: and beseech him to 
 accept such a sum as may be sufficient to purchase his commis- 
 sion as a Lieutenant-Colonel, or to be disposed of in any way he 
 ma}^ think fit." 
 
 When Amelia heard that her father-in-law was reconciled to 
 her, her heart melted, and she was grateful for the fortune left 
 to her. But when she heard how Georgy was restored to her, 
 and knew how and by whom, and how it was William's bounty 
 that supported her in poverty, how it was William who gave her 
 her husband and her son — oh, then she sank on her knees, and 
 prayed for blessings on that constant and kind heart : she bowed 
 down and humbled herself, and kissed the feet, as it were, of that 
 beautiful and generous affection. 
 
 And gratitude was all that she had to pay back for such admir- 
 able devotion and benefits — only gratitude! If she thought of 
 any other return, the image of George stood up out of the grave, 
 and said, " You are mine, and mine only, now and for ever." 
 
 William knew her feelings: haa he not passed his whole life 
 in divining them ? 
 
 When the nature of Mr. Osborne's will became known to the 
 world, it was edifying to remark how Mrs. George Osborne rose 
 in the estimation of the people forming her circle of acquaint- 
 ance. The servants of Jos's estabhshment, who used to ques- 
 tion her humble orders, and say they would " ask Master,' 
 whether or not they could obey, never thougmeiiow of that sor 
 
Two Lights Are Put Out 619 
 
 of appeal. The cook forgot to sneer at her shabby old gowns 
 (which, indeed, were quite eclipsed by that lady's finery when 
 she was dressed to go to church of a Sunday evening), the others 
 no longer grumbled at the sound of her bell, or delayed to answer 
 that summons. The coachman, who grumbled that his 'osses 
 should be brought out, and his carriage made into an hospital 
 for that old feller and Mrs. 0., drove her with the utmost 
 alacrity now, and trembling lest he should be superseded by Mr. 
 Osborne's coachmi.an, asked '"what them there Russell Square 
 coachmen knevv^ about town, and whether they was fit to sit on a 
 box before a lady ? " Jos's friends, male and female, suddenly 
 became interested about Emmy, and cards of condolence multi- 
 plied on her hall table. Jos himself, who had looked on her as 
 a good-natured harmless pauper, to whom it was his duty to give 
 victuals and shelter, paid her and the rich little boy, his nephew, 
 the greatest respect — was anxious that she should have change 
 and amusement after her troubles and trials^ " poor dear girl," 
 and began to appear at the breakfast table, and most particu- 
 larly to ask how she would like to dispose of the day. 
 
 In her capacity of guardian to Georgy, she, with the consent 
 of the Major, her fellow- trustee, begged Miss Osborne to live in 
 the Russell Square house as long as ever she chose to dwell there; 
 but that lady, with thanks, declared that she never could think 
 of remaining alone in that melancholy mansion, and departed 
 in deep mourning to Cheltenham, with a couple of her old 
 domestics. The rest were liberally paid and dismissed; the 
 faithful old butler, whom Mrs. Osborne proposed to retain, 
 resigning and preferring to invest his savings in a public-house, 
 where, let us hope, he was not unprosperous. Miss Osborne not 
 choosing to live in Russell Square, Mrs. Osborne, also, after con- 
 sultation, declined to occupy the gloomy old mansion there. 
 The house was dismantled; the rich furniture and effects, the 
 awful chandeliers and dreary blank mirrors packed away and 
 hidden, the rich rosewood drawing-room suite was muffled in 
 straw, the carpets were rolled up and corded, the small select 
 library of well-bound books was stowed into two wine-chests, 
 and the whole paraphernalia rolled away in several enormous 
 vans to the Pantechnicon, where they were to lie until George's 
 majority. And the great heavy dark plate-chests went off to 
 Messrs. Stumpy & Rowdy, to lie in the cellars of those eminent 
 bankers until the same period should arrive. 
 
 One day Emmy, with George in her hand and clad in deep 
 sables, went to visit the deserted mansion which she had not 
 
620 Vanity Fair 
 
 entered since she was a girl. The place in front was littered 
 with straw where the vans had been laden and rolled off. They 
 went into the great blank rooms^ the walls of wliich bore the 
 marks where the pictures and mirrors had hung. Then they 
 went up the great blank stone staircases into the upper rooms, 
 into that where grandpapa died^ as George said in a whisper, 
 and then higher still into George's own room. The boy was 
 still clinging by her side, but she thought of another besides him. 
 She knew that it had been his father's room as well as his own. 
 
 She went up to one of the open windows (one of those at which, 
 she used to gaze with a sick heart when the child was first taken 
 from her), and thence as she looked out she could see, over the 
 trees of Russell Square, the old house in which she herself was' 
 born, and where she had passed so many happy days of sacred 
 youth. They all came back to her, the pleasant holidays, the 
 kind faces, the careless, joyful past times: and the long pains 
 and trials that had since cast her down. She thought of these 
 and of the man who had been her constant protector, her good 
 genius, her sole benefactor, her tender and generous friend. 
 
 " Look here, mother," said Georgy, " here's a G.O. scratched 
 on the glass with a diamond ; I never saw it before, / never did 
 it." 
 
 " It was your father's room long before you were born, George," 
 she said, and she blushed as she kissed the boy. 
 
 She was very silent as they drove back to Richmond, where 
 they had taken a temporary house: where the smiling lawyers 
 used to come bustling over to see her (and we may be sure noted 
 the visit in the bill): and where of course there was a room for 
 Major Dobbin too, who rode over frequently, having much busi- 
 ness to transact on behalf of his little ward. ' 
 
 Georgy at this time was removed from Mr. Veal's on an un-.; 
 limited holiday, and that gentleman was engaged to prepare an ' 
 inscription for a fine marble slab, to be placed up in the Found- 
 ling under the monument of Captain George Osborne. 
 
 The female Bullock, aunt of Georgy, although despoiled by 
 that little monster of one half of the sum which she expected 
 from her father, nevertheless showed her charitableness of spirit | 
 by being reconciled to the mother and the boy. Roehampton 
 is not far from Richmond, and one day the chariot, with the 
 golden bullocks emblazoned on the panels, and the flaccid 
 children within, drove to Amelia's house at Richmond ; and the 
 Bullock family made an irruption into the garden, where Amelia 
 
Two Lights Are Put Out 621 
 
 was reading a book, Jos was in an arbour placidly dipping straw- 
 berries into wine, and the Major in one of his Indian jackets was 
 giving a back to Georgy, who chose to jump over him. He went 
 over his head, and bounded into the little advance of Bullocks, 
 with immense black bows in their hats, and huge black sashes. 
 accompanying their mourning mamma. " He is just of the age 
 for Rosa," the fond parent thought, and glanced towards that 
 dear child, an unwholesome little Miss of seven years of age. 
 
 " Rosa, go and kiss your dear cousin," Mrs. Frederick said. 
 " Don't you know me, George? — I am your aunt." 
 
 " I know you well enough," George said; " but I don't like 
 kissing, please; " and he retreated from the obedient caresses of 
 his cousin. 
 
 " Take me to your dear mamma, you droll child," Mrs. 
 Frederick said; and those ladies accordingly met, after an 
 absence of more than fifteen years. During Emmy's cares and 
 poverty the other had never once thought about coming to see 
 her; but now that she was decently prosperous in the world, her 
 sister-in-law came to her as a matter of course. 
 
 So did numbers more. Our old friend. Miss Swartz, and her 
 husband came thundering over from Hampton Court, with 
 flaming yellow liveries, and was as impetuously fond of Amelia 
 as ever. Miss Swartz would have liked her always if she could 
 have seen her. One must do her that justice. But, que voulez- 
 vous ? — in this vast town one has not the time to go and seek 
 one's friends; if they drop out of the rank they disappear, and 
 we march on without them. Who is ever missed in Vanity Fair? 
 
 But so, in a word, and before the period of grief for Mr. 
 Osborne's death had subsided, Emmy found herself in the centre 
 of a very genteel circle indeed ; the members of which could not 
 conceive that anybody belonging to it was not very lucky. 
 There was scarce one of the ladies that hadn't a relation a peer, 
 though the husband might be a drysalter in the City. Some of 
 the ladies were very blue and well-informed; reading Mrs. 
 Somerville, and frequenting the Royal Institution; others were 
 severe and Evangelical, and held by Exeter Hall. Emmy, it 
 must be owned, found herself entirely at a loss in the midst of 
 their clavers, and suffered wofully on the one or two occasions 
 on vv^hich she was compelled to accept Mrs. Frederick Bullock's 
 hospitalities. That Lady persisted in patronising her, and de- 
 termined most graciously to form her. She found Amelia's 
 milliners for her, and regulated her household and her manners. 
 She drove over constantly from Roehampton, and entertained 
 
62 2 Vanity Fair 
 
 her friend with faint fashionable fiddle-faddle and feeble Court 
 slipslop. Jos liked to hear it, but the Major used to go off growl- 
 ing at the appearance of this woman, with her twopenny gen- 
 tility. He went to sleep under Frederick Bullock's bald head, 
 after dinner, at one of the banker's best parties (Fred was still 
 anxious that the balance of the Osborne property should be 
 transferred from Stumpy 8z Rowdy's to them), and whilst 
 Amelia, who did not know Latin, or who wrote the last crack 
 article in the Edinburgh, and did not in the least deplore, or 
 otherwise, Mr. Peel's late extraordinary tergiversation on the 
 fatal Catholic Relief Bill, sate dumb amongst the ladies in the 
 grand drawing-room, looking out upon velvet lawns, trim gravel 
 walks, and glistening hot-houses. 
 
 " She seems good-natured but insipid," said Mrs. Rowdy; 
 " that Major seems to be particularly eprisJ^ 
 
 "She wants ff7w sadly," said Mrs. Hollyock. "My dear 
 creature, you never will be able to form her." 
 
 " She is dreadfully ignorant or indifferent," said Mrs. dowry, 
 with a voice as if from the grave, and a sad shake of the head 
 and turban. " I asked her if she thought that it was in 1836, 
 according to Mr. Jowls, or in 1839, according to Mr. Wapshot, 
 that the Pope was to fall : and she said — * Poor Pope ! I hope 
 not — What has he done? ' " 
 
 " She is my brother's widow, my dear friends," Mrs. Frederick 
 replied, " and as such I think we're all bound to give her every 
 attention and instruction on entering into the world. You may 
 fancy there can be no mercenary motives in those whose disap- 
 pointments are well known." 
 
 "' That poor dear Mrs. Bullock," said Rowdy to Hollyock, 
 as they drove av/ay together, — " she is always scheming and 
 managing. She wants Mrs. Osborne's account to be taken from 
 our house to hers — and the way in which she coaxes that boy, 
 and makes him sit by that blear-eyed little Rosa, is perfectly 
 ridiculous." 
 
 " I wish dowry was choked with her Man of Sin and her 
 Battle of Armageddon," cried the other; and the carriage rolled 
 away over Putney Bridge. 
 
 But this sort of society was too cruelly genteel for Emmy: 
 and all jumped for joy v/hen a foreign tour was proposeds 
 
Am Rhein 623 
 
 CHAPTER LXII 
 
 AM RHEIN 
 
 The above everyday events had occurred;, and a few weeks had 
 passed, when on one fine morning, Parliament being over, the 
 summer advanced, and all the good company in London about 
 to quit that city for their annual tour in search of pleasure or 
 health, the Batavier steamboat left the Tower stairs laden with 
 a goodly company of English fugitives. The quarter-deck 
 awnings were up, and the benches and gangways crowded with 
 scores of rosy children, bustling nursemaids, ladies in the prettiest 
 pink bonnets and summer dresses, gentlemen in travelling caps 
 and linen jackets, whose mustachios had just begun to sprout for 
 the ensuing tour; and stout trim old veterans with starched 
 neckcloths and neat-brushed hats, such as have invaded Europe 
 any time since the conclusion of the war, and caiTy the national 
 Goddem into every city of the Continent. The congregation of 
 hat-boxes, and Bramah desks, and dressing-cases was prodigious. 
 There were jaunty young Cambridge men travelling with their 
 tutor, and going for a reading excursion to Nonnenwerth or 
 Konigswinter : there were Irish gentlemen, with the most dash- 
 ing whiskers and jewellery, talking about horses incessantly, and 
 prodigiously polite to the young ladies on board, whom, on the 
 contrary, the Cambridge lads and their pale-faced tutor avoided 
 with maiden coyness : there were old Pall Mall loungers bound 
 for Ems and Wiesbaden, and a course of waters to clear off the 
 dinners of the season, and a little roulette and trente-et-quarante 
 to keep the excitement going : there was old Methuselah, who 
 had married his young wife, with Captain Papillon of the Guards 
 holding her parasol and guide-books ! there was young May who 
 was carrying off his bride on a pleasure tour (Mrs. Winter that 
 was, and who had been at school with May's grandmother); 
 there was Sir John and my Lady with a dozen children, and 
 corresponding nursem.aids; and the great grandee Bareacres' 
 family that sate by themselves near the wheel, stared at every- 
 body, and spoke to no one. 
 
 Their carriages, emblazoned with coronets, and heaped with 
 shining imperials, were on the fore-deck, locked in with a dozen 
 more such vehicles : it was difficult to pass in and out amongst 
 them: and the poor inmates of the fore-cabin had scarcely any 
 
624 Vanity Fair 
 
 space for locomotion. These consisted of a few magnificently- 
 attired gentlemen from Houndsditch, who brought their own 
 provisions, and could have bought half the gay people in the 
 grand saloon; a few honest fellows with mustachios and port- 
 folios, who set to sketching before they had been half-an-hour 
 on board ; one or two French/emmes de chambre who began to be 
 dreadfully ill by the time the boat had passed Greenwich; a 
 groom or two who lounged in the neighbourhood of the horse- 
 boxes under their charge, or leaned over the side by the paddle- 
 wheels, and talked about who was good for the Leger, and what 
 they stood to win or lose for the Goodwood Cup. 
 
 All the couriers, when they had done plunging about the ship, 
 and had settled their various masters in the cabins or on the deck, 
 congregated together and began to chatter and smoke; the 
 Hebrew gentlemen joining them and looking at the carriages. 
 There was Sir John's great carriage that would hold thirteen 
 people; my Lord Methuselah's carriage, my Lord Bareacres' 
 chariot, britzka, and fourgon, that anybody might pay for who 
 liked. It was a wonder how my Lord got the ready money to 
 pay for the expenses of the journey. The Hebrew gentlemen 
 knew how he got it. They knew what money his Lordship had 
 in his pocket at that instant, and what interest he paid for it, and 
 who gave it him. Finally there was a very neat, handsome 
 travelling carriage, about which the gentlemen speculated. 
 
 " A qui cette voiture Id ? " said one gentleman-courier, with a 
 large morocco money-bag and earrings, to another with earrings 
 and a large morocco money-bag. 
 
 " C'est a Kirschje hense — -je Vat vu toute d Vheure — qui brenoit 
 des sangviches dans la voiture,'^ said the courier in a fine German 
 French. Kirsch emerging presently from the neighbourhood 
 of the hold, where he had been bellowing instructions inter- 
 mingled with polyglot oaths to the ship's men engaged in secret- 
 ing the passengers' luggage, came to give an account of himself 
 to his brother interpreters. He informed them that the carriage 
 belonged to a Nabob from Calcutta and Jamaica, enormously 
 rich, and with whom he was engaged to travel; and at this 
 moment a young gentleman who had been warned off the bridge 
 between the paddle-boxes, and who had dropped thence on to 
 the roof of Lord Methuselah's carriage, from which he made his 
 way over other carriages and imperials until he had clambered 
 on to his own, descended thence and through the window into 
 the body of the carriage, to the applause of the couriers looking 
 
Am Rhein 625 
 
 " Nous allons avoir une belle tr aver see, Monsieur George/' said 
 the courier with a grin, as he lifted his gold-laced cap. 
 
 " D your French/' said the young gentleman, " where's 
 
 the biscuits, ay? " Whereupon, Kirsch answered him in the 
 English language, or in such an imitation of it as he could com- 
 mand, — for though he was familiar with all languages, Mr. 
 Kirsch v/as not acquainted with a single one, and spoke all with 
 indifferent volubility and incorrectness. 
 
 The imperious young gentleman who gobbled the biscuits (and 
 indeed it was time to refresh himself, for he had breakfast at 
 Richmond full three hours before), was our young friend George 
 Osborne. Uncle Jos and his mamma were on the quarter-deck 
 with a gentleman of whom they used to see a good deal, and the 
 four were about to make a summer tour. 
 
 Jos was seated at that moment on deck under the awning, 
 and pretty nearly opposite to the Earl of Bareacres and his 
 family, whose proceedings absorbed the Bengalee almost en- 
 tirely. Both the noble couple looked rather younger than in the 
 eventful year '15, when Jos remembered to have seen them at 
 Brussels (indeed, he always gave out in India that he was in- 
 timately acquainted with them). Lady Bareacres' hair, which 
 was then dark, was now a beautiful golden auburn, whereas Lord 
 Bareacres' whiskers, formerly red, were at present of a rich black, 
 with purple and green reflections in the light. But changed as 
 they were, the movements of the noble pair occupied Jos's mind 
 entirely. The presence of a lord fascinated him and he could 
 look at nothing else. 
 
 " Those people seem to interest you a great deal," said Dobbin, 
 laughing and watching him. Amelia too laughed. She was in 
 a straw bonnet with black ribbons, and otherwise dressed in 
 mourning, but the httle bustle and hoHday of the journey pleased 
 and excited her, and she looked particularly happy. 
 
 " What a heavenly day! " Emmy said, and added, with great 
 originality, " I hope we shall have a calm passage." 
 
 Jos waved his hand, scornfully glancing at the same time under 
 his eyehds at the great folks opposite. " If you had made the 
 voyages we have," he said, " you wouldn't much care about 
 the weather." But nevertheless, traveller as he was, he passed 
 the night direfully sick in his carriage, where his courier tended 
 him with brandy-and-water and every luxury. 
 
 In due time this happy party landed at the quays of 
 Rotterdam, whence they were transported by another steamer 
 to the City of Cologne. Here the carriage and the family took 
 
626 Vanity Fair 
 
 to the shore, and Jos was not a little gratified to see his arrival 
 
 announced in the Cologne newspapers as " Herr Graf Lord von 
 Sedley nebst Begleitung aus London." He had his court dress 
 with him: he had insisted that Dobbin should bring his regi- 
 mental paraphernalia: he announced that it was his intention to 
 be presented at some foreign courts, and pay his respects to the 
 sovereigns of the countries which he honoured with a visit. 
 
 Wherever the party stopped, and an opportunity was offered, 
 Mr. Jos left his own card and the Major's upon " Our Minister." 
 It was with great difficulty that he could be restrained from 
 putting on his cocked hat and tights to wait upon the English 
 Consul at the Free City of Judenstadt, when that hospitable 
 functionary asked our travellers to dinner. He kept a journal 
 of his voyage, and noted elaborately the defects or excellences 
 of the various inns at which he put up, and of the wines and 
 dishes of which he partook. 
 
 As for Emmy, she was very happy and pleased. Dobbin used 
 to carry about for her her stool and sketch-book, and admired 
 the drawings of the good-natured little artist, as they never had 
 been admired before. She sate upon steamers' decks and drew 
 crags and castles, or she mounted upon donkeys and ascended 
 to ancient robber- towers, attended by her two aides-de-camp, 
 Georgy and Dobbin. She laughed, and the Major did too, at 
 his droll figure on donkey-back, with his long legs touching the 
 ground. He was the interpreter for the party^ having a good 
 military knowledge of the German language; and he and the 
 delighted George fought the campaigns of the Rhine and the 
 Palatinate. In the course of a few weeks, and by assiduously 
 conversing with Herr Kirsch on the box of the carriage, Georgy 
 made prodigious advance in the knowledge of High Dutch, and 
 could talk to hotel waiters and postillions in a way that charmed 
 his mother, and amused his guardian. 
 
 Mr. Jos did not much engage in the afternoon excursions of 
 his fellow-travellers. He slept a good deal after dinner, or 
 basked in the arbours of the pleasant inn-gardens. Pleasant 
 Rhine gardens! Fair scenes of peace and sunshine — ^noble 
 purple mountains, whose crests are reflected in the magnificent 
 stream— who has ever seen you, that has not a grateful memory 
 of those scenes of friendly repose and beauty? To lay down the 
 pen, and even to think Of that beautiful Rhineland makes one 
 happy. At this time of summer evening, the cows are trooping 
 down from the hills, lowing, and with their beUs tinkling, to the 
 old town, with its old moats, and gates, and spires, and chestnut- 
 
Am Rhein 627 
 
 trees^ with long blue shadows stretching over the grass; the 
 sky and the river below flame in crimson and gold; and the 
 moon is already out, looking pale towards the sunset. The sun 
 sinks behind the great castle-crested mountains, the night falls 
 suddenly, the river grows darker and darker, lights quiver in it 
 from the windows in the old ramparts, and twinkle peacefully 
 in the villages under the hills on the opposite shore. 
 
 So Jos used to go to sleep a good deal v^th his bandanna over 
 his face and be very comfortable, and read all the English news, 
 and every word of Galignani's admirable newspaper (may the 
 blessings of all Englishmen who have ever been abroad rest on 
 the founders and proprietors of that piratical print!) and 
 whether he woke or slept his friends did not very much miss him. 
 Yes, they were very happy. They went to the Opera often of 
 evenings—to those snug, unassuming, dear old operas in the 
 German towns, where the noblesse sits and cries, and knits 
 stockings on the one side, over against the bourgeoisie on the 
 other; and His Transparency the Duke and his Transparent 
 family, all very fat and good-natured, come and occupy the 
 great Idox in the middle; and the pit is full of the most elegant 
 slim-waisted officers with straw-coloured mustachios, and two- 
 pence a day on full pay. Here it was that Emmy found her 
 delight, and was introduced for the first time to the wonders of 
 Mozart and Cimarosa. The Major's musical taste has been 
 before alluded to, and his performances on the flute commended. 
 But perhaps the chief pleasure he had in these operas was in 
 watching Emmy's rapture while listening to them. A new 
 world of love and beauty broke upon her when she was intro- 
 duced to those divine compositions: this lady had the keenest 
 and finest sensibihty, and how could she be indifferent when 
 she heard Mozart.? The tender parts of ''. Don Juan " awakened 
 in her raptures so exquisite that she would ask herself when. she 
 went to say her prayers of a night, whether it was not wicked to 
 feel so much delight as that with which " Vedrai Carino " and 
 " Batti Batti " filled her gentle little bosom.? But the Major, 
 whom she consulted upon this head, as her theological adviser 
 (and who himself had a pious and reverent soul), said that, for 
 his part, every beauty of art or nature made him thankful as 
 well as happy; and that the pleasure to be had in listening to 
 fine music, as in looking at the stars in the sky, or at a beautiful 
 landscape or picture, was a benefit for which we might thank 
 Heaven as sincerely as for any other worldly blessing. And in 
 reply to some faint objections of Mrs, Amelia's (taken from 
 
628 Vanity Fair 
 
 certain theological works like the " Washerwoman of Finchley 
 Common " and others of that school^ with which Mrs. Osborne 
 had been furnished during her life at Brompton) he told her an 
 Eastern fable of the Owl who thought that the sunshine was un- 
 bearable for the eyes, and that the Nightingale was a most over- 
 rated bird. " It is one's nature to sing and the other's to hoot/' 
 he said, laughing, " and with such a sweet voice as you have 
 yourself, you must belong to the Bulbul faction." 
 
 I like to dwell upon this period of her life, and to think that 
 she was cheerful and happy. You see she has not had too much 
 of that sort of existence as yet, and has not fallen in the way of 
 means to educate her tastes or her intelligence. She has been 
 domineered over hitherto by vulgar intellects. It is the lot of 
 many a woman. And as every one of the dear sex is the rival 
 of the rest of her kind, timidity passes for folly in their charitable 
 judgments; and gentleness for dulness; and silence — which is 
 but timid denial of the unwelcome assertion of ruling folks, and 
 tacit protestantism — above all, finds no mercy at the hands of 
 th3 female Inquisition. Thus, my dear and civilised reader, if 
 you and I were to find ourselves this evening in a society of 
 greengrocers, let us say, it is probable that our conversation 
 would not be brilliant; if, on the other hand, a greengrocer 
 should find himself at your refined and polite tea-table, where 
 everybody was saying witty things, and everybody of fashion 
 and repute tearing her friends to pieces in the most delightful 
 manner, it is possible that the stranger would not be very 
 talkative, and by no means interesting or interested. 
 
 And it must be remembered, that this poor lady had never 
 met a gentleman in her life until this present moment. Perhaps 
 these are rarer personages than some of us think. For which 
 of us can point out many such in his circle — men whose aims are 
 generous, whose truth is constant, and not only constant in its 
 kind but elevated in its degree; whose want of meanness makes 
 them simple : who can look the world honestly in the face with 
 an equal manly sympathy for the great and the small ? We all 
 know a hundred whose coats are very well made, and a score 
 who have excellent manners, and one or two happy beings who 
 are what they call in the inner circles, and have shot into the 
 very centre and bull's-eye of the fashion : but of gentlemen how 
 many.? Let us take a little scrap of paper and each make out 
 his list. 
 
 My friend the Major I write, without any doubt, in mine. He 
 had very long legs, a yellow face, and a slight lisp, which at first 
 
Am Rhein 629 
 
 was rather ridiculous. But his thoughts were just, his brains 
 were fairly good^ his life was honest and pure, and his heart 
 warm and humble. He certainly had very large hands and feet, 
 which the two George Osbornes used to caricature and laugh at; 
 and their jeers and laughter perhaps led poor httle Emmy astray 
 as to his worth. But have we not all been misled about our 
 heroes, and changed our opinions a hundred times? Emmy, in 
 this happy time, found that hers underwent a very great change 
 in respect of the merits of the Major. 
 
 Perhaps it was the happiest time of both their lives indeed, 
 if they did but know it — and who does ? Which of us can point 
 out and say that was the culmination — that was the summit of 
 human joy ! But at all events, this couple were very decently 
 contented, and enjoyed as pleasant a summer tour as any pair 
 that left England that year. Georgy was always present at the 
 play, but it was the Major who put Emmy's shawl on after the 
 entertainment; and in the w^alks and excursions the young lad 
 would be on ahead, and up a tower-stair or a tree, whilst the 
 soberer couple were below, the Major smoking his cigar with great 
 placidity and constancy, whilst Emmy sketched the site or the 
 ruin. It was on this very tour that I, the present writer of a 
 history of which every word is true, had the pleasure to see them 
 first, and to make their acquaintance. 
 
 It was at the little comfortable Ducal town of Pumpernickel 
 (that very place where Sir Pitt Crawley had been so distin- 
 guished as an attache ; but that was in early early days, and 
 before the news of the battle of Austerlitz sent all the English 
 diplomatists in Germany to the right about) that I first saw 
 Colonel Dobbin and his party. They had arrived with the 
 carriage and courier at the Erbprinz Hotel, the best of the town, 
 and the whole party dined at the table d'hote. Everybody 
 remarked the majesty of Jos, and the knowing way in which he 
 sipped, or rather sucked, the Johannisberger, which he ordered 
 for dinner. The little boy, too, we observed, had a famous 
 appetite, and consumed schinken, and braten, and kartoffeln, 
 and cranberry jam, and salad, and pudding, and roast fowls, and 
 sweetmeats, with a gallantry that did honour to his nation. 
 After about fifteen dishes, he concluded the repast with dessert, 
 some of which he even carried out of doors; for some young 
 gentlemen at table, amused with his coolness and gallant free- 
 and-easy manner, induced him to pocket a handful of macaroons, 
 which he discussed on his way to the theatre, whither everybody 
 
630 Vanity Fair 
 
 went in the cheery social httle German place. The lady in 
 black, the boy's mamma, laughed and blushed, and looked 
 exceedingly pleased and shy as the dinner went on, and at the 
 various feats and instances of espieglerie on the part of her son. 
 The Colonel — for so he became very soon afterwards — I re- 
 member, joked the boy, with a great deal of grave fun pointing 
 out dishes which he hadn't tried, and entreating him not to 
 baulk his appetite, but to have a second supply of this or that. 
 
 It was what they call a gast-rolle night at the Royal Grand 
 Ducal PumpeniickeHsch Hof, — or Court Theatre; and Madame 
 Schroeder Devrient, then in the bloom of her beauty and genius, 
 perfoi"med the part of the heroine in the wonderful opera of 
 " Fideho." From our places in the stalls we could see our four 
 friends of the table d'hote, in the loge which Schwendler of the 
 Erbprinz kept for his best guests : and I could not help remark- 
 ing the effect which the magnificent actress and music produced 
 upon Mrs. Osborne, for so we heard the stout gentleman in 
 the mustachios call her. During the astonishing Chorus of the 
 Prisoners, over which the delightful voice of the actress rose 
 a,nd soared in the most ravishing harmony, the English lady's 
 face wore such an expression of wonder and delight that it 
 struck even little Fipps, the blase attache, who drawled out as he 
 fixed his glass upon her, " Gayd, it really does one good to see a 
 woman caypable of that stayt of excaytement." And in the 
 Prison scene, where Fideho, rushing to her husband, cries, 
 " Nichts, nichts, mein Florestan," she fairi}^ lost herself and 
 covered her face with her handkerchief. Every woman in the 
 house was snivelling at the time: but I suppose it was because 
 it was predestined that I was to write this particular lady's 
 memoirs that I remarked her. 
 
 The next day they gave another piece of Beethoven, ^' Die 
 Schlacht bei Vittoria." Malbrook is introduced at the begin- 
 ning of the performance, as indicative of the brisk advance of 
 the French army. Then come drums, trumpets, thunders of 
 artillery, and groans of the dying, and at last, in a grand 
 triumphal swell, " God save the King " is performed. 
 
 There may have been a score of Englishmen in the house, but 
 at the burst of that beloved and well-known music, every one of 
 them, we young fellows in the stalls. Sir John and Lady Bull- 
 minister (who had taken a house at Pumpernickel for the 
 education of their nine children), the fat gentleman with the 
 mustachios, the long Major in white duck trousers, and the lady 
 with the little boy upon whom he was so sweet: even Kirsch^ 
 
Am Rhein 631 
 
 the courier in the gallery, stood bolt upright in their places, and 
 proclaimed themselves to be members of the dear old British 
 nation. As for Tapeworm, the Charge d'Affaires, he rose up in 
 his box and bowed and simpered, as if he would represent the 
 whole empire. Tapeworm was nephew and heir of old Marshal 
 Tiptoff, who has been introduced in this story as General Tiptoff, 
 just before Waterloo, who was Colonel of the — th regiment, in 
 which Major Dobbin served, and wdio died in this year, full of 
 honours, and of an aspic of plover's eggs; when the regiment 
 was graciously given by his Majesty to Colonel Sir Michael 
 O'Dowd, K.C.B., who had commanded it in many glorious fields. 
 
 Tapeworm must have met with Colonel Dobbin at the house 
 of the Colonel's Colonel, the Marshal, for he recognised him on 
 this night at the theatre; and with the utmost condescension, 
 his Majesty's Minister came over from his own box, and publicly 
 shook hands with his new-found friend. 
 
 " Look at that infernal slyboots of a Tapevv^orm," Fipps 
 whispered, examining his chief from the stalls. " Wherever 
 there's a pretty woman he always twists himself in." And I 
 wonder what were diplomatists made for but for that? 
 
 " Have I the honour of addressing myself to Mrs. Dobbin? " 
 asked the Secretary, with a most insinuating grin. 
 
 Georgy burst out laughing, and said, " By Jove, that is a 
 good 'un." Emmy and the Major blushed: we saw them from 
 the stalls. 
 
 " This lady is Mrs. George Osborne," said the Major, " and 
 this is her brother, Mr. Sedley, a distinguished officer of the 
 Bengal Civil Service: permit me to introduce him to your 
 Lordship." 
 
 My Lord nearly sent Jos off his legs with the most fascinating 
 smile. "Are you going to stop in Pumpernickel?" he said. 
 " It is a dull place: but we want some nice people, and we 
 would try and make it so agreeable to you. Mr. — Ahum — Mrs. 
 - — Oho. I shall do myself the honour of calling upon you to- 
 morrow at your inn." And he went away with a Parthian grin 
 and glance which he thought must finish Mrs. Osborne com- 
 pletely. 
 
 The performance over, the young fellows lounged about the 
 lobbies, and we saw the society take its departure. The 
 Duchess Dowager went off in her jingling old coach, attended by 
 two faithful and withei"ed old rhaids of honour, and a little snuffy 
 spindle-shanked gentleman in waiting, in a brovMi jasey and a 
 green coat covered with orders — of which the star and the grand 
 
632 Vanity Fair 
 
 yellow cordon of the Order of St, Michael of Pumpeniickel were 
 most conspicuous. The drums rolled, the guards saluted, and 
 the old carriage drove away. 
 
 Then came his Transparency the Duke and Transparent 
 family, with his great officers of state and household. He bowed 
 serenely to everybody. And amid the saluting of the guards, 
 and the flaring of the torches of the running footmen, clad in 
 scarlet, the Transparent carriages drove away to the old Ducal 
 Schloss, with its towers and pinnacles standing on the Schloss- 
 berg. Everybody in Pumpernickel knew everybody. No 
 sooner was a foreigner seen there, than the Minister of Foreign 
 Affairs, or some other great or small officer of state, went round 
 to the Erbprinz, and found out the name of the nevv^ arrival. 
 
 We watched them, too, out of the theatre. Tapeworm had 
 just walked off, enveloped in his cloak, with which his gigantic 
 chasseur was always in attendance, and looking as much as 
 possible like Don Juan. The Prime Minister's lady had just 
 squeezed herself into her sedan, and her daughter, the charming 
 Ida, had put on her calash and clogs: when the English party 
 came out, the boy yawning drearily, the Major taking great pains 
 in keeping the shawl over Mrs. Osborne's head, and Mr. Sedley 
 looking grand, with a crush opera-hat on one side of his head, 
 and his hand in the stomach of a voluminous white waistcoat. 
 We took off our hats to our acquaintances of the table d'hote, and 
 the lady, in return, presented us with a little smile and a curtsey, 
 for which everybody might be thankful. 
 
 " The carriage from the inn, under the superintendance of the 
 bustling Mr. Kirsch, was in waiting to convey the party; but the 
 fat man said he would walk, and smoke his cigar on his way 
 homewards ; so the other three, with nods and smiles to us, went 
 without Mr. Sedley; Kirsch, with the cigar-case, following in 
 his master's wake. 
 
 We all walked together, and talked to the stout gentleman 
 about the agremens of the place. It was very agreeable for the 
 English. There were shooting-parties and battues; there was 
 plenty of balls and entertainments at the hospitable Court; the 
 society was generally good ; the theatre excellent, and the living 
 cheap. " And our Minister seems a most delightful and affable 
 person," our new friend said. "With such a representative, 
 and — and a good medical man, I can fancy the place to be most 
 eligible. Good-night, gentlemen."' , And Jos creaked up the 
 stairs to bedward, followed by Kirsch with a flambeau. We 
 rather hoped that nice-looking woman would be induced to stay 
 some time in the town. 
 
We Meet an Old Acquaintance 633 
 CHAPTER LXIII 
 
 IN WHICH WE MEET AN OLD ACQUAINTANCE 
 
 Such polite behaviour as that of Lord Tapeworm did not fail to 
 have the most favourable effect upon Mr. Sedley's mind, and 
 the very next morning, at breakfast, he pronounced his opinion 
 that Pumpernickel was the pleasantest little place of any which 
 he had visited on their tour. Jos's motives and artifices were 
 not very difficult of comprehension ; and Dobbin laughed in his 
 sleeve, like a hypocrite as he was, when he found by the knowing 
 air of the Civilian and the off-hand manner in which the latter 
 talked about Tapeworm Castle, and the other members of the 
 family, that Jos had been up already in the morning, consulting 
 his travelling Peerage. Yes, he had seen the Right Honourable 
 the Earl of Bagwig, his Lordship's father; he was sure he had, 
 he had met him at — at the Levee — didn't Dob remember? and 
 when the Diplomatist called on the party, faithful to his promise, 
 Jos received him with such a salute and honours as were seldom 
 accorded to the little Envoy. He winked at Kirsch on his 
 Excellency's arrival, and that emissary, instructed beforehand, 
 went out and superintended an entertainment of cold meats, 
 jelHes, and other delicacies, brought in upon trays, and of which 
 Mr. Jos absolutely insisted that his noble guest should partake. 
 
 Tapeworm, so long as he could have an opportunity of admir- 
 ing the bright eyes of Mrs. Osborne (whose freshness of com- 
 plexion bore daylight remarkably well) was not ill pleased to 
 accept any invitation to stay in Mr. Sedley's lodgings; he put 
 one or two dexterous questions to him about India and the 
 dancing-girls there; asked Amelia about that beautiful boy who 
 had been with her, and complimented the astonished little woman 
 upon the prodigious sensation which she had made in the house; 
 and tried to fascinate Dobbin by talking of the late war, and the 
 exploits of the Pumpernickel contingent under the command 
 of the Hereditary Prince, now Duke of Pumpernickel. 
 
 Lord Tapeworm inherited no little portion of the family 
 gallantry, and it was his happy belief, that almost every woman 
 upon whom he himself cast friendly eyes, was in love with him. 
 He left Emmy under the persuasion that she was slain by his 
 wit and attractions, and went home to his lodgings to write a 
 
634 Vanity Fair 
 
 pretty little note to her. She was not fascinated : only puzzled 
 by his grinning, his simpering, his scented cambric handkerchief, 
 and his high-heeled lacquered boots. She did not understand 
 one half the compliments which he paid; she had never, in her 
 small experience of mankind, met a professional ladies' man as 
 yet, and looked upon my lord as something curious rather than 
 pleasant; and if she did not admire, certainly wondered at him. 
 Jos, on the contrary, was delighted. "How very affable his 
 Lordship is," he said; " how very kind of his Lordship to say he 
 would send his medical man ! Kirsch, you will carry our cards 
 to the Count de Schliisselback directly: the Major and I will have 
 the greatest pleasure in paying our respects at Court as soon as 
 possible. Put out my uniform, Kirsch, — both our uniforms. It 
 is a mark of politeness which every English gentleman ought to 
 show to the countries which he visits, to pay his respects to the 
 sovereigns of those countries as to the representatives of his 
 own." 
 
 When Tapeworm's doctor came, Doctor von Glauber, Body 
 Physician to H.S.H. the Duke, he speedily convinced Jos that 
 the Pumpernickel mineral springs and the Doctor's particular 
 treatment would infallibly restore the Bengalee to youth and 
 slimness. " Dere came here last year," he said> " Sheneral 
 Bulkeley, an English Sheneral, tvice so pic as you, sir. I sent 
 him back qvite tin after tree months, and he danced vid Baroness 
 Glauber at the end of two." 
 
 Jos's mind was made up; the springs, the Doctor, the Court, 
 and the Charge d' Affaires convinced him, and he proposed to 
 spend the autumn in these delightful quarters. And punctual 
 to his word, on the next day the Charge d'Affaires presented Jos 
 and the Major to Victor Aurelius XVIL, being conducted to 
 their audience with that sovereign by the Count de Schliisselback, 
 Marshal of the Court. 
 
 They were straightway invited to dinner at Court, and their 
 intention of staying in the town being announced, the politest 
 ladies of the whole town instantly called upon Mrs. Osborne: 
 and as not one of these, however poor they might be, was under 
 the rank of a Baroness, Jos's delight was beyond expression. 
 He wrote off to Chutney at the Club to say that the Service was 
 highly appreciated in Germany, that he was going to show his 
 friend, the Count de Schliisselback, how to stick a pig in the 
 Indian fashion, and that his august friends, the Duke and 
 Duchess, were everything that was kind and civil. 
 
 Emmy, too, was presented to the august family, and as 
 
We Meet an Old Acquaintance 635 
 
 mourning is not admitted in Court on certain days, she appeared 
 in a pink crape dress, with a diamond ornament in the corsage, 
 presented to- her by her brother, and she looked so pretty in this 
 costume that the Duke and Court (putting out of the question 
 the Major, who had scarcely ever seen her before in an evening 
 dress, and vowed that she did not look five-and-twenty) all 
 admired her excessively. 
 
 In this dress she walked a Polonaise with Major Dobbin at a 
 Court ball, in which easy dance Mr. Jos had the honour of leading 
 out the Countess of Schliisselback, an old lady with a humpback, 
 but with sixteen good quarters of nobility, and related to half 
 the royal houses of Germany. 
 
 Pumpernickel stands in the midst of a happy valley, through 
 which sparkles — to mingle with the Rhine somewhere, but I have 
 not the map at hand to say exactly at what point — ^the fertilising 
 stream of the Pump. In some places the river is big enough to 
 support a ferry-boat, in others to turn a mill; in Pumpernickel 
 itself, the last Transparency but three, the great and renowned 
 Victor Aurelius XIV. built a magnificent bridge, on which his 
 own statue rises, surrounded by water-nymphs and emblems of 
 victory, peace, and plenty; he has his foot on the neck of a 
 prostrate Turk — history says he engaged and ran a Janissary 
 through the body at the relief of Vienna by Sobieski, — but, quite 
 undisturbed by the agonies of that prostrate Mahometan, who 
 writhes at his feet in the most ghastly manner, the Prince smiles 
 blandly, and points with his truncheon in the direction of the 
 Aurelius Platz, where he began to erect a new palace that would 
 have been the wonder of his age, had the great-souled Prince but 
 had funds to complete it. But the completion of Monplaisir 
 (Monblatsir the honest German folk call it) was stopped for lack 
 of ready money, and it and its park and garden are now in rather 
 a faded condition, and not more than ten times big enough to 
 accommodate the Court of the reigning Sovereign. 
 
 The gardens were arranged to emulate those of Versailles, and 
 amidst the terraces and groves there are some huge allegorical 
 waterworks still, which spout and froth stupendously upon fete 
 days, and frighten one with their enormous aquatic insurrections. 
 There is the Trophonius' cave in which, by some artifice, the 
 leaden Tritons are made not only to spout water, but to play 
 the most dreadful groans out of their lead conches — there is the 
 N}TTiph-bath and the Niagara cataract, which the people of the 
 neighbourhood admire beyond expression, when they come to 
 the yearly fair at the opening of the Chamber, or to the fete, 
 
636 ' Vanity Fair 
 
 with which the happy little nation still celebrates the birthdays 
 and marriage-days of its princely governors. 
 
 Then from all the towns of the Duchy^ which stretches for 
 nearly ten miles^ — from Bolkum, which lies on its western 
 frontier bidding defiance to Prussia^ from Grogwitz^ where the 
 Prince has a hunting-lodge, and where his dominions are 
 separated by the Pamp river from those of the neighbouring 
 Prince of Potzenthal: from all the little villages which, besides 
 these three great cities, dot over the happy Principality — from 
 the farms and the mills along the Pump, come troops of people 
 in red petticoats and velvet head-dresses, or with three-cornered 
 hats and pipes in their mouth, who flock to the Residenz and 
 share in the pleasures of the fair and the festivities there. Then 
 the theatre is open for nothing, then the waters of Monblaisir 
 begin to play (it is lucky that there is company to behold them, 
 for one would be afraid to see them alone) — then there come 
 mountebanks and riding troops (the way in which the Trans- 
 parency was fascinated by one of the horse-riders is well known, 
 and it is believed that La Petite Vivandiere, as she was called, 
 was a spy in the French interest), and the delighted people are 
 permitted to march through room after room of the Grand 
 Ducal palace, and admire the slippery floor, the rich hangings, 
 and the spittoons at the doors of all the innumerable chambers. 
 There is one Pavilion at Monblaisir which Aurelius Victor XV. 
 had arranged — a great Prince, but too fond of pleasure — and 
 which I am told is a perfect wonder of licentious elegance. It is 
 painted with the story of Bacchus and Ariadne, and the table 
 works in and out of the room by means of a windlass, so that the 
 company was served without any intervention of domestics. 
 But the place was shut up by Barbara, Aurelius XV.'s widow, 
 a severe and devout Princess of the House of Bolkum and 
 Regent of the Duchy during her son's glorious minority, and 
 after the death of her husband, cut off in the pride of his 
 pleasures. 
 
 The theatre of Pumpernickel is Ijnown and famous in that 
 quarter of Germany. It languished a little when the present 
 Duke in his youth insisted upon having his own operas played 
 there, and it is said one day, in a fury, from his place in the 
 orchestra, when he attended a rehearsal, broke a bassoon on 
 the head of the Chapel Master, who was conducting, and led 
 too slow; and during which time the Duchess Sophia wrote 
 domestic comedies which must have been very dreary to witness. 
 But the Prince executes his music in private now, and the 
 
We Meet an Old Acquaintance 637 
 
 Duchess only gives slw&j her plays to the foreigners of distinction 
 who visit her kind little Court. 
 
 It is conducted with no small comfort and splendour. When 
 there are balls, though there may be four hundred people at 
 supper, there is a servant in scarlet and lace to attend upon 
 every four, and every one is served on silver. There are festivals 
 and entertainments going continually on; and the Duke has his 
 chamberlains and equerries, and the Duchess her mistress of the 
 wardrobe and ladies of honour, just like any other and more 
 potent potentates. 
 
 The Constitution is or was a moderate despotism, tempered 
 by a Chamber that might or might not be elected. I never 
 certainly could hear of its sitting in my time at Pumpernickel. 
 The Prime Minister had lodgings in a second floor; and the 
 Foreign Secretary occupied the comfortablie lodgings over 
 Zwieback's Conditorey. The army consisted of a magnificent 
 band that also did duty on the stage, where it was quite pleasant 
 to see the worthy fellows marching in Turkish dresses with rouge 
 on and wooden scimitars, or as Roman warriors with ophicleides 
 and trombones, — to see them again, I say, at night, after one 
 had listened to them all the morning in the Aurelius Platz, 
 where they performed opposite the Cafe where we breakfasted. 
 Besides the band, there was a rich and numerous staff of oflicers, 
 and, I beheve, a few men. Besides the regular sentries, three 
 or four men, habited as hussars, used to do duty at the Palace, 
 but I never saw them on horselDack, and aufait, what v/as the 
 use of cavalry in a time of profound peace.'' — and whither the 
 deuce should the hussars ride ? 
 
 Everybody — everybody that was noble of course, for as for 
 the bourgeois we could not quite be expected to take notice of 
 them — visited his neighbour. H.E. Madame de Burst received 
 once a week. H.E. Madame de Schnurrbart had her night — the 
 theatre was open twice a week, the Court graciously received 
 once, so that a man's life might in fact be a perfect round of 
 pleasure in the unpretending Pumpernickel way. 
 
 That there were feuds in the palace, no one can deny. Politics 
 ran very high at Pumpernickel, and parties were very bitter. 
 There was the Strumpff faction and the Lederlung party, the 
 one supported by our Envoy and the other by the French Charge 
 d' Affaires, M. de Macabau. Indeed it sufficed for our Minister 
 to stand up for Madame Strumpff, who was clearly the greater 
 singer of the two, and had three more notes in her \'oice than 
 Madame Lederlung her rival — it sufficed, I say, for our Minister 
 
638 Vanity Fair 
 
 to advance any opinion to have it instantly contradicted by the 
 French diplomatist. 
 
 Everybody in the town was ranged in one or other of these 
 factions. The Lederlung was a prettyish little creature cer- 
 tainly, and her voice (what there was of it) was very sweet, and 
 there is no doubt that the Strumpff was not in her first youth and 
 beauty, and certainly too stout; when she came on in the last 
 scene of the " Sonnambula " for instance in her night-chemise 
 with a lamp in her hand, and had to go out of the window, and 
 pass over the plank of the mill, it was all she could do to squeeze 
 out of the window, and the plank used to bend and creak again 
 under her weight — but how she poured out the finale of the 
 opera ! and with what a burst of feeling she rushed into Elvino's 
 arms — almost fit to smother him ! Whereas the little Lederlung 
 — but a truce to this gossip — the fact is, that these two women 
 were the two flags of the French and the English party at 
 Pumpernickel, and the society was divided in its allegiance to 
 those two great nations. 
 
 We had on our side the Home Minister, the Master of the 
 Horse, the Duke's Private Secretary, and the Prince's Tutor: 
 whereas of the French party were the Foreign Minister, the 
 Commander-in-Chief's Lady, who had served under Napoleon, 
 and the Hof-Marschall and his wife, who was glad enough to get 
 the fashions from Paris, and always had them and her caps by 
 M. de Macabau's courier. The Secretary of his Chancery was 
 little Grignac, a young fellow, as malicious as Satan, and who 
 ma,de caricatures of Tapeworm in all the albums of the place. 
 
 Their headquarters and table d'hote vfoxt established at the 
 Pariser Hof, the other inn of the town; and though, of course, 
 these gentlemen were obliged to be civil in public, yet they cut 
 at each other with epigrams that were as sharp as razors, as I 
 have seen a couple of wrestlers in Devonshire, lashing at each 
 other's shins, and never showing their agony upon a muscle of 
 their faces. Neither Tapeworm nor Macabau ever sent home a 
 despatch to his government, without a most savage series of 
 attacks upon his rival. For instance, on our side we would 
 write, " The interests of Great Britain in this place, and through- 
 out the whole of Germany, are perilled by the continuance in 
 office of the present French envoy; this man is of a character so 
 infamous that he will stick at no falsehood, or hesitate at no 
 crime, to attain his ends. He poisons the mind of the Court 
 against the English Minister, represents the conduct of Great 
 Britain in the most odious and atrocious light, and is unhappily 
 
We Meet an Old Acquaintance * 639 
 
 backed by a Minister whose ignorance and necessities are as 
 notorious as his influence is fatal." On their side they would 
 say, " M. de Tapeworm continues his system of stupid 
 insular an-ogance and vulgar falsehood against the greatest 
 nation in the world. Yesterday he was heard to speak lightly 
 of Her Royal Highness Madame the Duchess of Berri: on 
 a former occasion he insulted the heroic Duke of Angouleme, 
 and dared to insinuate that H.R.H. the Duke of Orleans was 
 conspiring against the august throne of the hlies. His gold 
 is prodigated in every direction which his stupid menaces 
 fail to frighten. By one and the other, he has won over 
 creatures of the Court here, — and, in fine. Pumpernickel will not 
 be quiet, Germany tranquil, France respected, or Europe con- 
 tent, until this poisonous viper be crushed under heel : " and so 
 on. When one side or the other had written any particularly 
 spicy despatch, news of it was sure to slip out. 
 
 Before the winter was far advanced it is actually on record 
 that Emmy took a night and received company with great pro- 
 priety and modesty. She had a French master who compli- 
 m.ented her upon the purity of her accent and her facility of 
 learning; the fact is, she had learned long ago, and grounded 
 herself subsequently in the grammar so as to be able to teach 
 it to George ; and Madame Strumpff came to give her lessons in 
 singing, which she performed so well and with such a true voice 
 that the Major's windows, who had lod^^ings opposite under the 
 Prime Minister, were always open to hear the lesson. Some of 
 the German ladies, v/ho are very sentimental and simple in their 
 tastes, fell in love with her and began td call her du Sit once. 
 These are trivial details, but they relate to happy times. The 
 Major made himself George's tutor, and read Caesar and mathe- 
 matics with him, and they had a German master and rode out 
 of evenings by the side of Emmy's carriage — she was always too 
 timid, and made a dreadful outcry at the slightest disturbance 
 on horseback. So she drove about v/ith one of her dear German 
 friends, and Jos asleep on the back seat of the barouche. 
 
 He Was becoming very sweet upon the Grafinn Fanny de 
 Butterbrod, a very gentle tender-hearted and unassuming 
 young creature, a Canoness and Countess in her own right, but 
 with scarcely ten pounds per year to her fortune, and Fanny for 
 her part declared that to be Amelia's sister was the greatest 
 delight that Heaven could bestow on her, and Jos might have 
 put a Countess's shield and coronet by the side of his own arms 
 on his carriage and forks; when — ^when events occurred^ and 
 
640 ' Vanity Fair 
 
 those grand fetes given upon the marriage of the Hereditary 
 Prince of Pumpernickel with the lovely Princess Amelia of 
 Humbourg-Schlippenschloppen took place. 
 
 At this festival the magnificence displayed was such as had 
 not been known in the little Germ-an place since the days of the 
 prodigal Victor XIV. All the neighbouring Princes, Princesses, 
 and Grandees were invited to the feast. Beds rose to half-a- 
 crown per night in Pumpernickel, and the army was exhausted 
 in providing guards of honour for the Highnesses, Serenities, and 
 Excellencies who arrived from all quarters. The Princess was 
 married by proxy, at her father's residence, by the Count de 
 Schliisselback. Snuff-boxes were given away in profusion (as 
 we learned from the Court jeweller, who sold and afterwards 
 bought them again), and bushels of the Order of Saint Michael 
 of Pumpernickel were sent to the nobles of the Court, while 
 hampers of the cordons and decorations of the Wheel of St. 
 Catherine of Schlippenschloppen were brought to ours. The 
 French envoy got both. " He is covered with ribbons like a 
 prize cart-horse," Tapeworm said, who was not allowed by the 
 rules of his service to take any decorations: " Let him have the 
 cordons; but with whom is the victory .f* " The fact is, it was a 
 triumph of British diplomacy: the French party having pro- 
 posed and tried their utmost to carry a marriage with a Princess 
 of the House of Potztausend Donnerwetter, whom, as a matter 
 of course, we opposed. 
 
 Everybody was asked to tho, fetes of the marriage. Garlands 
 and triumphal arches were hung across the road to welcome the 
 young bride. The great St. Michael's Fountain ran with un- 
 comm^only sour wine, while that in the Artillery Place frothed 
 with beer. The great waters played; and poles were put up in 
 the Park and gardens for the happy peasantry, which they 
 might climb at their leisure, carrying off watches, silver forks, 
 prize sausages hung with pink ribbon, etc., at the top. Georgy 
 got one^ wrenching it off, having swarmed up the pole to the 
 delight of the spectators, and sliding down with the rapidity 
 of a fall of water. But it was for the glory's sake merely. The 
 boy gave the sausage to a peasant, who had very nearly seized 
 it, and stood at the foot of the mast, blubbering, because he was 
 unsuccessful. 
 
 At the French Chancellerie they had six more lampions in 
 their illuminations than ours had ; but our transparency, which 
 represented the young couple advancing, and Discord flying 
 away, with the most ludicrous likeness to the French ambassador, 
 
We Meet an Old Acquaintance 641 
 
 beat the French picture hollow ; and I have no doubt got Tape- 
 worm the advancement and the Cross of the Bath, which he 
 subsequently attained. 
 
 Crowds of foreigners arrived for the fetes : and of English of 
 course. Besides the Court balls, public balls were given at the 
 Town Hall and the Redoute, and in the former place there was 
 a room for trente-et-quarante and roulette established, for the 
 week of the festivities only, and by one of the great German 
 companies from Ems or Aix-la-Chapelle. The officers or in- 
 habitants of the town were not allowed to play at these games, 
 but strangers, peasants, ladies were admitted, and any one who 
 chose to lose or win money. 
 
 That little scapegrace Georgy Osborne amongst others, whose 
 pockets were always full of dollars, and whose relations were 
 away at the grand festival of the Court, came to the Stadthaus 
 ball in company of his uncle's courier, Mr. Kirsch, and having 
 only peeped into a play-room at Baden-Baden when he hung on 
 Dobbin's arm, and where, of course, he was not permitted to 
 gamble, came eagerly to this part of the entertainment, and 
 hankered round the tables where the croupiers and the punters 
 were at work. Women were playing; they were masked, some 
 of them; this licence was allowed in these wild times of carnival. 
 
 A woman with light hair, in a low dress, by no means so fresh 
 as it had been, and with a black mask on, through the eyelets of 
 which her eyes twinkled strangely, was seated at one of the 
 roulette-tables with a card and a pin, and a couple of florins 
 before her. As the croupier called out the colour and number, 
 she pricked on the card with great care and regularity, and only 
 ventured her money on the colours after the red or black had 
 come up a certain number of times. It was strange to look 
 at her. 
 
 But in spite of her care and assiduity she guessed wrong, and 
 the last two florins followed each other under the croupier's rake, 
 as he cried out with his inexorable voice the winning colour and 
 number. She gave a sigh, a shrug with her shoulders, which were 
 already too much out of her gown, and dashing the pin through 
 the card on to the table, sat thrumming it for a while. Then 
 she looked round her, and saw George's honest face staring at 
 the scene. The little scamp ! what business had he to be there ? 
 
 When she saw the boy, at whose face she looked hard through 
 her shining eyes and m.ask, she said, ^^ Monsieur n'est pas 
 joueur ? " 
 
 " Non, Madame, ^^ said the boy: but she must have known, 
 X298 
 
642 Vanity Fair 
 
 from his accent, of what country he was^ for she answered him 
 with a slight foreign tone. " You have nevare played — will 
 you do me a littl' favor? " 
 
 '* What is it? " said Georgy, blushing again. Mr. Kirsch was 
 at work for his part at the rouge et noir, and did not see his young 
 Master. 
 
 " Play this for me, if you please; put it on any number, any 
 number." And she took from her bosom a purse, and out of it 
 a gold piece, the only coin there, and she put it into Georgy's 
 hand. The boy laughed, and did as he was bid. 
 
 The number came up sure enough. There is a power that 
 arranges that, they say, for beg nners. 
 
 " Thank you," said she, pulling the money towards her; 
 " thank you. What is your name? " 
 
 " My name's Osborne," said Georgy, and was fingering in his 
 own pockets for dollars, and just about to make a trial, when the 
 Major, in his uniform, and Jos, en Marqids, from the Court ball^ 
 made their appearance. Other people finding the entertainment 
 stupid, and preferring the fun at the Stadthaus, had quitted the 
 Palace ball earlier; but it is probable the Major and Jos had gone 
 home and found the boy's absence, for the former instantly went 
 up to him, and taking him by the shoulder, pulled him briskly 
 back from the place of temptation. Then, looking round the 
 room, he saw Kirsch employed as we have said, and going up 
 to him, asked how he dared to bring Mr. George to such a 
 place. 
 
 " Laissez-moi trangmlle," said Mr. Kirsch, very much excited 
 by play and wine. " Ilfaut s'amuser, Parbleu. Je ne suis pas 
 au service de Monsieur.'^ 
 
 Seeing his condition, the Major did not choose to argue with 
 the man; but contented himself with drawing away George, and 
 asking Jos if he would come away. He was standing close by 
 the lady in the mask, who was playing with pretty go d luck now • 
 and looking on much interested in the game. 
 
 " Hadn't you better come, Jos," the Major said, " with 
 George and me? " 
 
 " I'll stop and go home with that rascal Kirsch," Jos said; 
 and for the same reason of modesty, which he thought ought to 
 be preserved before the boy, Dobbin did not care to remonstrate 
 with Jos, but left him and walked home with Georgy. 
 
 " Did you play? " asked the Major, when they were out, and 
 on their way home. 
 
 The boy said " No." 
 
We Meet an Old Acquaintance 643 
 
 " Give me your word of honour as a gentleman, that you 
 never will." 
 
 " Why? " said the boy: " it seems very good fun." And, in 
 a very eloquent and impressive manner, the Major showed him 
 why he shouldn't, and would have enforced his precepts by the 
 example of Georgy's own father, had he liked to say anything 
 that should reflect on the other's memory. When he had 
 housed him he went to bed, and saw his light, in the ^'ttle room 
 outside of Amelia's, presently disappear. Ameha's followed 
 half-an-hour afterwards. I don't know what made the Major 
 note it so accurately. 
 
 Jos, however, remained behind over the play- table; he was 
 no gambler, but not averse to the little excitement of the sport 
 now and then; and he had some Napoleons chinking in the em- 
 broidered pockets of his Court waistcoat. He put do¥/n one 
 over the fair shoulder of the little gambler before him, and they 
 won. She made a little movement to make room for him by her 
 side, and just took the skirt of her gown from a vacant chair 
 there. 
 
 " Come and give me good luck," she said, still in a foreign 
 accent, quite different from that frank and perfectly English 
 " Thank you," with which she had saluted Georgy's coup in her 
 favour. — The portly gentleman, looking round to see that nobody 
 of rank observed him, sat down; he muttered — " Ah, really, well 
 now, God bless my soul. I'm. very fortunate; I'm sure to give 
 you good fortune," and other words of compliment and con- 
 fusion. 
 
 " Do you play much.^ " the foreign mask said. 
 
 " I put a nap or two down/' said Jos, with a superb air, 
 flinging down a gold piece. 
 
 " Yes; ay nap after dinner," said the mask archly. But Jos 
 looking frightened, she continued, in her pretty French accent, 
 '' You do not play to win. No more do I. I play to forget, but 
 I cannot. I cannot forget old times. Monsieur. Your little 
 nephew is the image of his father; and you — ^you are not changed 
 — but yes, you are. Everybody changes, everybody forgets; 
 nobody has any heart." 
 
 " Good God, who is it? " asked Jos in a flutter. 
 
 " Can't you guess, Joseph Sedley? " said the little woman, in 
 a sad voice, and undoing her mask, she looked at him. " You 
 have forgotten me." 
 
 " Good heavens! Mrs. Crawley! " gasped out Jos. 
 
 "Rebecca," said the other, putting her hand on his; but 
 
644 Vanity Fair 
 
 she followed the game still, all the time she was looking at 
 him. 
 
 " I am stopping at the Elephant," she continued. " Ask for 
 Madame de Raudon. I saw my dear Amelia to-day; how 
 pretty she looked, and how happy! So do you! Everybody 
 but me, who am wretched, Joseph Sedley." And she put her 
 money over from the red to the black, as if. by a chance move- 
 ment of her hand, and while she was wiping her eyes with a 
 pocket-handkerchief fringed with torn lace. — The red came up 
 again, and she lost the whole of that stake. " Come away," 
 she said. " Come with me a little — we are old friends, are we 
 not, dear Mr. Sedley? " 
 
 And Mr. Kirsch, having lost all his money by this time, 
 followed his master out into the moonlight, where the illumina- 
 tions were winking out, and the transparency over our mission 
 was scarcely visible. 
 
 CHAPTER LXIV 
 
 A VAGABOND CHAPTER 
 
 We must pass over a part of Mrs. Rebecca Crawley's biography 
 with that lightness and delicacy which the world demands — the 
 moral world, that has, perhaps, no particular objection to vice, 
 but an insuperable repugnance to hearing vice called by its 
 proper name. There are things we do and know perfectly well 
 in Vanity Fair, though we never speak of them: as the Ahri- 
 manians worship the devil, but don't mention him: and a polite 
 public will no more bear to read an authentic description of vice 
 than a truly refined English or American female will permit the 
 word breeches to be pronounced in her chaste hearing. And 
 yet. Madam, both are walking the world before our faces every 
 day, without much shocking us. If you were to blush every 
 time they went by, what complexions you would have! It is 
 only when their naughty names are called out that your modesty 
 has any occasion to show alarm or sense of outrage, and it has 
 been the wish of the present writer, all through this story, 
 deferentially to submit to the fashion at present prevailing, and 
 only to hint at the existence of wickedness in a light, easy, and 
 agreeable manner, so that nobody's fine feelings may be offended. 
 
A Vagabond Chapter 645 
 
 I defy any one to say that our Becky, who has certainly some 
 vices, has not been presented to the pubUc in a perfectly genteel 
 and inoffensive manner. In describing this siren, singing and 
 smiling, coaxing and cajoling, the author, with modest pride, 
 asks his readers all round, has he once forgotten the laws of 
 politeness, and showed the monster's hideous tail above water? 
 No! Those who like may peep down under waves that are 
 pretty transparent, and see it writhing and twirling, diabolically 
 hideous and slimy, flapping amongst bones, or curling round 
 corpses; but above the water-line, I ask, has not everything 
 been proper, agreeable, and decorous, and has any the most 
 squeamish immoralist in Vanity Fair a right to cry fie ? When, 
 however, the siren disappears and dives below, down among the 
 dead men, the water of course grows turbid over her, and it is 
 labour lost to look into it ever so curiously. They look pretty 
 enough when they sit upon a rock, twangling their harps and 
 combing their hair, and sing, and beckon to you to come and 
 hold the looking-glass; but when they sink into their native 
 element, depend on it those mermaids are about no good, and 
 we had best not examine the fiendish marine cannibals, revelling 
 and feasting on their wretched pickled victims. And so, when 
 Becky is out of the way, be sure that she is not particularly well 
 employed, and that the less that is said about her doings is in 
 fact the better. 
 
 If we were to give a full account of her proceedings during a 
 couple of years that followed after the Curzon Street catastrophe, 
 there might be some reason for people to say this book was im- 
 proper. The actions of very vain, heartless, pleasure-seeking 
 people are very often improper (as are many of yours, my friend 
 with the grave face and spotless reputation ; — but that is merely 
 by the way); and what are those of a woman without faith — or 
 love — or character? And I am inclined to think that there was 
 a period in Mrs. Becky's life, when she was seized, not by 
 remorse, but by a kind of despair, and absolutely neglected her 
 person, and did not even care for her reputation. 
 
 This abattement and degradation did not take place all at once ; 
 it was brought about by degrees, after her calamity, and after 
 many struggles to keep up — as a man who goes overboard hangs 
 on to a spar whilst any hope is left, and then flings it away and 
 goes down, when he finds that struggling is in vain. 
 
 She lingered about London whilst her husband was making 
 preparations for his departure to his seat of government: and 
 it is believed made more than one attempt to see her brother- 
 
646 Vanity Fair 
 
 in-law^ Sir Pitt Crawley^ and to work upon his feelings^ which 
 she had almost enHsted in her favour. As Sir Pitt and Mr. 
 Wenham were walking down to the House of Commons^ the 
 latter spied Mrs. Rawdon in a black veil^ and lurking near the 
 palace of the legislature. She sneaked away when her eyes met 
 those of Wenham, and indeed never succeeded in her designs 
 upon the Baronet. 
 
 Probably Lady Jane interposed. I have heard that she quite 
 astonished her husband by the spirit which she exhibited in this 
 quarrel, and her determination to disown Mrs. Becky. Of her 
 own movement, she invited Rawdon to come and stop in Gaunt 
 Street until his departure for Coventry Island, knowing that 
 with him for a guard Mrs. Becky would not try to force her door: 
 and she looked curiously at the superscriptions of all the letters 
 which arrived for Sir Pitt, lest he and his sister-in-law should be 
 corresponding. Not but that Rebecca could have written had 
 she a mind : but she did not try to see or to write to Pitt at his 
 own house, and after one or two attempts consented to his 
 demand that the correspondence regarding her conjugal differ- 
 ences should be carried on by lawyers only. 
 
 The fact was, that^itt's mind had been poisoned against her. 
 A short time after LorH^^Hteyne's accident, Wenham had been 
 with the Baronet; and given him such a biography of Mrs. 
 Becky as had astonished the member for Queen's Crawley. He 
 knew everything regarding her : who her father was ; in. what 
 year her mother danced at the Opera; what had been her 
 previous history, and what her conduct during her married life : 
 — as I have no doubt that the greater part of the story was false 
 and dictated by interested malevolence, it shall not be repeated 
 here. But Becky was left with a sad sad reputation in the 
 esteem of a country gentleman and relative who had been once 
 rather partial to her. 
 
 The revenues of the Governor of Coventry Island are not 
 large. A part of them were set aside by his Excellency for the 
 pavment of certain outstanding debts and liabilities, the charges 
 incident on his high situation required considerable expense; 
 finally, it was found that he could not spare to his wife more 
 than three hundred pounds a year, which he proposed to pay to 
 her on an undertaking that she would never trouble him. Other- 
 wise: scandal, separation, Doctors' Commons would ensue. 
 But it was Mr. V/enham's business. Lord Steyne's business, 
 Rawdon's, everybody's — to get her out of the country, and hush 
 up a most disagreeable affair. 
 
A Vagabond Chapter 647 
 
 She was probably so much occupied in arranging these affairs of 
 business with her husband's lawyers, that she forgot to take any 
 step whatever about her son, the little Rawdon, and did not even 
 once propose to go and see him. That young gentleman was 
 consigned to the entire guardianship of his aunt and uncle, the 
 former of whom had always possessed a great share of the child's 
 affection. His mamma wrote him a neat letter from Bouloarie 
 when she quitted England, m which she requested him to mind 
 his book, and said she was going to take a Continental tour, 
 during which she would have the pleasure of writing to him 
 again. But she never did for a year afterwards, and not, indeed, 
 until Sir Pitt's only boy, always sickly, died of hooping-cough 
 and measles; — then Rawdon's mamma wrote the most affec- 
 tionate composition to her darling son, who was made heir of 
 Queen's Crawley by this accident, and drawn more closely than 
 ever to the kind lady, whose tender heart had already adopted 
 him. Rawdon Crawley, then grown a tall, fine lad, blushed 
 when he got the letter. " Oh, Aunt Jane, you are my mother !." 
 he said; "and not — and not that one." But he wrote back a 
 kind and respectful letter to Mrs. Rebecca, then living at a 
 boarding-house at Florence. — But we are advancing matters. 
 
 Our darling Becky's first flight was not very far. She perched 
 upon the French coast at Boulogne, that refuge of so much exiled 
 English innocence ; and there lived in rather a genteel, widowed 
 manner, with difemme de chambre and a couple of rooms, at an 
 hotel. She dined at the table d'hote, where people thought her 
 very pleasant, and where she entertained her neighbours by 
 stories of her brother, Sir Pitt, and her great London acquaint- 
 ance ; talking that easy, fashionable slipslop, which has so much 
 effect upon certain folks of small breeding. She passed with 
 many of them for a person of importance; she gave little tea- 
 parties in her private room, and shared in the innocent amuse- 
 ments of the place, — in sea-bathing, and in jaunts in open 
 carriages, in strolls on the sands, and in visits to the play. Mrs. 
 Burjoice, the printer's lady, who was boarding vv^ith her family 
 at the hotel for the summer, and to whom her Burjoice came of 
 a Saturday and Sunday, voted her charming, until that little 
 rogue of a Burjoice began to pay her too much attention. But 
 there was nothing in the story, only that Becky was always 
 affable, easy, and good-natured — and with men especially. 
 
 Numbers of people were going abroad as usual at the end of 
 the season, and Becky had plenty of opportunities of finding out 
 by the behaviour of her acquaintances of the great London world 
 
648 Vanity Fair 
 
 the opinion of " society " as regarded her conduct. One day it 
 was Lady Partlet and her daughters whom Becky confronted as 
 she was walking modestly on Boulogne pier, the cliffs of Albion 
 shining in the distance across the deep blue sea. Lady Partlet 
 marshalled all her daughters round her with a sweep of her 
 parasol, and retreated from the pier darting savage glances at 
 poor little Becky, who stood alone there. 
 
 On another day the packet came in. It had been blowing 
 fresh, and it always suited Becky's humour to see the droll woe- 
 begone faces of the people as they emerged from the boat. Lady 
 Slingstone happened to be on board this day. Pier Ladyship 
 had been exceedingly ill in her carriage, and was greatly ex- 
 hausted and scarcely fit to walk up the plank from the ship to 
 the pier. But all her energies rallied the instant she saw Becky 
 smiling roguishly under a pink bonnet : and giving her a glance 
 of scorn, such as would have shrivelled up most women, she 
 walked into the custom-house quite unsupported. Becky only 
 laughed : but I don't think she Hked it. She felt she was alone, 
 quite alone; and the far-off shining cliffs of England were im- 
 passable to her. 
 
 The behaviour of the men had undergone too I don't know 
 what change. Grinstone showed his teeth and laughed in her 
 face with a familiarity that was not pleasant. Little Bob 
 Suckling, who was cap in hand to her three months before, and 
 would walk a mile in the rain to see for her carriage in the line 
 at Gaunt House, was talking to Fitzoof of the Guards (Lord 
 Heehaw's son) one day upon the jetty, as Becky took her v>^alk 
 there. Little Bobby nodded to her over his shoulder, without 
 moving his hat, and continued his conversation with the heir of 
 Heehaw. Tom Raikes tried to walk into her sitting-room at 
 the inn with a cigar in his mouth; but she closed the door upon 
 him and would have locked it only that his fingers were inside. 
 She began to feel that she was very lonely indeed. " If he'd 
 been here," she said, '' those cowards would never have dared to 
 insult me." She thought about " him " with great sadness and 
 perhaps longing — about his honest, stupid, constant kindness 
 and fidelity; his n:ver-ceasing obedience; his good humour, his 
 bravery and courage. Very likely she cried, for she was particu- 
 larly lively, and had put on a little extra rouge, when she came 
 down to dinner. 
 
 She rouged regularly now: and — and her maid got Cognac 
 for her besides that which was charged in the hotel bill. 
 
 Perhaps the insults of the men were not, however, so intoler- 
 
A Vagabond Chapter 649 
 
 able to her as the sympathy of certain women. Mrs. Cracken- 
 bur}^ and Mrs. Washington White passed through Boulogne on 
 their way to Switzerland. (The party were protected by Colonel 
 Horner, young Beaumoris, and of course old Crackenbury, and 
 Mrs. W^hite's little girl.) They did not avoid her. They giggled, 
 cackled, tattled, condoled, consoled, and patronised her until 
 they drove her almost wild with rage. To be patronised by 
 iheni ! she thought as they went away simpering after kissing 
 her. And she heard Beaumoris's laugh ringing on the stair, and 
 knew quite well how to interpret his hilarity. 
 
 It was after this visit that Becky, who had paid her weekly 
 bills, Becky who had made herself agreeable to everybody in 
 the house, v/ho smiled at the landlady, called the waiters, 
 " Monsieur," and paid the chambermaids in politeness and 
 apologies, what far more than compensated for a little niggard- 
 liness in point of money (of which Becky never was free), that 
 Becky, we say, received a notice to quit from the landlord, who 
 had been told by some one that she was quite an unfit person 
 to have at his hotel, where English ladies would not sit down 
 with her. And she was forced to fly into lodgings, of which 
 the dulness and solitude were most wearisome to her. 
 
 Still she held up in spite of these rebuffs, and tried to make a 
 character for herself, and conquer scandal. She went to church 
 *very regularly, and sang louder than anybody there. She took 
 up the cause of the widows of the shipwrecked fishermen, and 
 gave work and drawings for the Quashyboo Mission; she sub- 
 scribed to the Assembly and wouldn't waltz. In a word, she 
 did everything that was respectable, and that is why we dwell 
 upon this part of her career with more fondness than upon sub- 
 sequent parts of her history, which are not so pleasant. She 
 saw people avoiding her, and still laboriously smiled upon them ; 
 you never could suppose from her countenance what pangs of 
 humiliation she might be enduring inwardly. 
 
 Her history was after all a mystery. Parties were divided 
 about her. Some people, who took the trouble to busy them- 
 selves in the matter, said that she was the criminal ; whilst others 
 vowed that she was as innocent as a lamb, and that her odious 
 husband was in fault. She won over a good many by bursting 
 into tears about her boy, and exhibiting the most frantic grief 
 when his name was mentioned, or she saw anybody like him. 
 She gained good Mrs. Alderney's heart in that way, who was 
 rather the Queen of British Boulogne, and gave the most dinners 
 and balls of all the residents there, by weeping when Master 
 
650 Vanity Fair 
 
 Alderney came from Dr. Swishtail's academy to pass his holidays 
 with his mother. " He and her Rawdon were of the same age 
 and so like/' Becky said^ in a voice choking with agony; whereas 
 there was five years' difference between the boys' ages^ and no 
 more likeness between them than between my respected reader 
 and his humble servant. Wenham^ when he was going abroad, 
 on his way to Kissingen to join Lord Steyne, enlightened Mrs. 
 Alderney on this pointy and told her how he was much more able 
 to describe little Rawdon than his mamma, who notoriously hated 
 him, and never saw him; how he was thirteen years old, while 
 little Alderney was but nine; fair, while the other darling was 
 dark, — in a word, caused the lady to repent of her good humour. 
 
 Whenever Becky made a little circle for herself with incredible 
 toils and labour, somebody came and swept it down rudely, and 
 she had all her work to begin over again. It was very hard; 
 very hard ; lonely and disheartening. 
 
 There was Mrs. Newbright, who took her up for some time, 
 attracted by the sweetness of her singing at church, and by her 
 proper views upon serious subjects, concerning which in former 
 days, at Queen's Crawley, Mrs. Becky had had a good deal of 
 instruction. Well, she not only took tracts, but she read them. 
 She worked flannel petticoats for the Quashyboos — cotton night- 
 caps for the Cocoanut Indians — painted hand-screens for the 
 conversion of the Pope and the Jews — sate under Mr. Rowls on 
 Wednesdays, Mr. Huggleton on Thursdays, attended two 
 Sunday services at church, besides Mr. Bawler, the Darbyite, in 
 the evening, and all in vain. Mrs. Newbright had occasion to 
 correspond with the Countess of Southdown about the Warming- 
 pan Fund for the Feejee Islanders (for the management of which 
 admirable charity both these ladies formed part of a female 
 committee), and having mentioned her " sweet friend," Mrs. 
 Rawdon Crawley, the Dowager Countess wrote back such a 
 letter regarding Becky with such particulars, hints, facts, false- 
 hoods, and general comminations, that intimacy between Mrs. 
 Newbright and Mrs. Crawley ceased forthwith: and all the 
 serious world of Tours, where this misfortune took place, im- 
 mediately parted company with the reprobate. Those who 
 know the English colonies abroad know that we carry with us 
 our pride, pills, prejudices, Harvey-sauces, cayenne-peppers, and 
 other Lares, making a little Britain wherever we settle down. 
 
 From one colony to another Becky fled uneasily. From 
 Boulogne to Dieppe, from Dieppe to Caen, from Caen to Tours — 
 trying with all her might to be respectable, and alas ! always 
 
A Vagabond Chapter 651 
 
 found out some day or other^ and pecked out of the cage by the 
 real daws. 
 
 Mrs. Hook Eagles took her up at one of these places: — a 
 woman without a blemish in her character, and a house in Port- 
 man Square. She was staying at the hotel at Dieppe, whither 
 Becky fled, and they made each other's acquaintance first at 
 sea, where they were swimming together, and subsequently at 
 the table d'hote of the hotel. Mrs. Eagles had heard, — who 
 indeed had not? — some of the scandal of the Steyne affair; but 
 after a conversation with Becky, she pronounced that Mrs. 
 Crawley was an angel, her husband a rufhan. Lord Ste5nie an 
 unprincipled wretch, as everybody knew, and the whole case 
 against Mrs. Crawley an infamous and wicked conspiracy of that 
 rascal Wenham. " If you were a man of any spirit, Mr. Eagles, 
 you would box the wretch's ears the next time you see him at 
 the Club," she said to her husband. But Eagles was only a 
 quiet old gentleman, husband to Mrs. Eagles, with a taste for 
 geology, and not tall enough to reach anybody's ears. 
 
 The Eagles then patronised Mrs. Rawdon, took her to live 
 with her at her own house at Paris, quarrelled with the Ambas- 
 sador's wife because she would not receive her -protegee, and did 
 all that lay in woman's power to keep Becky straight in the 
 paths of virtue and good repute. 
 
 Becky was very respectable and orderly at first, but the life 
 of humdrum virtue grew utterly tedious to her before long. It 
 was the same routine every day, the same dulness and comfort, 
 the same drive over the same stupid Bois de Boulogne, the same 
 company of an evening, the same Blair's Sermon of a Sunday 
 night — the same opera always being acted over and over again : 
 Becky was dying of weariness, when, luckily for her, young Mr. 
 Eagles came from Cambridge, and his mother, seeing the im- 
 pression which her little friend made upon him, straightway 
 gave Becky warning. 
 
 Then she tried keeping house with a female friend; then the 
 double menage began to quarrel and get into debt. Then she 
 determined upon a boarding-house existence, and lived for 
 some time at that famous mansion, kept by Madame de Saint 
 Amour, in the Rue Royale, at Paris, where she began exercising 
 her graces and fascinations upon the shabby dandies and fly- 
 blown beauties who frequented her landlady's salons, Becky 
 loved society, and, indeed, could no more exist without it than 
 an opium-eater without his dram, and she was happy enough 
 at the period of her boarding-house life. " The women here are 
 
652 Vanity Fair 
 
 as amusing as those in Mayfair/' she told an old London friend 
 who met her — " only^ their dresses are not quite so fresh. The 
 men wear cleaned gloves, and are sad rogues, certainly, but they 
 are not worse than Jack This, and Tom That. The mistress of 
 the house is a little vulgar, but I don't think she is so vulgar as 
 
 Lady " and here she named the name of a great leader of 
 
 fashion that I would die rather than reveal. In fact, when you 
 saw Madame de Saint Amour's rooms lighted up of a night, men 
 with plagues and cordons at the ecarte tables, and the women at a 
 little distance, you might fancy yourself for a while in good 
 society, and that Madame was a real Countess. Many people 
 did so fancy: and Becky was for a while one of the most dashing 
 ladies of the Countess's salons. 
 
 But it is probable that her old creditors of 18 15 found her out 
 and caused her to leave Paris, for the poor little woman was 
 forced to fly from the city rather suddenly; and went thence to 
 Brussels. 
 
 How well she remembered the place! She grinned as she 
 looked up at the little entresol which she had occupied, and 
 thought of the Bareacres family, bawling for horses and flight, 
 as their carriage stood in the porte-cochere of the hotel. She 
 went to Waterloo and to Laeken, where George Osborne's 
 monument much struck her. She made a little sketch of it. 
 *' That poor Cupid ! " she said; " how dreadfully he was in love 
 w4th me, and what a fool he was! I wonder whether little 
 Emmy is alive. It was a good little creature: and that fat 
 brother of hers. I have his funny fat picture still among m)^ 
 papers. They were kind simple people." 
 
 At Brussels Becky arrived, recommended by Madame de 
 Saint Amour to her friend, Madame la Comtesse de Borodino, 
 widow of Napoleon's General, the famous Count de Borodino, 
 who was left with no resource by the deceased hero but that of 
 a table dliote and an ecarte table. Second-rate dandies and 
 roues, widow ladies who always have a law-suit, and very simple 
 English folk, who fancy they see " Continental society " at these 
 houses, put down their money, or ate their meals, at Madame de 
 Borodino's tables. The gallant young fellows treated the com- 
 pany round to champagne at the table d'hote, rode out with the 
 women, or hired horses on country excursions, clubbed money 
 to take boxes at the play or the Opera, betted over the fair 
 shoulders of the ladies at the ecarte tables, and wrote home to 
 their parents, in Devonshire, about their felicitous introduction 
 to foreign society. 
 
A Vagabond Chapter 653 
 
 Here^ as at Paris^ Becky was a boarding-house queen: and 
 ruled in select pensions. She never refused the champagne, or 
 the bouquets, or the drives into the country, or the private 
 boxes; but what she preferred was the ecarte at night, — and 
 she played audaciously. First she played only for a little, then 
 for five-francs pieces, then for Napoleons, then for notes : then 
 she would not be able to pay her month's -pension : then she 
 borrowed from the young gentlemen: then she got into cash 
 again, and bullied Madame de Borodino, whom she had coaxed 
 and wheedled before: then she was playing for ten sous at a 
 time, and in a dire state of poverty: then her quarter's allow- 
 ance would come in, and she would pay off Madame de Borodino's 
 score : and would once more take the cards against Monsieur de 
 Rossignol, or the Chevalier de Raff. 
 
 When Becky left Brussels, the sad truth is, that she owed three 
 months' pension to Madame de Borodino, of which fact, and of 
 the gambling, and of the drinking, and of the going down on her 
 knees to the Reverend Mr. Muff, Ministre Anglican, and borrow- 
 ing money of him, and of her coaxing and flirting with Milor 
 Noodle, son of Sir Noodle, pupil of the Rev. Mr. Muff, whom she 
 used to take into her private room, and of whom she won large 
 sums at ecarte — of which fact, I say, and of a hundred of her other 
 knaveries, the Countess de Borodino informs every English 
 person who stops at her establishment, and announces that 
 Madame Rawdon was no better than a vipere. 
 
 So our little wanderer went about, setting up her tent in vari- 
 ous cities of Europe, as restless as Ulysses or Bampfylde Moore 
 Carew. Her taste for disrespectability grew more and more re- 
 markable. She became a perfect Bohemian ere long, herding 
 with people whom it would make your hair stand on end to meet. 
 
 There is no town of any mark in Europe but it has its little 
 colony of English raffs — men whose names Mr. Hemp the officer 
 reads out periodically at the Sheriff's Court — young gentlemen 
 of very good family often, only that the latter disowns them: 
 frequenters of billiard-rooms and estaminets, patrons of foreign 
 races and gaming-tables. They people the debtors' prisons — 
 they drink and swagger — they fight and brawl — they run away 
 without paying — they have duels with French and German 
 officers — they cheat Mr. Spooney at ecarte— they get the mone}^ 
 and drive off to Baden in magnificent britzkas — they try their 
 infallible martingale, and lurk about the tables with empty 
 pockets, shabby bullies, penniless bucks, until they can swindle 
 a Jew iDanker with a sham bill of exchange, or find another 
 
654 
 
 Vanity Fair 
 
 Mr. Spooney to rob. The alternations of splendour and misery 
 which these people undergo are very queer to view. Their life 
 must be one of great excitement. Becky — must it be owned ? — 
 took to this life^ and took to it not unkindly. She went about 
 from town to town among these Bohemians. The lucky Mrs. 
 Rawdon was known at every play-table in Germany. She and 
 Madame de Cruchecassee kept house at Florence together. It 
 is said she was ordered out of Munich; and my friend Mr. 
 Frederick Pigeon avers that it was at her house at Lausanne 
 that he was hocussed at supper and lost eight hundred pounds 
 to Major Loder and the Honourable Mr. Deuceace. We are 
 bound;, you see^ to give some account of Becky's biography; but 
 of this part^ the less^ perhaps, that is said the better. 
 
 They say, that when Mrs. Crawley was particularly down on 
 her luck, she gave concerts and lessons in music here and there. 
 There was a Madame de Raudon, who certainly had a matinee 
 musicale at Wildbad, accompanied by Herr Spoff, premier 
 pianist to the Hospodar of Wallachia, and my little friend Mr. 
 Eaves, who knew everybody, and had travelled everywhere, 
 always used to declare that he was at Strasburg in the year 1830, 
 when a certain Madame Rebecque made her appearance in the 
 opera of the " Dame Blanche," giving occasion to a furious 
 row in the theatre there. She was hissed ofi the stage by the 
 audience, partly from her own incompetency, but chiefly from 
 the ill-advised sympathy of some persons in the parquet (where 
 the officers of the garrison had their admissions); and Eaves 
 was certain that the unfortunate debutante in question was no 
 other than Mrs. Rawdon Crawle}^ 
 
 She was, in fact, no better than a vagabond upon this earth. 
 When she got her money, she gambled; when she had gambled 
 it, she was put to shifts to live; who knows how or by what 
 means she succeeded ? It is said that she was once seen at St. 
 Petersburg, but v/as summarily dismissed from that capital by 
 the police, so that there cannot be any possibility of truth in the 
 report that she was a Russian spy at Toplitz and Vienna after- 
 wards. I have even been informed, that at Paris she discovered 
 a relation of her own, no less a person than her maternal grand- 
 mother, who was not by any means a Montmorenci, but a 
 hideous old box-opener at a theatre on the Boulevards. The 
 meeting between them, of which other persons, as it is hinted 
 elsev/here, seem to have been acquainted, must have been a very 
 affecting interview. The present historian can give no certain 
 details regarding the event. 
 
A Vagabond Chapter 655 
 
 It happened at Rome once^ that Mrs. de Rawdon's half-year's 
 salary had just been paid into the principal banker's there^ and 
 as everybody who had a balance of above five hundred scudi was 
 invited to the balls which this prince of merchants gave during 
 the winter^ Becky had the honour of a card, and appeared at one 
 of the Prince and Princess Polonia's splendid evening enter- 
 tainments. The Princess was of the family of PompiH, lineally 
 descended from the second king of Rome, and Egeria of the 
 house of Olympus, while the Prince's grandfather, Alessandro 
 Polonia, sold wash-balls, essences, tobacco, and pocket-hand- 
 kerchiefs, ran errands for gentlemen, and lent money in a small 
 way. All the great company in Rome thronged to his saloons 
 ■ — Princes, Dukes, Ambassadors, artists, fiddlers, monsignori, 
 young bears with their leaders — every rank and condition of 
 man. His halls blazed with light and magnificence; were 
 resplendent with gilt frames (containing pictures), and dubious 
 antiques ; and the enormous gilt crown and arm.s of the princely 
 owner, a gold mushroom on a crimson field (the colour of the 
 pocket-handkerchiefs which he sold) and the silver fountain of 
 the Pompili family shone all over the roof, doors, and panels of 
 the house, and over the grand velvet baldaquins prepared to 
 receive Popes and Emperors. 
 
 So Becky, who had arrived in the diligence from Florence, 
 and was lodged at an inn in a very modest way, got a card for 
 Prince Polonia's entertainment, and her maid dressed her with 
 unusual care, and she went to this fine ball leaning on the arm 
 of Major Loder, with whom she happened to be travelling at the 
 time — (the same m.an who shot Prince Ravoli at Naples the next 
 year, and was caned by Sir John Buckskin for carrying four 
 kings in his hat besides those which he used in playing at ecarte) 
 • — and this pair went into the rooms together, and Becky saw a 
 number of old faces which she remembered in happier days, 
 when she was not innocent, but not found out. Major Loder 
 knew a great number of foreigners, keen-looking whiskered men 
 with dirty striped ribbons in their button-holes, and a very small 
 display of linen ; but his own countrymen, it might be remarked, 
 eschewed the Major. Becky, too, knew some ladies here and 
 there — French widows, dubious Italian countesses, whose 
 husbands had treated them ill — faugh — what shall we say, we 
 who have moved among some of the finest company of Vanity 
 Fair, of this refuse and sediment of rascals ? If we play, let it 
 be with clean cards, and not with this dirty pack. But every 
 man who has formed one of the innumerable army of travellers 
 
656 Vanity Fair 
 
 has seen these marauding irregulars hanging on, like Nym and 
 Pistol^ to the main force ; wearing the king's colours, and boast- 
 ing of his commission, but pillaging for themselves, and occa- 
 sionally gibbeted by the roadside. 
 
 Well, she was hanging on the arm of Major Loder, and they 
 went through the rooms together, and drank a great quantity of 
 champagne at the buffet, where the people, and especially the 
 Major's irregular corps, struggled furiously for refreshments, of 
 which when the pair had had enough, they pushed on until they 
 reached the Duchess's own pink velvet saloon, at the end of the 
 suite of apartments (where the statue of Venus is, and the great 
 Venice looking-glasses, framed in silver), and where the princely 
 ■family were entertaining their most distinguished guests at a 
 round table at supper. It was just such a little select banquet 
 as that of which Becky recollected that she had partaken at 
 Lord Steyne's — ^and there he sat at Polonia's table, and she saw 
 him. 
 
 The scar cut by the diamond on his white, bald, shining fore- 
 head, made a burning red mark; his red whiskers were dyed of a 
 purple hue, which made his pale face look still paler. He wore 
 his collar and orders, his blue ribbon and garter. He was a 
 greater prince than any there, though there was a reigning duke, 
 and a royal highness, with their princesses, and near his Lordship 
 was seated the beautiful Countess of Belladonna, nee de dandier, 
 whose husband (the Count Paolo della Belladonna), so well 
 known for his brilliant entomological collections, had been long 
 absent on a mission to the Emperor of Morocco. 
 
 When Becky beheld that familiar and illustrious face, how 
 vulgar all of a sudden did Major Loder appear to her, and how 
 that odious Captain Rook did smell of tobacco ! In one instant 
 she reassumed her fine-ladyship, and tried to look and feel as if 
 she were in Mayfair once more. " That woman looks stupid and 
 ill-humoured," she thought: " I am sure she can't amuse him. 
 No, he must be bored by her — he never was by me." A hundred 
 such touching hopes, fears, and memories palpitated in her little 
 heart, as she looked with her brightest eyes (the rouge which she 
 wore up to her eyelids made them twinkle) towards the great 
 nobleman. Of a Star and Garter night Lord Steyne used also 
 to put on his grandest manner, and to look and speak like a 
 great prince, as he was. Becky admired him smiling sump- 
 tuously, easy, lofty, and stately. Ah, bon Dieu, what a pleasant 
 companion he was, what a brilliant wit, what a rich fund of talk, 
 what a grand manner! — and she had exchanged this for Major 
 
A Vagabond Chapter 657 
 
 Loder^ reeking of cigars and brandy-and-water, and Captain 
 Rook^ with his horse- jockey jokes and prize-ring slangs and 
 their like. " I wonder whetlier he will know me ? " she thought. 
 Lord Ste3nie was talking and laughing with a great and illustrious 
 lady at his side^ when he looked up and saw Becky. 
 
 She was all over in a flutter as their eyes met^ and she put on 
 the very best smile she could muster^ and dropped him a little 
 timid^ imploring curtsey. He stared aghast at her for a minute, 
 as Macbeth might on beholding Banquo's sudden appearance at 
 his ball-supper; and remained looking at her with open mouth, 
 when that horrid Major Loder pulled her away. 
 
 " Come away into the supper-room, Mrs. R.," was that 
 gentleman's remark: " seeing these nobs grubbing away has 
 made me peckish too. Let's go and try the old governor's 
 champagne." Becky thought the Major had had a great deal 
 too much already. 
 
 The day after she went to walk on the Pincian Hill — the Hyde 
 Park of the Roman idlers — possibly in hopes to have another 
 sight of Lord Steyne. But she met another acquaintance 
 there: it was Mr. Fiche, his Lordship's confidential man, who 
 came up nodding to her rather familiarly, and putting a finger to 
 his hat. " I knew that Madame was here," he said ; " I followed 
 her from her hotel. I have some advice to give Madame." 
 
 " From the Marquis of Steyne.'^ " Becky asked, resuming as 
 much of her dignity as she could muster, and not a little agitated 
 by hope and expectation. 
 
 "No," said the valet; "it is from me. Rome is very un- 
 wholesome." 
 
 " Not at this season. Monsieur Fiche, — not till after Easter." 
 
 " I tell Madame it is unwholesome now. There is always 
 malaria for some people. That cursed marsh wind kills many 
 at all seasons. Look here, Madame Crawley, you were always 
 bon enfant, and I have an interest in you, parole d^honneur. Be 
 warned. Go away from Rome, I tell you — or you will be ill and 
 die." 
 
 Becky laughed, though in rage and fury. "What! assassi- 
 nate poor little me!" she said. "How romantic! Does my 
 lord carry bravos for couriers, and stilettos in the foiirgons ? 
 Bah ! I will stay, if but to plague him. I have those who will 
 defend me whilst I am here." 
 
 It was Monsieur Fiche's turn to laugh now. " Defend you," 
 he said, " and who? The Major, the Captain, any one of those 
 gambling men whom Madame sees, would take her life for a 
 
658 Vanity Fair 
 
 hundred louis. We know things about Major Loder (he is no 
 more a Major than I am my Lord the Marquis)^ which would send 
 him to the galleys^ or worse. We know everything, and have 
 friends everywhere. We know whom you saw at PariS;, and what 
 relations you found there. Yes, Madame may stare, but we do. 
 How was it that no Minister on the Continent would receive 
 Madame? She has offended somebody: who never forgives — • 
 whose rage redoubled when he saw you. He was like a madman 
 last night when he came home. Madame de Belladonna made 
 him a scene a,bout you, and fired off in one of her furies." 
 
 " Oh, it was Madame de Belladonna, was it? " Becky said, re- 
 lieved a little, for the information she had just got had scared her. 
 " No — she does not matter — she is always jealous. I tell you 
 it was Monseigneur. You did wrong to show yourself to him. 
 And if you stay here you will repent it. Mark my words. Go. 
 Here is my lord's carriage " — and seizing Becky's arm, he rushed 
 down an alley of the garden as Lord Steyne's barouche, blazing 
 with heraldic devices, came whirling along the avenue, borne by 
 the almost priceless horses, and bearing Madame de Belladonna 
 lolling on the cushions, dark, sulky, and blooming, a King 
 Charles in her lap, a white parasol swaying over her head, and 
 old Steyne stretched at her side with a Hvid face and ghastly 
 eyes. Hate, or anger, or desire, caused them to brighten now 
 and then still; but ordinarily they gave no light, and seemed 
 tired of looking out on a world of which almost all the pleasure 
 and all the best beauty had palled upon the worn-out wicked 
 old man. 
 
 " Monseigneur has never recovered the shock of that night, 
 never," Monsieur Fiche whispered to Mrs. Crawley as the 
 carriage flashed by, and she peeped out at it from behind the 
 shrubs that hid her. " That was a consolation at any rate," 
 Becky thought. Whether my lord really had murderous in- 
 tentions towards Mrs. Becky as Monsieur Fiche said — (since 
 Monseigneur's death he has returned to his native country, 
 where he lives much respected, and has purchased from his 
 prince the title of Baron Ficci) — and the factotum objected to 
 have to do with assassination; or whether he simply had a com- 
 mission to frighten Mrs. Crawley out of a city where his Lordship 
 proposed to pass the winter, and the sight of her would be emi- 
 nently disagreeable to the great nobleman, is a point which has 
 never been ascertained: but the threat had its effect upon the 
 little woman, and she sought no more to intrude herself upon the 
 presence of her old patron. 
 
A Vagabond Chapter 659 
 
 Everybody knows the melancholy end of that nobleman, 
 which befell at Naples two months after the French Revolution 
 of 1830: when the Most Honourable George Gustavus, Marquis 
 of Steyne, Earl of Gaunt and of Gaunt Castle, in the Peerage 
 of Ireland, Viscount Hellborough, Baron Pitchly and Grillsby, 
 a Knight of the Most Noble Order of the Garter, of the Golden 
 Fleece of Spain, of the Russian Order of Saint Nicholas of 
 the First Class, of the Turkish Order of the Crescent, First 
 Lord of the Powder Closet and Groom of the Back Stairs, 
 Colonel of the Gaunt or Regent's Own Regiment of Militia, a 
 Trustee of the British Museum., an Elder Brother of the Trinity 
 House, a Governor of the White Friars, and D.C.L., died after 
 a series of fits, brought on, as the papers said, by the shock occa- 
 sioned to his Lordship's sensibilities by the downfall of the 
 ancient French Monarchy. 
 
 An eloquent catalogue appeared in a weekly print, describing 
 his virtues, his magnificence, his talents, and his good actions. 
 His sensibility, his attachment to the illustrious House of 
 Bourbon, with which he claimed an alliance, were such that he 
 could not survive the misfortunes of his august kinsmen. His 
 body was buried at Naples, and his heart — that heart which 
 always beat with every generous and noble emotion— was 
 brought back to Castle Gaunt in a silver urn. " In him," Mr. 
 Wagg said, " the poor and the Fine Arts have lost a beneficent 
 patron, society one of its most brilliant ornaments, and England 
 one of her loftiest patriots and statesmen," etc., etc. 
 
 His will was a good deal disputed, and an attempt was made 
 to force from, Madame de Belladonna the celebrated jewel called 
 the " Jew's-eye " diamond, which his Lordship always v/ore on 
 his forefinger, and which it was said that she removed from it 
 after his lamented demise. But his confidential friend and 
 attendant. Monsieur Fiche, proved that the ring had been pre- 
 sented to the said Madame de Belladonna two days before the 
 Marquis's death; as were the bank-notes, jewels, Neapolitan 
 and French bonds, etc., found in his Lordship's secretaire, and 
 claimed by his heirs from that injured v/oman. 
 
 I 
 
660 ^yVanity Fair 
 
 CHAPTER LXV 
 
 FULL OF BUSINESS AND PLEASURE 
 
 The day after the meeting at the play-table^ Jos had himself 
 arrayed with unusual care and splendour^ and^ without thinking 
 it necessary to say a word to any member of his family regarding 
 the occurrences of the previous nighty or asking for their company 
 in his walk^ he sallied forth at an early hour, and was presently \ 
 seen making inquiries at the door of the Elephant Hotel. In 
 consequence of the fetes the house was full of company, the 
 tables in the street were already surrounded by persons smoking 
 and drinking the national small-beer, the public rooms were in 
 a cloud of smoke, and Mr. Jos having, in his pompous way, and 
 with his clumsy German, made inquiries for the person of whom 
 he was in search, was directed to the very top of the house, above 
 the first-floor rooms where some travelling pedlars had lived, and 
 were exhibiting their jewellery and brocades; above the second- 
 floor apartments occupied by the etat major of the gambling firm ; 
 above the third-floor rooms, tenanted by the band of renowned 
 Bohemian vaulters and tumblers; and so on to the little cabins 
 of the roof, where, among students, bagman, small tradesmen, 
 and country-folk, come in for the festival, Becky had found a 
 little nest — as dirty a little refuge as ever beauty lay hid in. 
 
 Becky liked the life. She was at home with everybody in the 
 place, pedlars, punters, tumblers, students and all. She was 
 of a wild, roving nature, inherited from father and mother, who 
 were both Bohemians, by taste and circumstance; if a lord was 
 not by, she would talk to his courier with the greatest pleasure ; 
 the din, the stir, the drink, the smoke, the tattle of Hebrew 
 pedlars, the solemn, braggart ways of the poor tumblers, the 
 sournois talk of the gambling-table officials, the songs and 
 swagger of the students, and the general buzz and hum of th 
 place had pleased and tickled the little woman, even when her 
 luck was down, and she had not wherewithal to pay her bill 
 How pleasant was all the bustle to her now that her purse was 
 full of the money which little Georgy had won for her the night 
 before ! 
 
 As Jos came creaking and pufiEing up the final stairs, and wasi 
 speechless when he got to the landing, and began to wipe his face 
 
Full of Business and Pleasure 66 1 
 
 and then to look for No. 92^ the room where he was directed to 
 seek for the person he wanted^ the door of the opposite chamber, 
 No. 90, was open, and a student, in jack-boots and a dirty schla- 
 frock, was lying on the bed smoking a long pipe, whilst another 
 student in long yellow hair and a braided coat, exceeding smart 
 and dirty too, was actually on his knees at No. 92, bawling 
 through the keyhole supplications to the person within. 
 
 " Go away/' said a well-known voice, which made Jos thrill, 
 " I expect somebody; I expect my grandpapa. He mustn't 
 see you there." 
 
 " Angel Englanderinn ! " bellowed the kneeling student with 
 the whity-brown ringlets and the large finger-ring, " do take 
 compassion upon us. Make an appointment. Dine with me and 
 Fritz at the inn in the park. We will have roast pheasants and 
 porter, plum-pudding and French wine. We shall die if you 
 don't." 
 
 " That we will," said the young nobleman on the bed; and 
 this colloquy Jos overheard, though he did not comprehend it, 
 for the reason that he had never studied the language in which 
 it was carried on. 
 
 ^^ Newmero kattervang dooze, si vous plait" Jos said in his 
 grandest manner, when he was able to speak. 
 
 '' Quater fang tooce I " said the student, starting up, and he 
 bounced into his own room, where he locked the door, and where 
 Jos heard him laughing with his comrade on the bed. 
 
 The gentleman from Bengal was standing disconcerted by 
 this incident, when the door of the 92 opened of itself, and 
 Becky's little head peeped out full of archness and mischief. 
 She lighted on Jos. " It's you," she said, coming out. " How 
 I have been v/aiting for you ! Stop, not yet — in one minute you 
 shall come in." In that instant she put a rouge-pot, a brandy- 
 bottle, and a plate of broken meat into the bed, gave one smooth 
 to her hair, and finally let in her visitor. 
 
 She had, by way of morning robe, a pink domino, a trifle faded 
 and soiled, and marked here and there with pomatum; but her 
 arms shone out from the loose sleeves of the dress very white and 
 fair, and it was tied round her little waist, so as not ill to set off 
 the trim little figure of the wearer. She led Jos by the hand 
 into her garret. " Come in," she said. " Come, and talk to me. 
 Sit yonder on the chair; " and she gave the Civilian's hand a 
 little squeeze, and laughingly placed him upon it. As for her- 
 self, she placed herself on the bed — not on the bottle and plate, 
 you may be sure — on which Jos might have reposed, had he 
 
662 Vanity Fair 
 
 chosen that seat ; and so there she sate and talked with her old 
 admirer. 
 
 " How little years have changed you/' she said, with a look 
 of tender interest. " I should have known you anywhere. 
 What a comfort it is amongst strangers to see once more the 
 frank honest face of an old friend ! " 
 
 The frank honest face^ to tell the truth, at this moment bore 
 any expression but one of openness and honesty : it was, on the 
 contrary, much perturbed and puzzled in look. Jos was sur- 
 veying the queer little apartment in which he found his old 
 flame. One of her gowns hung over the bed, another depending 
 from a hook of the door: her bonnet obscured half the looking- 
 glass, on which, too, lay the prettiest little pair of bronze boots ; 
 a French novel was on the table by the bedside, with a candle 
 not of wax. Becky thought of popping that into the bed too, 
 but she only put in the little paper nightcap with which she 
 had put the candle out on going to sleep. — " I should have 
 known you anywhere," she continued; "a woman never for- 
 gets some things. And you were the first man I ever — I ever 
 saw." 
 
 " Was I, really? " said Jos. . " God bless my soul, you — you 
 don't say so." 
 
 ' ' When I came with your sister from Chiswick, I was scarcely 
 more than a child," Becky said. '' How is that dear love.? Oh, 
 her husband was a sad wicked man, and of course it was of me 
 that the poor dear was jealous. As if I cared about him, 
 heigho ! when there was somebody — but no — don't let us talk of 
 old times; " and she passed her handkerchief with the tattered 
 lace across her eyelids. 
 
 "Is not this a strange place," she continued, "^ f or a woman, 
 who has lived in a very different world too, to be found in ? I 
 have had so many griefs and wrongs, Joseph Sedley, I have been 
 made to suffer so cruelly, that I am almost made mad some- 
 times. I can't stay still in any place, but wander about always 
 restless and unhappy. All my friends have been false to me — ■ 
 all. There is no such thing as an honest man in the world. I 
 was the truest wife that ever lived, though I married my husband 
 out of pique, because somebody else — but never mind that. I 
 was true, and he trampled upon me, aid deserted me. I was 
 the fondest mother. I had but one child, one darling, one hope, 
 one joy, which I held to my heart with a mother's affection, 
 which was my life, my prayer, my — my blessing; and they — • j 
 they tore it from me — tore it from me; " and she put her hand 
 
Full of Business and Pleasure 663 
 
 to her heart with a passionate gesture of despair, burying her 
 face for a moment on the bed. 
 
 The brandy-bottle inside clinked up against the plate which 
 held the cold sausage. Both were moved, no doubt, by the 
 exhibition of so much grief. Max and Fritz were at the door 
 listening with wonder to Mrs. Becky's sobs and cries. Jos, too, 
 was a good deal frightened and affected at seeing his old flame 
 in this condition. And she began, forthwith, to tell her story — a 
 tale so neat, simple, and artless, that it was quite evident from 
 hearing her, that if ever there was a white-robed angel escaped 
 from heaven to be subject to the infernal machinations and 
 villainy of fiends here below, that spotless being — that miserable 
 unsullied m^artyr, was present on the bed before Jos — on the 
 bed, sitting on the brandy-bottle. 
 
 They had a very long, amicable, and confidential talk there; 
 in the course of which, Jos Sedley was somehow made aware 
 (but in a manner that did not in the least scare or offend him) 
 that Becky's heart had first learned to beat at his enchanting 
 presence : that George Osborne had certainly paid an unjustifi- 
 able court to her, which might account for Amelia's jealousy, 
 and their little rupture; but that Becky never gave the least 
 encouragement to the unfortunate officer, and that she had 
 never ceased to think about Jos from the very first day she had 
 seen him, though, of course, her duties as a married woman were 
 paramount — duties which she had always preserved, and would, 
 to her dying day, or until the proverbially bad climate in which 
 Colonel Crawley was Hving should release her from a yoke which 
 his cruelty had rendered odious to her. 
 
 Jos went away, convinced that she was the m.ost virtuous, as 
 she was one of the most fascinating of women, and revolving in 
 his mind all sorts of benevolent schemes for her welfare. Her 
 persecutions ought to be ended: she ought to return to the 
 society of which she was an ornament. He would see what 
 ought to be done. She must quit that place, and take a quiet 
 lodging. Ameha must come and see her, and befriend her. He 
 would go and settle about it, and consult with the Major. She 
 wept tears of heartfelt gratitude as she parted from him, and 
 pressed his hand as the gallant stout gentleman stooped down 
 to kiss hers. 
 
 So Becky bowed Jos out of her little garret with as much grace 
 as if it was a palace of which she did the honours; and that 
 heavy gentleman having disappeared dovv^n the stairs. Max and 
 Fritz came out of their hole, pipe in mouth, and she amused 
 
664 Vanity Fair 
 
 herself by mimicking Jos to them as she munched her cold bread 
 and sausage and took draughts of her favourite brandy-and- 
 water. 
 
 Jos walked over to Dobbin's lodgings with great solemnity, 
 and there imparted to him the affecting history with which he 
 had just been made acquainted, without, however, mentioning 
 the play business of the night before. And the two gentlemen 
 were laying their heads together, and consulting as to the best 
 means of being useful to Mrs. Becky, while she was finishing her 
 interrupted dejeuner a lafourchette. 
 
 How was it that she had come to that little town ? How was 
 it that she had no friends and was wandering about alone? 
 Little boys at school are taught in their earliest Latin book, that 
 the path of Avernus is very easy of descent. Let us skip over 
 the interval in the history of her downward progress. She was 
 not worse now than she had been in the days of her prosperity — 
 only a little down on her luck. 
 
 As for Mrs. Amelia, she was a woman of such a soft and foolish 
 disposition, that when she heard of anybody unhappy, her heart 
 straightway melted towards the sufferer; and as she had never 
 thought or done anything mortally guilty herself, she had not 
 that abhorrence for wickedness which distinguishes moralists 
 m.uch more knowing. If she spoiled everybody who came near 
 her with kindness and compliments, — if she begged pardon of all 
 her servants for troubling them to answer the bell, — if she 
 apologised to a shop-boy who showed her a piece of silk, or made 
 a cartsey to a street-sweeper, with a complimentary remark 
 upon the elegant state of his crossing — and she was almost 
 capable of every one of these follies — the notion that an old 
 acquaintance was miserable was sure to soften her heart; nor 
 would she hear of anybody's being deservedly unhappy. A 
 world under such legislation as hers would not be a very orderly 
 place of abode; but there are not many women, at least not of 
 the rulers, who are of her sort. This lady, I believe, would have 
 abolished all goals, punishments, handcuffs, whippings, poverty, 
 sickness, hunger, in the world; and was such a mean-spirited 
 creature, that — we are obliged to confess it — she could even 
 forget a mortal injury. 
 
 When the Major heard from Jos of the sentimental adventure 
 which had just befallen the latter, he was not, it must be owned, 
 nearly as much interested as the gentleman from Bengal. On 
 the contrary, his excitement was quite the reverse from a 
 pleasurable one; he made use of a brief but improper expression 
 
Full of Business and Pleasure 665 
 
 regarding a poor woman in distress, saying, in fact, — " The 
 littleTminx, has she come to light again? " He never had had 
 the slightest liking for her; but had heartily mistrusted her from 
 the very first moment when her green eyes had looked at, and 
 turned away from, his own. 
 
 " That little devil brings mischief wherever she goes," the 
 Major said disrespectfully. " Who knows what sort of a life she 
 has been leading? and what business has she here abroad and 
 alone? Don't tell me about persecutors and enemies; an 
 honest woman always has friends, and never is separated from 
 her family. Why has she left her husband? He may have 
 been disreputable and wicked, as you say. He always was. I 
 remember the confounded blackleg, and the way in which he 
 used to cheat and hoodwink poor George. Wasn't there a 
 scandal about their separation? I think I heard something," 
 cried out Major Dobbin, who did not care much about gossip; 
 and whom Jos tried in vain to convince that Mrs. Becky was in 
 all respects a most injured and virtuous female. 
 
 "Well, well; let's ask Mrs. George," said that arch-diplo- 
 matist of a Major. " Only let us go and consult her. I suppose 
 you will allow that she is a good judge at any rate, and knows 
 what is right in such matters." 
 
 " Hm! Emmy is very well," said Jos, who did net happen to 
 be in love with his sister. 
 
 " Very well? by Gad, sir, she's the finest lady I ever met in 
 my life," bounced out the Major. " I say at once, let us go and 
 ask her if this woman ought to be visited or not — I will be con- 
 tent with her verdict." Now this odious, artful rogue of a 
 Major was thinking in his ov/n mind that he was sure of his case. 
 Emmy, he remembered, was at one time cruelly and deservedly 
 jealous of Rebecca, never mentioned her name but with a 
 shrinking and terror — a jealous woman never forgives, thought 
 Dobbin: and so the pair went across the street to Mrs. George's 
 house, where she was contentedly warbling at a music-lesson 
 with Madame Strumpff . 
 
 When that lady took her leave, Jos opened the business with 
 his usual pomp of words. " Amelia, my dear," said he, " I have 
 just had the most extraordinary — yes — God bless my soul! 
 the most extraordinary adventure — an old friend — yes, a most 
 interesting old friend of yours, and I may say in old times, has 
 just arrived here, and I should like you to see her." 
 
 " Her! " said Amelia. " Who is it? Major Dobbin, if you 
 please not to break my scissors." The Major was twirling them 
 
666 Vanity Fair 
 
 round by the little chain from which they sometimes hung to 
 their lady's waist^ and was thereby endangering his own eye. 
 
 " It is a woman whom I dislike very much/' said the Major 
 doggedly; " and whom you have no cause to love." 
 
 " It is Rebecca^ I'm sure it is Rebecca/' Amelia said blushing^ 
 and being very much agitated. 
 
 " You are right; you always are/' Dobbin answered. 
 Brussels, Waterloo, old, old times, griefs, pangs, remembrances, 
 rushed back into Amelia's gentle heart, and caused a cruel 
 agitation there. 
 
 '* Don't let me see her," Emmy continued. " I couldn't see 
 her." 
 
 " I told you so," Dobbin said to Jos. 
 
 " She is very unhappy, and — and that sort of thing," Jos 
 urged. " She is very poor and unprotected: and has been ill — 
 exceedingly ill — and that scoundrel of a husband has deserted 
 her." 
 
 ''Ah!" said Amelia. 
 
 " She hasn't a friend in the world," Jos went on, not un- 
 dexterously; " and she said she thought she might trust in you. 
 She's so miserable, Emmy. She has been almost mad with 
 grief. Her story quite affected me; — 'pon my word and honour, 
 it did — never was such a cruel persecution borne so angelically, 
 I may say. Her family has been miost cruel to her." 
 
 " Poor creature !" Amelia said. 
 
 " And if she can get no friend, she says she thinks she'll die," 
 Jos proceeded, in a low, tremulous voice. — " God bless my soul! 
 do you know that she tried to kill herself? She carries laudanum 
 with her — I saw the bottle in her room — such a miserable little 
 room — at a third-rate house, the Elephant, up in the roof at the 
 top of all. I went there." 
 
 This did not seem to affect Emmy. She even smiled a little. 
 Perhaps she figured Jos to herself panting up the stair. 
 
 " She's beside herself with grief," he resumed. " The agonies 
 that woman has endured are quite frightful to hear of. She had 
 a little boy, of the same age as Georgy." 
 
 ' ' Yes, yes, I think I remember," Emmy remarked. " Well ? " 
 
 " The most beautiful child ever seen," Jos said, who was very 
 fat, and easily moved, and had been touched by the story Becky 
 told; "a perfect angel, who adored his mother. The ruffians 
 tore him shrieking out of her arms, and have never allowed him 
 to see her." 
 
 '' Dear Joseph," Emmy cried out, starting up at once, " let us 
 
Amantium Iras 667 
 
 go and see her this minute." And she ran into her adjoining 
 bedchamber, tied on her bonnet in a flutter, came out with her 
 shawl on her arm, and ordered Dobbin to follow. 
 
 He went and put her shawl — it was a white Cashmere, con- 
 signed to her by the Major himself from India — over her 
 shoulders. He saw there was nothing for it but to obey; and 
 she put her hand into his arm, and they went away. 
 
 "It is No. 92, up four pair of stairs," Jos said, perhaps not 
 very willing to ascend the steps again; but he placed himself in 
 the window of his drawing-room, which com.mands the place on 
 which the Elephant stands, and saw the pair marching through 
 the market. 
 
 It was as well that Becky saw them too from her garret; for 
 she and the two students were chattering and laughing there; 
 they had been joking about the appearance of Becky's grand- 
 papa — whose arrival and departure they had witnessed — but 
 she had time to dismiss them, and have her little room clear 
 before the landlord of the Elephant, who knew that Mrs. Osborne 
 was a great favourite at the Serene Court, and respected her 
 accordingly, led the way up the stairs to the roof-story, encour- 
 aging Miladi and the Herr Major as they achieved the ascent. 
 
 " Gracious lady, gracious lady! " said the landlord, knocking 
 at Becky's door; he had called her Madame the day before, and 
 was by no means courteous to her. 
 
 " Who is it? " Becky said, putting out her head, and she gave 
 a little scream. There stood Emmy in a tremble, and Dobbin 
 the tall Major, with his cane. 
 
 He stood still watching, and very much interested at the 
 scene; but Emmy sprang forward with open arms towards 
 Rebecca, and forgave her at that moment, and embraced her 
 and kissed her with all her heart. Ah, poor wretch, when was 
 your lip pressed before by such pure kisses ? 
 
 CHAPTER LXVI 
 
 AMANTIUM IRM 
 
 Frankness and kindness like Amelia's were likely to touch even 
 such a hardened Httle reprobate as Becky. She returned 
 Emmy's caresses and kind speeches with something very like 
 
668 Vanity Fair 
 
 gratitude^, and an emotion which^ if it was not lasting, for a 
 moment was almost genuine. That was a lucky stroke of hers 
 about the child " torn from her arms shrieking." It was by 
 that harrowing misfortune that Becky had won her friend back^ 
 and it was one of the very first points, we may be certain, upon 
 which our poor simple little Emmy began to talk to her new- 
 found acquaintance. 
 
 "And so they took your darling child from, you?" our 
 simpleton cried out. '' O Rebecca, my poor dear suffering 
 friend, I know what it is to lose a boy, and to feel for those who 
 have lost one. But please Heaven yours will be restored to you, 
 as a merciful merciful Providence has brought me back mine." 
 
 " The child, my child? Oh, yes, my agonies were frightful," 
 Becky owned, not perhaps without a twinge of conscience. It 
 jarred upon her, to be obliged to commence instantly to tell lies 
 in reply to so much confidence and simplicity. But that is the 
 misfortune of beginning with this kind of forgery. When one fib 
 becomes due as it were, you must forge another to take up the old 
 acceptance ; and so the stock of your lies in circulation inevitably 
 multiplies, and the danger of detection increases every day. 
 
 '' My agonies," Becky continued, " were terrible (I hope she 
 won't sit down on the bottle) when they took him away from 
 me ; I thought I should die ; but I fortunately had a brain fever, 
 during which my doctor gave me up, and — and I recovered, and 
 — and here I am, poor and friendless." 
 
 " How old is he? " Emmy asked. 
 
 '' Eleven," said Becky. 
 
 " Eleven! " cried the other. " Why, he was born the same 
 year with Georgy, who is " 
 
 " I know, I know," Becky cried out, who had in fact quite 
 forgotten all about little Rawdon's age. " Grief has made me 
 forget so many things, dearest Amelia. I am very much 
 changed: half wild sometimes. He was eleven when they took 
 him away from me. Bless his sweet face; I have never seen 
 it ac-ain." 
 
 " Was he fair or dark? " went on the absurd little Emmy. 
 " Show me his hair." 
 
 Becky almost laughed at her simplicity. " Not to-day, love, 
 — some other time, vv^hen my trunks arrive from Leipsic, whence 
 I came to this place^ — and a little drav/ing of him, which I made 
 in happy days." 
 
 " Poor Becky, poor Becky! " said Emmy. " How thankful, 
 how thankful I ought to be; " (though I doubt whether that 
 
Amantium Iras 669 
 
 practice of piety inculcated upon us by our womankind in early 
 youth^ namely^ to be thankful because we are better off than 
 somebody else, be a very rational religious exercise;) and then 
 she began to think, as usual, how her son was the handsomest, 
 the best, and the cleverest boy in the whole world. 
 
 " You will see my Georgy," v/as the best thing Emmy could 
 think of to console Becky. If anything could make her com- 
 fortable, that would. 
 
 And so the two women continued talking for an hour or more, 
 during which Becky had the opportunity of giving her new 
 friend a full and complete version of her private history. She 
 showed how her marriage with Rawdon Crawley had always 
 been viewed by the family with feelings of the utmost hostility; 
 how her sister-in-law (an artful woman) had poisoned her 
 husband's mind against her; how he had formed odious con- 
 nections, which had estranged his affections from her: how she 
 had borne everything — poverty, neglect, coldness from the being 
 whom she most loved — and all for the sake of her child; how, 
 finally, and by the most flagrant outrage, she had been driven 
 into demanding a separation from her husband, when the wretch 
 did not scruple to ask that she should sacrifice her own fair fame 
 so that he might procure advancement through the means of a 
 very great and powerful but unprincipled man — the Marquis 
 of Steyne, indeed. The atrocious monster. 
 
 This part of her eventful history Becky gave with the utmost 
 feminine delicacy, and the most indignant virtue. Forced to 
 fly her husband's roof by this insult, the coward had pursued his 
 revenge by taking her child from her. And thus Becky said she 
 was a wanderer, poor, unprotected, friendless, and wretched. 
 
 Emmy received this story, which was told at some length, as 
 those persons who are acquainted with her character may 
 imagine that she would. She quivered vnth indignation at the 
 account of the conduct of the miserable Rawdon and the unprin- 
 cipled Steyne. Her eyes made notes of admiration for every 
 one of the sentences in which Becky described the persecutions 
 of her a^ristocratic relatives, and the falling away of her husband. 
 (Becky did not abuse him. She spoke rather in sorrow than in 
 anger. She had loved him only too fondly : and was he not the 
 father of her boy?) And as for the separation-scene from the 
 child, while Becky was reciting it, Emmy retired altogether 
 behind her pocket-handkerchief, so that the consumma,te little 
 tragedian must have been chanr.ed to see the effect which her 
 performance produced on her audience. 
 
670 Vanity Fair 
 
 Whilst the ladies were carrying on their conversation^ Amelia's 
 constant escort^ the Major (who^ of course^ did not wish to inter- 
 rupt their conference, and found himself rather tired of creak- 
 ing about the narrow stair passage of which the roof brushed 
 the nap from his hat), descended to the ground-floor of the 
 house and into the great room common to all the frequenters of 
 the Elephant, out of which the stair led. This apartment is 
 always in a fume of smoke, and liberally sprinkled with beer. 
 On a dirty table stand scores of corresponding brass-candlesticks 
 with tallow-candles for the lodgers, whose keys hang up in rows 
 over the candles. Emmy had passed blushing through the 
 room anon, where all sorts of people were collected : Tyrolese 
 glove-sellers and Danubian linen-merchants, with their packs ; 
 students recruiting themselves with butterbrods and meat; 
 idlers, playing cards or dominoes on the sloppy, beery tables; 
 tumblers refreshing during the cessation of their performances 
 —in a word, all the fumum and strepihis of a German inn in fair- 
 time. The waiter brought the Major a jug of beer, as a matter 
 of course; and he took out a cigar, and amused himself with 
 that pernicious vegetable and a newspaper until his charge 
 should come down to claim him. 
 
 Max and Fritz came presently downstairs, their caps on one 
 side, their spurs jingling, their pipes splendid with coats-of-arms 
 and full-blown tassels, and they hung up the key of No. 90 on 
 the board and called for the ration of butterbrod and beer. The 
 pair sate down by the Major, and fell into a conversation of 
 which he could not help hearing somewhat. It was mainly 
 about " Fuchs " and " Philister," and duels and drinking-bouts 
 at the neighbouring University of Schoppenhausen, from which 
 renowned seat of learning they had just come in the Eilwagen, 
 with Becky, as it appeared, by their side, and in order to be 
 present at the bridal fetes at Pumpernickel. ' The little Eng- 
 landerinn seems to be en bays de gonnotsance/' said Max, who 
 knew the French language, to Fritz, his com.rade. " After the 
 fat grandfather went away, there came a pretty little com- 
 patriot. I heard them chattering and whimpering together in 
 the little woman's chamber." 
 
 "We must take the tickets for her concert," Fritz said. 
 " Hast thou any money. Max? " 
 
 " Bah," said the other, " the concert is a concert in nubihus. 
 Hans said that she advertised one at Leipsic: and the Burschen 
 took many tickets. But she went off without singing. She 
 said in the coach yesterday that her pianist had fallen ill at 
 
Amantium Irse 671 
 
 Dresden. She cannot sing, it is my belief: her voice is as 
 cracked as thine, thou beer-soaking Renowner! " 
 
 " It is cracked : / hear her trying out of her window a schreck- 
 lich Enghsh ballad, called ' De Rose upon de Balgony.' " 
 
 " Saufen and singen go not together/' observed Fritz with the 
 red nose, who evidently preferred the former amusement. " No, 
 thou shalt take none of her tickets. She won money at the 
 trenie and guar ante last night. I saw her: she made a little 
 English boy play for her. We will spend thy money there or at 
 the theatre, or we will treat her to French wine or Cognac in 
 the Aurelius Garden, but the tickets we will not buy. What 
 sayest thou? Yet another mug of beer.^ " and one and 
 another successively having buried their blond whiskers in 
 the mawkish draught, curled them and swaggered off into 
 the fair. 
 
 The Major, who had seen the key of No. 90 put up on its hook, 
 and had heard the conversation of the two young University 
 bloods, was not at a loss to understand that their talk related 
 to Becky. " The little devil is at her old tricks," he thought, 
 and he smiled as he recalled the old days, when he had witnessed 
 the desperate flirtation with Jos, and the ludicrous end of that 
 adventure. He and George had often laughed over it subse- 
 quently, and until a few weeks after George's marriage, when 
 he also was caught in the little Circe's toils, and had an under- 
 standing with her which his comrade certainly suspected, but 
 preferred to ignore. William was too much hurt or ashamed 
 to ask to fathom that disgraceful mystery, although once, and 
 evidently with remorse on his mind, George had alluded to it. 
 It was on the morning of Waterloo, as the young men stood 
 together in front of their line, surveying the black masses of 
 Frenchmen who crowned the opposite heights, and as the rain 
 was coming down: " I have been mixing in a foolish intrigue 
 with a woman," George said. " I am glad we were marched 
 away. If I drop, I hope Emmy will never know of that business. 
 I wish to God it had never been begun! " And William was 
 pleased to think, and had more than once soothed poor George's 
 widow with the narrative, that Osborne, after quitting his wife, 
 and after the action of Quatre Bras, on the first day, spoke 
 gravely and affectionately to his comrade of his father and his 
 wife. On these facts, too, William had insisted very strongly 
 in his conversations with the elder Osborne : and had thus been 
 the means of reconciling the old gentleman to his son's memory 
 just at the close of the elder man's life. 
 
672 Vanity Fair 
 
 "And so this devil is still going on with her intrigues/' 
 thought William. " I wish she were a hundred miles from here. 
 She brings mischief wherever she goes." And he was pursuing, 
 these forebodings and this uncomfortable train of thought, with 
 his head betw^een his hands, and the Pumpernickel Gazette of last 
 week unread under his nose, when somebody tapped his shoulder 
 with a parasol, and he looked up and saw Mrs. Amelia. 
 
 This woman had a way of tyrannising over Major Dobbin (for 
 the weakest of all people will domineer over somebody), and she 
 ordered him about, and patted him, and made him fetch and 
 carry just as if he was a great Newfoundland dog. He liked, so 
 to speak, to jump into the water if she said " High, Dobbin! " 
 and to trot behind her with her reticule in his mouth. This 
 history has been written to very little purpose if the reader has 
 not perceived that the Major was a spooney. 
 
 " Why did you not wait for me, sir, to escort me downstairs ? " 
 she said, giving a little toss of her head, and a most sarcastic 
 curtsey. 
 
 " I couldn't stand up in the passage," he answered with a 
 comical deprecatory look; and, delighted to give her his arm, 
 and to take her out of the horrid smoky place, he would have 
 walked off without even so much as remembering the waiter, 
 had not the young fellow run after him and stopped him on 
 the threshold of the Elephant, to make him pay for the beer 
 which he had not consumed. Emmy laughed: she called him a 
 naughty man, who wanted to run away in debt; and, in fact, 
 made some jokes suitable to the occasion and the small-beer. 
 She was in high spirits and good humour, and tripped across the 
 market-place very briskly. She wanted to see Jos that instant. 
 The Major laughed at the impetuous affection Mrs. Amelia 
 exhibited, for, in truth, it was not very often that she wanted 
 her brother *' that instant." 
 
 They found the Civilian in his saloon on the first-floor; he 
 had been pacing the room, and biting his nails, and looking over 
 the market-place towards the Elephant a hundred tim^es at 
 least during the past hour, whilst Emmy was closeted with her 
 friend in the garret, and the Major was beating the tattoo on the 
 sloppy tables of the public room below, and he was, on his side 
 too, very anxious to see Mrs. Osborne. — " Well? " said he. 
 
 " The poor dear creature, how she has suffered ! " Emmy said. 
 
 ' ' God bless my soul, yes," Jos said, wagging his head, so that 
 his cheeks quivered like jellies. 
 
 " She may have Payne's room; who can go upstairs/' Emmy 
 
Amantium Irae 673 
 
 continued. Payne was a staid English maid and personal 
 attendant upon Mrs. Osborne, to whom the courier, as in duty 
 bound, paid court, and whom Georgy used to " lark " dread- 
 fully with accounts of German robbers and ghosts. She passed 
 her time chiefly in grumbling, in ordering about her mistress, 
 and in stating her intention to return the next morning to her 
 native village of Clapham. " She may have Payne's room," 
 Emmy said. 
 
 " Why, you don't mean to say you are going to have that 
 woman into the house V^ bounced out the Major, jump- 
 ing up. 
 
 "Of course we are," said Amelia, in the most innocent way in 
 the world. " Don't be angry, and break the furniture, Major 
 Dobbin. Of course we are going to have her here." 
 
 " Of course, my dear," Jos said. 
 
 " The poor creature, after all her sufferings," Emmy con- 
 tinued : " her horrid banker broken and run away: her husband 
 — wicked wretch — having deserted her amd taken her child away 
 from her " (here she doubled her two little fists and held them 
 in a most menacing attitude before her, so that the Major was 
 charmed to see such a dauntless virago), " the poor dear thing! 
 quite alone and absolutely forced to give lessons in singing to get 
 her bread — and not have her here ! " 
 
 "" Take lessons, my dear Mrs. George," cried the Major, " but 
 don't have her in the house. I implore you don't." 
 
 '' Pooh," said Jos. 
 
 " You who are always good and kind : always used to be 
 at any rate: I am astonished at you, Major William," Amelia 
 cried. " Why, what is the moment to help her but when she is 
 so miserable? Now is the time to be of service to her. The 
 oldest friend I ever had, and not " 
 
 " She was not always your friend, Amelia," the Major said, 
 for he was quite angry. This allusion was too much for Emmy, 
 who, looking the Major almost fiercely in the face, said, " For 
 shame. Major Dobbin!" and after having fired this shot, she 
 walked out of the room with a most majestic ^ir, and shut her 
 own door briskly on herself and her outraged dignity. 
 
 *' To allude to thai I'' she said, when the door was closed. 
 " Oh, it was cruel of him to remind me of it," and she looked 
 up at George's picture, which hung there as usual, with the 
 portrait of the boy underneath. " It was cruel of him. If I had 
 forgiven it, ought he to have spoken ? No. And it is from his 
 own lips that I know how wicked and groundless my jealousy 
 
 Y 298 
 
674 Vanity Fair 
 
 was; and that you were pure — of yes, you were pure, my saint 
 in heaven ! " 
 
 She paced the room trembling and indignant. She went and 
 leaned on the chest of drawers over which the picture hung, and 
 gazed and gazed at it. Its eyes seemed to look down on her 
 with a reproach that deepened as she looked. The early dear 
 dear memories of that brief prime of love rushed back upon her. 
 The wound which years had scarcely cicatrised bled afresh, and 
 oh, how bitterly! She could not bear the reproaches of the 
 husband there before her. It couldn't be. Never, never. 
 
 Poor Dobbin; poor old William! That unlucky word had 
 undone the work of many a year — the long laborious edifice of a 
 life of love and constancy — raised too upon what secret and 
 hidden foundations, wherein lay buried passions, uncounted 
 struggles, unknown sacrifices — a little word was spoken, and 
 down fell the fair palace of hope — one word, and away flew the 
 bird which he had been trying all his life to lure ! 
 
 William, though he saw by Amelia's looks that a great crisis 
 had come, nevertheless continued to implore Sedley in the most 
 energetic terms to beware of Rebecca; and he eagerly, almost 
 frantically, adjured Jos not to receive her. He besought Mr. 
 Sedley to inquire at least regarding her; told him how he had 
 heard that she was in the company of gamblers and people of 
 ill repute; pointed out what evil she had done in former days: 
 how she and Crawley had misled poor George into ruin: how 
 she was now parted from her husband, by her own confession, 
 and, perhaps, for good reason. What a dangerous companion 
 she would be for his sister, who knew nothing of the affairs of the 
 world I William implored Jos, with all the eloquence which he 
 could bring to bear, and a great deal more energy than this quiet 
 gentleman was ordinarily in the habit of showing, to keep 
 Rebecca out of his household. 
 
 Had he been less violent, or more dexterous, he might have 
 succeeded in his supplications to Jos; but the Civilian was not a 
 little jealous of the airs of superiority which the Major constantly 
 exhibited towards him, as he fancied (indeed, he had imparted 
 his opinions to Mr. Kirsch, the courier, whose bills Major Dobbin 
 checked on this journey, and who sided with his master), and he 
 began a blustering speech about his competency to defend his 
 own honour, his desire not to have his affairs meddled with, his 
 intention, in fine, to rebel against the Major, when the colloquy 
 — rather a long and stormy one — was put an end to in the 
 simplest way possible, namely, by the arrival of Mrs. Becky, 
 
Amantium Iras 675 
 
 with a porter from the Elephant Hotel^ in charge of her very 
 meagre baggage. 
 
 She greeted her host with affectionate respect, and made a 
 shrinking, but amicable, salutation to Major Dobbin, who, as her 
 instinct assured her at once, was her enemy, and had been 
 speaking against her; and the bustle and clatter consequent 
 upon her arrival brought Amelia out of her room. Emmy went 
 up and embraced her guest with the greatest warmth, and took 
 no notice of the Major, except to fling him an angry look — the 
 most unjust and scornful glance that had perhaps ever appeared 
 in that poor little woman's face since she was born. But she had 
 private reasons of her own, and was bent upon being angry with 
 him. And Dobbin, indignant at the injustice, not at the defeat, 
 went off, making her a bow quite as haughty as the killing 
 curtsey with which the little woman chose to bid him farewell. 
 
 He being gone, Em^my was particularly lively and affectionate 
 to Rebecca, and bustled about the apartments and installed her 
 guest in her room with an eagerness and activity seldom ex- 
 hibited by our placid little friend. But when an act of injustice 
 is to be done, especially by weak people, it is best that it should 
 be done quickly; and Emmy thought she was displaying a great 
 deal of firmness and proper feeling and veneration for the late 
 Captain Osborne in her present behaviour. 
 
 Georgy came in from the fetes for dinner-time, and found four 
 covers laid as usual; but one of the places was occupied by a 
 lady, instead of by Major Dobbin. " Hello ! where's Dob ? " the 
 young gentleman asked, with his usual simplicity of language. 
 " Major Dobbin is dining out, I suppose," his mother said; and, 
 drawing the boy to her, kissed him a great deal, and put his hair 
 oft" his forehead, and introduced him to Mrs. Crawley. " This 
 is my boy, Rebecca," Mrs. Osborne said — as much as to say — 
 Can the world produce anything like that? Becky looked at 
 him with rapture, and pressed his hand fondly. "Dear boy! " 
 
 she said — " he is just like my " Emotion choked her further 
 
 utterance; but Amelia understood, as well as if she had spoken, 
 that Becky was thinking of her own blessed child. However, 
 the company of her friend consoled Mrs. Crawley and she ate a 
 very good dinner. 
 
 During the repast, she had occasion to speak several times, 
 when Georgy eyed her and listened to her. At the dessert 
 Emmy was gone out to superintend further domestic arrange- 
 ments: Jos was in his great chair dozing over Gcdignani : 
 Georgy and the new arrival sat close to each other; he had 
 
676 Vanity Fair 
 
 continued to look at her knowingly more than once^ and at last, 
 he laid down the nutcrackers. 
 
 " I say/'' said Georgy. 
 
 " What do you say? " Becky said, laughing. 
 
 " You're the lady I saw in the mask at the Rouge et 
 Noir." 
 
 *' Hush! you little sly creature," Becky said, taking up his 
 hand and kissing it. " Your uncle was there too, and mamma 
 mustn't know," 
 
 ' ' Oh no — not by no means," answered the little fellow. 
 
 /V-^You see we are quite good friends already," Becky said to 
 Erriiriy, who now re-entered; and it must be owned that Mrs. 
 Osborne had introduced a most judicious and amiable com- 
 panion into her house. 
 
 William, in a state of great indignation, though still unaware 
 of all the treason that was in store for him, walked about the 
 town wildly until he fell upon the Secretary of Legation, Tape- 
 worm, who invited him to dinner. As they were discussing that 
 meal, he took occasion to ask the Secretary whether he knew 
 anything about a certain Mrs. Rawdon Crawley, who had, he 
 believed, made some noise in London; and then Tapeworm, 
 who of course knew all the London gossip, and was besides a 
 relative of Lady Gaunt, poured out into the astonished Major's 
 ears such a history about Becky and her husband as astonished 
 the querist, and supplied ail the points of this narrative, for it 
 was at that very table j^ears ago that the present writer had 
 the pleasure of hearing the tale. Tufto, Steyne, the Crawleys, 
 and their history — everything connected with Becky and her 
 previous, life, passed under the record of the bitter diplomatist. 
 He knew everything and a great deal besides, about all the 
 world; — in a word, he made the most astounding revelations 
 CO the simple-hearted Major. When Dobbin said that Mrs. 
 Osborne and Mr. Sedley had taken her into their house, Tape- 
 worm burst into a peal of laughter which shocked the Major, 
 and asked if they had not better send into the prison, and take 
 in one or two of the gentlemen in shaved heads and yellow 
 jackets, who swept the streets of Pumpernickel, chained in 
 pairs, to board and lodge, and act as tutor to that little scape- 
 grace Georgy. 
 
 This information astonished and horrified the Major not a 
 little. It had been agreed in the morning (before meeting with 
 Rebecca) that Amelia should go to the Court ball that night. 
 
Amantium Irse 677 
 
 There would be the place where he should tell her. The Major 
 went home and dressed himself in his uniform, and repaired to 
 Court, in hopes to see Mrs. Osborne. She never came. When 
 he returned to his lodgings all the lights in the Sedley tenement 
 were put out. He could not see her till the morning. I don't 
 know what sort of a night's rest he had with this frightful secret 
 in bed with him. 
 
 At the earliest convenient hour in the morning he sent his 
 servant across the way with a note, saying, that lie wished very 
 particularly to speak with her. A message came back to say, 
 that Mrs. Osborne was exceedingly unwell, and was keeping^lier 
 room. 
 
 She, too, had been awake all tha,t night. She had been think- 
 ing of a thing which had agitated her mind a hundred times 
 before. A hundred times on the point of yielding, she had 
 shrunk back from a sacrifice which she felt was too much for her. 
 She couldn't, in spite of his love and constanc}^, and her own 
 acknowledged regard, respect, and gratitude. What are beneiits_, 
 what is constancy, or merit .^ One curl of a girl's ringlet, one 
 hair of a whisker, will turn the scale against them all in a minute. 
 They did not weigh with Emmy more than with other women. 
 She had tried them; wanted to make them pass; could not; 
 and the pitiless little woman had found a pretext^ and deter- 
 mined to be free. 
 
 When at length, in the afternoon, the Major gained admission 
 to Amelia, instead of the cordial and affectionate greetiiig, to 
 which he had been accustomed now for many a long da,y, he 
 received the salutation of a curtsey, and of a little gloved hand, 
 retracted the moment after it was accorded to him. 
 
 Rebecca, too, was in the room, and advanced to meet him 
 with a smile and an extended hand. Dobbin drew back rather 
 confusedly. "I — I beg your pardon, ma'am," he said; " but 
 I am bound to tell you that it is not as your friend that I am 
 come here now." 
 
 "Pooh! damn; don't let us have this sort of thing!" Jos 
 cried out, alarmed, and anxious to get rid of a scene. 
 
 '' I wonder what Major Dobbin has to say against Rebecca? " 
 Amelia said in a low, clear voice with a slight quiver in it, and a 
 very determined look about the eyes. 
 
 " I will not have this sort of thing in my house," Jos again 
 interposed. " I say I will not have it: and Dobbin, I beg, sir, 
 you'll stop it." And he looked round trembling and turning 
 very red, and gave a great puff, and made for his door. 
 
678 Vanity Fair 
 
 *' Dear friend ! '* Rebecca said with angelic sweetness, " do 
 hear what Major Dobbin has to say against me." 
 
 " I will 7iot hear it, I say/' squeaked out Jos at the top of his 
 voice, and, gathering up his dressing-gown, he was gone. 
 
 " We are only two women," Amelia said. " You can speak 
 now, sir." 
 
 " This manner towards me is one which scarcely becomes you, 
 Amelia," the Major answered haughtily; " nor I believe am I 
 guilty of habitual harshness to women. It is not a pleasure to 
 me to do the duty which I am come to do." 
 
 "Pray proceed with it quickly, if you please. Major Dobbin," 
 said Amelia, who was more and more in a pet. The expression 
 of Dobbin's face, as she spoke in this imperious manner, was not 
 pleasant. 
 
 '' I came to say — and as you stay, Mrs. Crawley, I must say it 
 in your presence — that I think you — you ought not to form a 
 member of the family of my friends. A lady who is separated 
 from her husband, who travels not under her own name, who 
 frequents public gaming-tables " 
 
 " It was to the ball I went," cried out Becky. 
 
 " — is not a fit companion for Mrs. Osborne and her son," 
 Dobbin went on; " and I may add that there are people here 
 who know you, and who profess to know that regarding your 
 conduct, about which I don't even wish to speak before — before 
 Mrs. Osborne." 
 
 " Yours is a very modest and convenient sort of calumny. 
 Major Dobbin," Rebecca said. " You leave me under the 
 weight of an accusation which, after all, is unsaid. What is it? 
 Is it unfaithfulness to my husband? I scorn it, and defy any- 
 body to prove it — I defy you, I say. My honour is as untouched 
 as that of the bitterest enemy who ever maligned me. Is it of 
 being poor, forsaken, wretched, that you accuse me ? Yes, I am 
 guilty of those faults, and punished for them every day. Let me 
 go, Emmy, It is only to suppose that I have not met you, and 
 I am no worse to-day than I was yesterday. It is only to sup- 
 pose that the night is over and the poor wanderer is on her way. 
 Don't you remember the song we used to sing in old, dear old 
 days? I have been wandering ever since then — a poor cast- 
 away, scorned for being miserable, and insulted because I am 
 alone. Let me go: my stay here interferes with the plans of 
 this gentleman." 
 
 " Indeed it does, madam," said the Major. " If I have any 
 authority in this house " 
 
Amantium Irae 679 
 
 " Authority, none ! " broke out Amelia. " Rebecca, you 
 stay with me. I won't desert you because you have been per- 
 secuted, or insult you because — because Major Dobbin chooses 
 to do so. Come away, dear." And the two women made 
 towards the door. 
 
 William opened it. As they were going out, however, he took 
 Amelia's hand, and said, " Will you stay a moment and speak 
 tome?" 
 
 '' He wishes to speak to you away from me," said Becky, 
 looking like a martyr. Amelia gripped her hand in reply. 
 
 " Upon my honour, it is not about you that I am going to 
 speak," Dobbin said. " Come back, Ameha," and she came. 
 Dobbin bowed to Mrs. Crawley, as he shut the door upon her. 
 Amelia looked at him, leaning against the glass: her face and 
 her lips were quite white. 
 
 " I was confused when I spoke just now," the Major said, 
 after a pause, " and I misused the word authority." 
 
 " You did," said Amelia, with her teeth chattering. 
 
 " At least I have claims to be heard," Dobbin continued. 
 
 '' It is generous to remind me of our obligations to you," the 
 woman answered. 
 
 " The claims I mean are those left me by George's father," 
 William said. 
 
 " Yes, and you insulted his memory. You did yesterday. 
 You know you did. And I will never forgive you. Never! " 
 said Am.elia. She shot out each little sentence in a tremor of 
 anger and emotion. 
 
 " You don't mean that, Amelia ? " William said sadly. " You 
 don't mean that these words, uttered in a hurried moment, 
 are to weigh against a whole life's devotion? I think that 
 George's memory has not been injured by the way in which I 
 have dealt with it, and if we are come to bandying reproaches, 
 I at least merit none from his widow and the mother of his son. 
 Reflect, afterwards when — when you are at leisure, and your 
 conscience will withdraw this accusation. It does even now." 
 Amelia held down her head. 
 
 "It is not that speech of yesterday," he continued, " which 
 moves 5^ou. That is but the pretext, Amelia, or I have loved 
 you and watched you for fifteen years in vain. Have I not 
 learned in that time to read all your feelings, and look into your 
 thoughts ? I know what your heart is capable of : it can cling 
 faithfully to a recollection, and cherish a fancy; but it can't 
 feel such an attachment as mine deserves to mate with, and such 
 
68o Vanity Fair 
 
 as I would have won from a woman more generous than you. 
 No^ you are not worthy of the love which I have devoted to you. 
 I knew all along that the prize I had set my hfe on was not 
 worth the winning; that I was a fool, with fond fancies, too, 
 bartering away my all of truth and ardour against your little 
 feeble remnant of love. I will bargain no more: I v/ithdraw. 
 I find no fault with you. You are very good-natured, and have 
 done your best; but you couldn't — you couldn't reach up to 
 the height of the attachment which I bore you, and which a 
 loftier soul than yours might have been proud to share. Good- 
 bye, Amelia ! I have watched your stRiggle. Let it end. We 
 are both weary of it." 
 
 Amelia stood scared and silent as William thus suddenly 
 broke the chain by which she held him, and declared his inde- 
 pendence and superiority. He had placed himself at her feet 
 so long that the poor little woman had been accustomed to 
 trample upon him. She didn't wish to marry him, but she 
 wished to keep him. She wished to give him nothing, but that 
 he should give her all. It is a bargain not unfrequently levied 
 in love. 
 
 William's sally had quite broken and cast her down. Her 
 assault was long since over and beaten back. 
 
 " Am I to understand then, — that you are going — away, — 
 William? " she said. 
 
 He gave a sad laugh. " I went once before," he said, " and 
 cam.e back after twelve years. We were young, then, Amelia. 
 Good-bye. I have spent enough of my life at this play." 
 
 Whilst they had been talking, the door into Mrs. Osborne's 
 room had opened ever so Httle; indeed, Becky had kept a hold 
 of the handle, and had turned it on the instant when Dobbin 
 quitted it; and she heard every word of the conversation that 
 had passed between these two. " What a noble heart that man 
 has," she thought, *' and how shamefully that woman plays 
 with it! " She admired Dobbin; she bore him no rancour for 
 the pa,rt he had taken against her. It was an open move in the 
 game, and played fairly. " Ah ! " she thought, " if I could have 
 had such a husband as that — a man with a heart and brains too ! 
 I would not have minded his large feet; " and running into her 
 room she absolutely bethought herself of something and wrote 
 him a note, beseeching him to stop for a few days — not to think 
 of going — and that she could serve him with A. 
 
 The parting was over. Once more poor William walked to 
 the door and was gone; and the little widow, the author of all 
 
Amantium Irse 68 1 
 
 this work, had her will, and had w^on her victory, and was left 
 to enjoy it as she best might. Let the ladies envy her triumph. 
 
 At the romantic hour of dinner, Mr. Georgy made his appear- 
 ance, and again remarked the absence of " Old Dob." The 
 meal was eaten in silence by the party: Jos's appetite not being 
 diminished, but Emmy taking nothing at all. 
 
 After the meal, Georgy was lolling in the cushions of the old 
 window, a large window, with three sides of glass, abutting 
 from the gable, and commanding on one side the Market Place, 
 where the Elephant is, his mother being busy hard by, when he 
 remarked symptoms of movement at the Major's house on the 
 other side of the street. 
 
 " Hullo! " said he, " there's Dob's trap — they are bringing it 
 out of the courtyard." The " trap " in question was a carriage 
 which the Major had bought for six pounds sterling, and about 
 which they osed to rally him a good deal. 
 
 Emxmy gave a little start, but said nothing. 
 
 "Hullo!" Georgy continued, "there's Francis coming out 
 with the portmanteaus, and Kunz, the one-eyed postillion, 
 coming down the market with three schimmels. Look at his 
 boots and yellow jacket, — ?dn't he a rum one.? Why — they're 
 putting the horses to Dob's carriage. Is he going any- 
 where? " 
 
 " Yes," said Emmy, " he is going on a journey." 
 
 " Going on a journey: and when is he coming back? " 
 
 " He is — not coming back," answered Emmy. 
 
 " Not coming back! " cried out Georgy, jumping up. *' Stay 
 here, sir," roared out Jos. " Stay, Georgy," said his mother, 
 with a very sad face. The boy stopped: kicked about the 
 room; jumped up and down from the window-seat with his knees, 
 and shov/ed every symptom of uneasiness and curiosity. 
 
 The horses were put to. The baggage was strapped on. 
 Francis came out with his master's sword, cane, and umbrella 
 tied up together, and laid them in the well, and his desk and old 
 tin cocked-hat case, which he placed under the seat. Francis 
 brought out the stained old blue cloak lined with red camlet, 
 which had wrapped the owner up any time these fifteen years., 
 and had manchen Sturm erlebt, as a favourite song of those days 
 said. It had been new for the campaign of Waterloo, arid had 
 covered George and William after the night of Quatre JBras. 
 
 Old Burcke, the landlord of the lodgings^ came out, then 
 Francis, with more packages— final packages — then Major 
 William, — Burcke wanted to kiss him. The Major was adored 
 
682 Vanity Fair 
 
 by all people with whom he had to do. It was with difficulty 
 he could escape from this demonstration of attachment. 
 
 " By Jove^ I will go ! " screamed out George. " Give him 
 this/' said Becky, quite interested, and put a paper into the boy's 
 hand. He had rushed down the stairs and flung across the 
 street in a minute — the yellow postillion was cracking his whip 
 gently. William had got into the carriage, released from the 
 embraces of his landlord. George bounded in afterwards and 
 flung his arms round the Major's neck (as they saw from the 
 window); and began asking him multiplied questions. Then he 
 felt in his waistcoat-pocket and gave him a note. William 
 seized at it rather eagerly, he opened it trembling, but instantly 
 his countenance changed, and he tore the paper in two, and 
 dropped it out of the carriage. He kissed Georgy on the head, 
 and the boy got out, doubling his fists into his eyes, and with 
 the aid of Francis. He lingered with his hand on the panel. 
 Fort, Sch wager! The yellow postillion cracked his whip pro- 
 digiously, up sprang Francis to the box, away went the schimmels, 
 and Dobbin with his head on his breast. He never looked up 
 as they passed under Amelia's window: and Georgy, left alone 
 in the street, burst out crying in the face of all the crowd. 
 
 Emmy's maid heard him howling again during the night, and 
 brought him some preserved apricots to console him. She 
 mingled her lamentations with his. All the poor, all the humble, 
 all honest folks, all good men who knew him, loved that kind- 
 hearted and simple gentleman. 
 
 As for Emmy, had she not done her duty? She had her 
 picture of George for a consolation. 
 
 CHAPTER LXVII 
 
 WHICH CONTAINS BIRTHS, MARRIAGES, AND DEATHS 
 
 Whatever Becky's private plan might be by which Dobbin's 
 true love was to be crowned with success, the little woman 
 thought that the secret might keep, and indeed, being by no 
 means so much interested about anybody's welfare as about her 
 own, she had a great number of things pertaining to herself to 
 consider, and which concerned her a great deal more than Major 
 Dobbin's happiness in this life^ 
 
Births, Marriages, and Deaths 683 
 
 She found herself suddenly and unexpectedly in snug com- 
 fortable quarters: surrounded by friends, kindness, and good- 
 natured simple people such as she had not met with for many a 
 long day; and, wanderer as she was by force and inclination, 
 there were moments when rest was pleasant to her. As the 
 most hardened Arab that ever careered across the desert over the 
 hump of a dromedary, likes to repose sometimes under the date- 
 trees by the water, or to come into the cities, walk into the 
 bazaars, refresh himself in the baths, and say his prayers in the 
 mosques, before he goes out again marauding, — so Jos's tents 
 and pilau were pleasant to this little Ishmaelite. She picketed 
 her steed, hung up her weapons, and warmed herself comfortably 
 by his fire. The halt in that roving, restless life was inexpres- 
 sibly soothing and pleasant to her. 
 
 So, pleased herself, she tried with all her might to please 
 everybody, and we know that she was eminent and successful as 
 a practitioner in the art of giving pleasure. As for Jos, even in 
 that little interview in the garret at the Elephant Inn she had 
 found means to win back a great deal of his good-will. In the 
 course of a week, the Civilian was her sworn slave and frantic 
 admirer. He didn't go to sleep after dinner, as his custom was 
 in the much less lively society of Amelia. He drove out with 
 Becky in his open carriage. He asked little parties and 
 invented festivities to do her honour. 
 
 Tapeworm, the Charge d'Aifaires, who had abused her so 
 cruelly, came to dine with Jos, and then came every day to 
 pay his respects to Becky. Poor Emmy, who was never very 
 talkative, and more glum and silent than ever after Dobbin's 
 departure, was quite forgotten when this superior genius made 
 her appearance. The French Minister was as much charmed 
 with her as his English rival. The German ladies, never par- 
 ticularly squeamish as regards morals, especially in English 
 people, were delighted with the cleverness and wit of Mrs. 
 Osborne's charming friend; and though she did not ask to go to 
 Court, yet the most august and Transparent Personages there 
 heard of her fascinations, and were quite curious to know her. 
 When it became known that she was noble, of an ancient English 
 family, that her husband was a Colonel of the Guard, Excellenz 
 and Governor of an island, only separated from his lady by one 
 of those trifling differences which are of little account in a 
 country where " Werther " is still read, and the " Wahlver- 
 wandtschaften " of Goethe is considered an edifying moral 
 book, nobody thought of refusing to receive her in the very 
 
6S4 Vanity Fair 
 
 highest society of the little Duchy; and the ladies were even 
 more ready to call her du, and to swear eternal friendship for her, 
 than they had been to bestow the same inestimable benefits upon 
 Amelia. Love and Liberty are interpreted by those simple 
 Germans in a way which honest folks in Yorkshire and Somerset- 
 shire little understand; and a lady might, in some philosophic 
 and civilised towns, be divorced ever so many times from her 
 respective husbands, and keep her character in society. Jos's 
 house never was so pleasant since he had a house of his own, as 
 Rebecca caused it to be. She sang, she played, she laughed, she 
 talked in two or three languages; she brought everybody to the 
 house; and she made Jos believe that it was his own great social 
 talents and wit which gathered the society of the place round 
 about him. > 
 
 As for Emmy, who found herself not in the least mistress of 
 her own house, except when the bills were to be paid, Becky soon 
 discovered the way to soothe and please her. She talked to her 
 perpetually about Major Dobbin sent about his business, and 
 made no scruple of declaring her admiration for that excellent^ 
 high-minded gentleman, and of telling Emmy that she had 
 behaved most cruelly regarding him. Emmy defended her 
 conduct, and showed that it was dictated only by the purest 
 religious principles; that a woman once, etc., and to such an 
 angel as him whom she had had the good fortune to marry, was 
 married for ever; but she had no objection to hear the Major 
 praised as much as ever Becky chose to praise him; and indeed 
 brought the conversation round to the Dobbin subject a score 
 of times every day. 
 
 Means were easily found to win the favour of Georgy and the 
 servants. Amelia's maid, it has been said, was heart and soul 
 in favour of the generous Major. Having at first disliked Becky 
 for being the means of dismissing him from the presence of her 
 mistress, she was reconciled to Mrs. Crawley subsequently, 
 because the latter became William's most ardent admirer and 
 champion. And in those nightly conclaves in which the two 
 ladies indulged after their parties, and while Miss Payne was 
 " brushing their 'airs," as she called the yellow locks of the one,j 
 and the soft brown tresses of the other, this girl always put in 
 her word for that dear good gentleman Major Dobbin. Her 
 advocacy did not make Amelia angry any more than Rebecca^s 
 admiration of him. She made George write to him constantly,!' 
 and persisted in sending Mamma's kind love in a postscript. 
 And as she looked at her husband's portrait of nights, it no 
 
Births, Marriages, and Deaths 685 
 
 longer reproached her— perhaps she reproached it^ now William 
 was gone. 
 
 Emmy was not very happy after her heroic sacrifice. She 
 was very distraite, nervous, silent, and ill to please. The family 
 had never known her so peevish. She grew pale and ill. She 
 used to try to sing certain songs (" Einsam bin ich nicht aileine/' 
 was one of them; that tender love-song of Weber's, which, in 
 old-fashioned days, young ladies, and when you v/ere scarcely 
 born, showed that those who lived before you knew too how to 
 love and to sing); — certain songs, I say, to which the Major was 
 partial ; and as she warbled them in the twilight in the drawing- 
 room, she would break off in the midst of the song, and walk into 
 her neighbouring apartment, and there, no doubt, take refuge 
 in the miniature of her husband. 
 
 Some books still subsisted, after Dobbin's departure, with his 
 name written in them : a German Dictionary, for instance, with 
 " William Dobbin, — th Reg.," in the fly-leaf; a guide-book with 
 his initials, and one or two other volumes which belonged to the 
 Major. Emmy cleared these away, and put them on the 
 drawers, where she placed her workbox, her desk, her Bible, and 
 Prayer-book, under the pictures of the two Georges. And the 
 Major, on going away, having left his gloves behind him, it is a 
 fact that Georgy, rummaging his mother's desk some tim.e after- 
 wards, found the gloves neatly folded up, and put away in what 
 they call the secret drawers of the desk. 
 
 Not caring for society, and moping there a great deal, Emmy's 
 chief pleasure in the summer evenings was to take long walks 
 with Georgy (during which Rebecca was left to the society of 
 Mr. Joseph), and then the mother and son used to talk about the 
 Major in a way which even made the boy smile. She told him 
 that she thought Major William was the best man in all the 
 world; the gentlest and the kindest, the bravest and the 
 humblest. Over and over again, she told him how they owed 
 everything which they possessed in the world to that kind 
 friend's benevolent care of them; how he had befriended them 
 all through their poverty and misfortunes: watched over them 
 when nobody cared for them; how all his comrades admired 
 him though he never spoke of his own gallant actions; how 
 Georgy's father trusted him beyond all other men, and had 
 been constantly befriended by the good William. " Why, 
 when your papa was a little boy," she said, " he often told me 
 that it v/as William who defended him against a tyrant at the 
 
686 Vanity Fair 
 
 school where they were ; and their friendship never ceased from 
 that day until the last^ when your dear father fell." 
 
 " Did Dobbin kill the man who killed papa? " Georgy said. 
 " I'm sure he did, or he would if he could have caught him; 
 wouldn't he, mother? When I'm in the army, won't I hate 
 the French !— that's all." 
 
 In such colloquies the mother and the child passed a great 
 deal of their time together. The artless woman had made a 
 confidante of the boy. He was as much William's friend as 
 everybody else who knew him well. 
 
 By the way, Mrs. Becky, not to be behindhand in sentiment, 
 had ^ot a miniature too hanging up in her room, to the surprise 
 and amusement of most people, and the delight of the original, 
 who was no other than our friend Jos. On her first coming to 
 favour the Sedleys with a visit, the little woman, who had 
 arrived with a remarkably small shabby kit, was perhaps 
 ashamed of the meanness of her trunks and band-boxes, and 
 often spoke with great respect about her baggage left behind at 
 Leipsic, which she must have from that city. When a traveller 
 talks to you perpetually about the splendour of his luggage, 
 which he does not happen to have with him; my son, beware 
 of that traveller ! He is, ten to one, an impostor. 
 
 Neither Jos nor Emmy knew this important maxim. It 
 seemed to them of no consequence whether Becky had a quantity 
 of very fine clothes in invisible trunks; but as her present supply 
 was exceeding shabby, Emmy supplied her out of her own stores, 
 or took her to the best milliner in the town, and there fitted Ler 
 out. It was no more torn collars now, I promise you, and faded 
 silks training off at the shoulder. Becky changed her habits 
 with her situation in life — the rouge pot was suspended — 
 another excitement to which she had accustomed herself was 
 also put aside, or at least only indulged in in privacy; as when 
 she was prevailed on by Jos of a summer evening, Emmy and 
 the boy being absent on their walks, to take a little spirit-and- 
 water. But if she did not indulge — the courier did : that rascal 
 Kirsch could not be kept from the bottle; nor could he tell how 
 much he took when he applied to it. He was sometimes sur- 
 prised himself at the way in which Mr. Sedley's Cognac dimin- 
 ished. Well, well; this is a painful subject. Becky did not 
 very likely indulge so much as she used before she entered a 
 decorous family. 
 
 At last the much-bragged-about boxes arrived from Leipsic; 
 
Births, Marriages, and Deaths 687 
 
 — three of them^ not by any means large or splendid ; — nor did 
 Becky appear to take out any sort of dresses or ornaments from 
 the boxes when they did arrive. But out of one, which con- 
 tained a mass of her papers (it was that very box which Rawdon 
 Crawley had ransacked in his furious hunt for Becky's concealed 
 money), she took a picture with great glee, which she pinned up 
 in her room, and to which she introduced Jos. It was the por- 
 trait of a gentleman in pencil, his face having the advantage of 
 being painted up in pink. He was riding on an elephant away 
 from some cocoa-nut trees, and a pagoda: it was an Eastern 
 scene. 
 
 " God bless my soul, it is my portrait," Jos cried out. It 
 was he indeed, blooming in youth and beauty, in a nankeen 
 jacket of the cut of 1804. It was the old picture that used to 
 hang up in Russell Square. 
 
 " I bought it," said Becky, in a voice trembling with emotion; 
 " I went to see if I could be of any use to my kind friends. I 
 have never parted with that picture — I never will." 
 
 " Won't you? " Jos cried, with a look of unutterable rapture 
 and satisfaction. " Did you really now value it for my sake? " 
 
 " You know I did, well enough," said Becky, " but why 
 speak, — why think, — why look back? It is too late now." 
 
 That evening's conversation was delicious for Jos. Emmy 
 only came in to go to bed very tired and unwell. Jos and his 
 fair guest had a charming tete-a-tete, and his sister could hear, as 
 she lay awake in her adjoining chamber, Rebecca singing over 
 to Jos the old songs of 1815. He did not sleep, for a wonder, 
 that night any more than Amelia. 
 
 It was June, and, by consequence, high season in London; 
 Jos, who read the incomparable Galignani (the exile's best 
 friend) through every day, used to favour the ladies with ex- 
 tracts from his paper during their breakfast. Every week in 
 this paper there is a full account of military movements, in which 
 Jos, as a man who had seen service, was especially interested. 
 On one occasion he read out — " Arrival of the — th Regiment. — 
 Gravesend, June 20. — ^The Ramchunder, East Indiaman, came 
 into the river this morning, having on board 14 officers and 132 
 rank and file of this gallant corps. They have been absent from 
 England fourteen years, having been embarked the year after 
 Waterloo, in which glorious conflict they took an active part, 
 and having subsequently distinguished themselves in the 
 Burmese war. The veteran colonel, Sir Michael O'Dowd, 
 K.C.B., with his lady and sister, landed here yesterday, witli 
 
688 Vanity Fair 
 
 Captains Posk}?-, Stubble^ Macraw^ Malony; Lieutenants Smith;, 
 Jones ;, Thompson^ F. Thomson; Ensigns Hicks and Grady ;. 
 the band on the pier playing the national anthem, and the crowd 
 loudly cheering the gallant veterans as they went into Wayte's 
 Hotel, where a sumptuous banquet was provided for the de- 
 fenders of Old England. During the repast, which we need not 
 say was served up in Wayte's best style, the cheering continued 
 so enthusiastically, that Lady O'Dowd and the Colonel came 
 forward to the balcony and drank the healths of their fellow- 
 countrymen in a bumper of Wayte's best claret." 
 
 On a second occasion Jos read a brief announcement — Major 
 Dobbin had joined the — th regiment at Chatham; and sub- 
 sequently he promulgated accounts of the presentations at the 
 Drawing-room, of Colonel Sir Michael O'Dowd, K.C.B., Lady 
 O'Dowd (by Mrs. Molioy Malony of Ballymalony), and Miss 
 Glorvina O'Dowd (by Lady O'Dowd). Almost directly after 
 this, Dobbin's name appeared among the Lieutenant-Colonels: 
 for old Marshal Tiptoff had died during the passage of the — xh 
 from Madras, and the Sovereign was pleased to advance Colonel 
 Sir Michael O'Dowd to the rank of Major-General on his return 
 to England, with an intimation that he should be Colonel of the 
 distinguished regiment which he had so long comm.anded. 
 
 Amelia had been made aware of some of these movements. 
 The correspondence between George and his guardian had not 
 ceased by any means : William had even written once or twice 
 to her since his departure, but in a manner so unconstrainedly 
 cold, that the poor woman felt now in her turn that she had lost 
 her power over him, and that, as he had said, he was free. He 
 had left her, and she was wretched. The memory of his almost 
 countless services, and lofty and affectionate regard, now pre- 
 sented itself to her, and rebuked her day and night. She 
 brooded over those recollections according to her wont: saw 
 the purity and beauty of the affection with v/hich she had trifled, 
 and reproached herself for having flung away such a treasure. . 
 
 It was gone indeed. William had spent it all out. He loved 
 her no more, he thought, as he had loved her. He never could 
 again. That sort of regard, which he had profl'ered to her for 
 so many faithful years, can't be flung down and shattered and 
 m.ended so as to show no scars. The little heedless tyrant had 
 so destroyed it. " No," William thought again and again, " it 
 was myself I deluded, and persisted in cajoling; had she been 
 worthy of the love I gave her, she would have returned it long 
 ago. It was a fond mistake. Isn't the whole course, of life 
 
Births, Marriages, and Deaths 689 
 
 made up of such ? and suppose I had won her, should I not have 
 been disenchanted the day after my victory? Why pine, or be 
 ashamed of my defeat?" The more he thought of this long 
 passage of his hfe, the more clearly he saw his deception. " I'll 
 go into harness again/' he said, " and do my duty in that state 
 of Hfe in which it has pleased Heaven to place me. I will see 
 that the buttons of the recruits are properly bright, and that 
 the ser.o-eants make no mistakes in their accounts. I will dine 
 
 O ... 
 
 at mess, and listen to the Scotch surgeon tellmg his stones. 
 When I am old and broken, I will go on half-pay, and m^y old 
 sisters shall scold me. I have ' geliebt und gelebet,' as the girl 
 in ' Wallenstein ' says. I am done. — Pay the bills and get me a 
 cigar: find out what there is at the play to-night, Frajicis; to- 
 morrow we cross by the Batavier." He made the above speech, 
 whereof Francis only heard the last two lines, pacing up and 
 down the Boompjes at Rotterdam. The Batavier was lying in 
 the basin. He could see the place on the quarter-deck where 
 he and Emmy had sate on the happy voyage out. What had 
 that httle Mrs. Crawley to say to him? Psha! to-morrow we 
 will put to sea, and return to England, home, and duty ! 
 
 After June all the little Court society of Pumpernickel used 
 to separate, according to the German plan, and make for a 
 hundred watering-places, where they drank at the wells; rode 
 upon donkeys ; gambled at the redoutes, if they had money and 
 a mind; rushed with hundreds of their kind to gourmandise at 
 the tables d'hote ; and idled away the summer. The English 
 diplomatists went off to Toeplitz and Kissingen, their French 
 rivals shut up their chancellerie and whisked away to their 
 darling Boulevard de Gand. The Transparent reigning family 
 took too to the waters, or retired to their hunting -lodges. 
 Everybody went away having any pretensions to politeness, and 
 of course, with them, Doctor von Glauber, the Court Doctor, 
 and his Baroness. The seasons for the baths were the most 
 productive periods of the Doctor's practice — he united business 
 with pleasure, and his chief place of resort was Ostend, which is 
 much frequented by Germans, and where the Doctor treated 
 himself and his spouse to what he called a " dib " in the sea. 
 
 His interesting patient, Jos, was a regular milch cow to the 
 Doctor, and he easily persuaded the Civilian, both for his own 
 health's sake and that of his charming sister, which was really 
 very much shattered, to pass the summer at that hideous sea- 
 port town. Emmy did not care where she went much. Georgy 
 jumped at the idea of a move. As for Becky, she came as a 
 
690 Vanity Fair 
 
 matter of course in the fourth place inside of the fine barouche 
 Mr. Jos had bought: the two domestics being on the box in 
 front. She might have some misgivings about the friends whom 
 she should meet at Ostend^ and who might be likely to tell ugly 
 stories — but bah ! she was strong enough to hold her own. She 
 had cast such an anchor in Jos now, as would require a strong 
 storm to shake. That incident of the picture had finished him. 
 Becky took down her elephant, and put it into the little box 
 which she had had from Amelia ever so many years ago. Emmy 
 also came off with her Lares, — her two pictures, — and the party, 
 finally, were lodged in an exceedingly dear and uncomfortable 
 house at Ostend. 
 
 There Amelia began to take baths, and get what good she 
 could from them, and though scores of people of Becky's 
 acquaintance passed her and cut her, yet Mrs. Osborne, who 
 walked about with her, and who knew nobody, was not aware of 
 the treatment experienced by her friend whom she had chosen 
 so judiciously as a companion; indeed, Becky never thought fit 
 to tell her what was passing under her innocent eyes. 
 
 Some of Mrs. Rawdon Crawley's acquaintances, however, 
 acknowledged her readily enough, — perhaps more readily than 
 she would have desired. Among those were Major Loder (un- 
 attached) and Captain Rook (late of the Rifles), who might be 
 seen any day on the Dyke, smoking and staring at the women, 
 and who speedily got an introduction to the hospitable board 
 and select circle of Mr. Joseph Sedley. In fact they would take 
 no denial; they burst into the house whether Becky was at home 
 or not, walked into Mrs. Osborne's drawing-room, which they 
 perfumed with their coats and mustachios, called Jos " Old 
 buck," and invaded his dinner- table, and laughed and drank for 
 long hours there. 
 
 "What can they mean?" asked Georgy, who did not like 
 these gentlemen. *' I heard the Major say to Mrs. Crawley 
 yesterday, ' No, no, Becky, you shan't keep the old buck to 
 yourself. We must have the bones in, or, dammy, I'll split.' 
 What could the Major mean, mamma? " 
 
 " Major! don't call him Major! " Emmy said. " I'm sure I 
 can't tell what he meant." His presence and that of his friend 
 inspired the little lady with intolerable terror and aversion. 
 They paid her tipsy compliments; they leered at her over the 
 dinner-table. And the Captain made her advances that filled 
 her with sickening dismay, nor would she ever see him unless she , 
 had George by her side. 
 
Births, Marriages, and Deaths 691 
 
 Rebecca, to do her justice, never would let either of these men 
 remain alone with Amelia; the Major was disengaged too, and 
 swore he would be the winner of her. A couple of ruffians were 
 fighting for this innocent creature, gambling for her at her own 
 table, and though she was not aware of the rascals' designs upon 
 her, yet she felt a horror and uneasiness in their presence, and 
 longed to fly. 
 
 She besought, she entreated Jos to go. Not he. He was slow 
 of movement, tied to his Doctor, and perhaps to some other 
 leading-strings. At least Becky was not anxious to go to 
 England. 
 
 At last she took a great resolution — made the great plunge. 
 She wrote off a letter to a friend whom she had on the other side 
 of the water; a letter about which she did not speak a word to 
 anybody, which she carried herself to the post under her shawl, 
 nor was any remark made about it; only that she looked very 
 much flushed and agitated when Georgy met her; and she kissed 
 him, and hung over him a great. deal that night. She did not 
 come out of her room after her return from her walk. Becky 
 thought it was Major Loder and the Captain who frightened her. 
 
 " She mustn't stop here," Becky reasoned with herself. 
 " She must go away, the silly little fool. She is still whimpering 
 after that gaby of a husband — dead (and served right!) these 
 fifteen years. She shan't marry either of these men. It's too 
 bad of Loder. No; she shall marry the bamboo-cane, I'll 
 settle it this very night." 
 
 So Becky took a cup of tea to Amelia in her private apart- 
 ment, and found that lady in the company of her miniatures, 
 and in a most melancholy and nervous condition. She laid 
 down the cup of tea. 
 
 " Thank you," said Amelia. 
 
 '^ Listen to me, Amelia," said Becky, marching up and down 
 the room before the other, and surveying her with a sort of con- 
 temptuous kindness. " I want to talk to you. You must go 
 away from here and from the impertinences of these men. I 
 won't have you harassed by them; and they will insult you if 
 you stay. I tell you they are rascals; men fit to send to the 
 hulks. Never mind how I know them. I know everybody. 
 Jos can't protect you, he is too weak, and wants a protector him- 
 self. You are no mere fit to live in the world than a baby in 
 arms. You must marry, or you and your precious boy will go 
 to ruin. You must have a husband, you fool; and one of the 
 best gentlemen I ever saw has offered you a hundred times, and 
 
692 Vanity Fair 
 
 you have rejected him^ you silly, heartless, ungrateful little 
 creature ! " 
 
 " I tried — I tried my best, indeed I did, Rebecca," said Amelia 
 
 deprecatingly, " but I couldn't forget " and she finished the 
 
 sentence by looking up at the portrait. 
 
 "Couldn't forget him!^^ cried out Becky; "that selfish 
 humbug, that low-bred cockney dandy, that padded booby, who 
 had neither wit, nor manners, nor heart, and was no more to be 
 compared to your friend with the bamboo-cane, than you are to 
 Queen Elizabeth. Why, the man was weary of you, and would 
 have jilted you, but that Dobbin forced him to keep his word. 
 He owned it to me. He never cared for you. He used to sneer 
 about you to me, time after time ; and made love to me the week 
 after he m.arried you." 
 
 *' It's false! it's false! Rebecca," cried out Amelia, start- 
 ing up. 
 
 " Look there, you fool," Becky said, still with provoking 
 good humour, and taking a little paper out of her belt, she opened 
 it and flung it into Emmy's lap. " You know his handwriting. 
 He wrote that to me — wanted me to run away with him — gave 
 it me under your nose, the day before he was shot — and served 
 him right ! " Becky repeated. 
 
 Emmy did not hear her; she was looking at the letter. It 
 was that which George had put into the bouquet and given to 
 Becky on the night of the Duchess of Richmond's ball. It 
 was as she said : the foolish young man had asked her to fly. 
 
 Emmy's head sank down, and for almost the last time in 
 which she shall be called upon to weep in this history, she com- 
 menced that work. Her head fell to her bosom, and her hands 
 went up to her eyes ; and there for a while she gave way to her 
 emotions, as Becky stood on and regarded her. Who shall 
 analyse those tears, and say whether they were sweet or bitter? 
 Was she most grieved because the idol of her life was tumbled 
 down and shivered at her feet, or indignant that her love had 
 been so despised, or glad because the barrier was removed which 
 modesty had placed between her and a new, a real affection? 
 " There is nothing to forbid me now," she thought. " I may 
 love him with all my heart now. Oh, I will, I will, if he will but 
 let me and forgive me." I believe it was this feeling rushed over 
 all the others which agitated that gentle Httle bosom. 
 
 Indeed, she did not cry so much as Becky expected ; the other 
 soothed and kissed her — a rare mark of sympathy with Mrs. 
 Becky. She treated Emmy like a child, and patted her head. 
 
Births, Marriages, and Deaths 693 
 
 " And now let us get pen and ink^ and write to him to come this 
 minute," she said. 
 
 " I — I wrote to him this morning/' Emmy said, blushing 
 exceedingly. Becky screamed with laughter — " Un btglietio," 
 she sang out with Rosina, " eccolo qua I " — the whole house 
 echoed with her shrill singing. 
 
 Two mornings after this little scene, although the way was 
 rainy and gusty, and Amelia had had an exceedingly v/akeful 
 night, listening to the wind roaring, and pitying all travellers by 
 land and by water, yet she got up early and insisted upon taking 
 a walk on the Dyke with Georgy; and there she paced as the 
 rain beat into her face, and she looked out westward across the 
 dark sea line, and over the swollen billows which came tumbling 
 and frothing to the shore. Neither spoke much, except now 
 and then, when the boy said a few words to his timid companion, 
 indicative of sympathy and protection. 
 
 " I hope he won't cross in such weather," Emmy said. 
 
 '' I bet ten to one he does," the boy answered. '' Look, 
 mother, there's the smoke of the steamer." It was that signal, 
 sure enough. 
 
 But though the steamer was under weigh, he might not be on 
 board; he might not have got the letter; he might not choose to 
 come. — A hundred fears poured one over the other into the 
 little heart, as fast as the waves on to the Dyke. 
 
 The boat followed the smoke into sight. Georgy had a dandy 
 telescope, and got the vessel under view in the most skilful 
 manner. And he made appropriate nautical comments upon 
 the manner of the approach of the steamer as she came nearer 
 and nearer, dipping and rising in the water. The signal of an 
 English steamer in sight went fluttering up to the mast on the 
 pier. I daresay Mrs. Amelia's heart was in a similar flutter. 
 
 Emmy tried to look through the telescope over George's 
 shoulder, but she could make nothing of it. She only saw a 
 black eclipse bobbing up and down before her eyes. 
 
 George took the glass again and raked the vessel. " How 
 she does pitch! " he said. " There goes a wave slap over her 
 bows. There's only two people on deck besides the steersman. 
 There's a man lying down, and a — chap in a — cloak with a — 
 Hooray! — It's Dob, by jingo!" He clapped to the telescope, 
 and flung his arms round his mother. As for that lady: let us 
 say what she did in the words of a favourite poet — AaK/ju(5ei/ ye- 
 \aadaa. She was sure it was William. It could be no other» 
 
-^694 Vanity Fair 
 
 What she had said about hoping that he would not come was all 
 hypocrisy. Of course he would come: what could he do else 
 ^^, but come ? She knew he would come. 
 
 The ship came swiftly nearer and nearer. As they went in 
 to meet her at the landing-place at the Quay^ Emmy's knees 
 trembled so that she scarcely could run. She would have liked 
 to kneel down and say her prayers of thanks there. Oh^ she 
 thought;, she would be all her life saying them ! It was such a 
 bad day that as the vessel came alongside of the Quay there 
 were no idlers abroad; scarcely even a commissioner on the 
 look-out for the few passengers in the steamer. That young 
 scapegrace George had fled too: and as the gentleman in the 
 old cloak lined with red stuff stepped on to the shore, there was 
 scarcely any one present to see what took place, which was 
 briefly this — 
 
 A lady in a dripping white bonnet and shawl, with her two 
 little hands out before her, went up to him, and in the next 
 minute she had altogether disappeared under the folds of the 
 old cloak, and was kissing one of his hands with all her might; 
 whilst the other, I suppose, was engaged in holding her to his 
 heart (which her head just about reached) and in preventing her 
 from tumbling down. She was murmuring something about — 
 forgive — dear William — dear, dear, dearest friend — kiss, kiss, 
 kiss, and so forth — and in fact went on under the cloak in an 
 absurd manner. 
 
 When Emmy emerged from it, she still kept tight hold of one 
 of William's hands, and looked up in his face. It was full of 
 * sadness and tender love and pity. She understood its reproach, 
 and hung down her head. 
 
 " It was time you sent for me, dear Amelia," he said. 
 
 " You will never go again, William.-^ " 
 
 "No, never," he answered; and pressed the dear little soul 
 once more to his heart. 
 
 , As they issued out of the Custom-house precincts, Georgy broke 
 out on them, with his telescope up to his eye, and a loud laugh 
 of welcome ; he danced round the couple, and performed many 
 facetious antics as he led them up to the house. Jos wasn't up 
 yet; Becky not visible (though she looked at them through 
 the blinds). Georgy ran off to see about breakfast. Emmy, 
 whose shawl and bonnet v/ere off in the passage in the hands of 
 Miss Payne, now went to undo the clasp of William's cloak, and 
 — we .will, if you please, go with George, and look after break- 
 fast for the Colonel.. The vessel is in port. He has got the prize 
 
Births, Marriages, and Deaths 695 
 
 he has been trying for all his life. The bird has come in at last. 
 There it is with its head on his shoulder^ billing and cooing close 
 up to his hearty with soft outstretched fluttering wings. This is 
 what he has asked for every day and hour for eighteen years. 
 This is what he pined after. Here it is — the summit, the end 
 — the last page. Good-bye, Colonel. — God bless you, honest 
 William! — Farewell, dear Amelia. — Grow green again, tender 
 little parasite, round the rugged old oak to which you cling ! 
 
 Perhaps it was compunction towards the kind and simple 
 creature, who had been the first in life to defend her, perhaps 
 it was a dislike to all such sentimental scenes, — but Rebecca, 
 satisfied with her part in the transaction, never presented herself 
 before Colonel Dobbin and the lady whom he married. " Par- 
 ticular business," she said, took her to Bruges, whither she went; 
 and only Georgy and his uncle were present at the marriage cere- 
 mony. When it was over, and Georgy had rejoined his parents, 
 Mrs. Becky returned (just for a few days) to comfort the solitar)^ 
 bachelor, Joseph Sedley. He preferred a Continental life, he 
 said, and declined to join in housekeeping with his sister and her 
 husband. 
 
 Emmy was very glad in her heart to think that she had written 
 to her husband before she read or knew of that letter of George's. 
 " I knew it all along," William said; " but could I use that 
 weapon against the poor fellow's memory? It was that which 
 made me suffer so when you " 
 
 " Never speak of that day again," Emmy cried out, so con- 
 trite and humble, that William turned off the conveisation, by 
 liis account of Glorvina and dear old Peggy O'Dowd, with 
 whom he was sitting when the letter of recall reached him. " If 
 you hadn't sent for me," he added with a laugh, " who knows 
 what Glorvina' s name might be now? " 
 
 At present it is Glorvina Posky (now Mrs. Major Posky); she 
 took him on the death of his first wife, having resolved never to 
 marry out of the regiment. Lady O'Dowd is also so attached 
 to it that, she says, if anything were to happen to Mick, bedad 
 she'd come back and marry some of 'em. But the Major- 
 General is quite well, and lives in great splendour at O'Dowds- 
 town, with a pack of beagles, and (with the exception of per- 
 haps their neighbour, Hoggarty of Castle Hoggarty) he is the 
 first man of his county. Her Ladyship still dances jigs, and 
 insisted on standing up with the Master of the Horse at the 
 Lord Lieutenant's last ball. Both she and Glorvina declared 
 
696 Vanity Fair 
 
 that Dobbin had used the latter sheamftdly, but Posky falling 
 in, Glorvina was consoled, and a beautiful turban from Paris 
 appeased the wrath of Lady O'Dowd. 
 
 When Colonel Dobbin quitted the service, which he did 
 immediately after his marriage, he rented a pretty little country 
 place in Hampshire, not far from Queen's Crawley, where, after 
 the passing of the Reform Bill, Sir Pitt and his family constantly 
 resided now. All idea of a Peerage was out of the question, the 
 Baronet's two seats in Parliament being lost. He was both out 
 of pocket and out of spirits by that catastrophe, failed in his 
 health, and prophesied the speedy ruin of the Empire. 
 
 Lady Jane and Mrs. Dobbin became great friends — there was 
 a perpetual crossing of pony-chaises between the Hall and the 
 Evergreens, the Colonel's place (rented of his friend Major Ponto, 
 who was abroad with his family). Her Ladyship was god- 
 mother to Mrs. Dobbin's child, which bore her name, and was 
 christened by the Rev. James Crawley, who succeeded his 
 father in the living: and a pretty close friendship subsisted 
 between the two lads, George and Rawdon, who hunted and shot 
 together in the vacations, were both entered of the same college 
 at Cambridge, and quarrelled with each other about Lady Jane's 
 daughter, with whom they were both, of course, in love. A 
 match between, George and that young lady was long a favourite 
 scheme of both the matrons, though I have heard that Miss 
 Crawley herself inclined towards her cousin. 
 
 Mrs. Rav/don Crawley's name was never mentioned by either 
 family. There were reasons why all should be silent regarding 
 her. For wherever Mr. Joseph Sedley went, she travelled like- 
 wise; and that infatuated man seemed to be entirely her slave. 
 The Colonel's lawyers informed him that his brother-in-law had 
 effected a heavy insurance upon his life, whence it was probable 
 that he had been raising money to discharge debts. He pro- 
 cured prolonged leave of absence from the East India House, 
 and indeed his infirmities were daily increasing. 
 
 On hearing the news about the insurance, Amelia, in a good 
 deal of alarm, entreated her husband to go to Brussels, where 
 Jos then was, and inquire into the state of his affairs. The 
 Colonel quitted home with reluctance (for he was deeply im- 
 mersed in his " History of the Punjaub," which still occupies him, 
 and much alarmed about his Httle daughter, whom he idolises^ 
 and who was just recovering from the chicken-pox), and went to 
 Brussels and found Jos living at one of the enormous hotels in 
 that city, Mrs. Crawley, who had her carriage, gave entertain- 
 
Births, Marriages, and Deaths 697 
 
 ments, and lived in a very genteel manner^ occupied another 
 suite of apartments in the same hotel. 
 
 The Colonel, of course, did not desire to see that lady, or even 
 think proper to notify his arrival at Brussels, except privately to 
 Jos by a message through his valet. Jos begged the Colonel 
 to come and see him that night, when Mrs. Crawley would be at 
 a soiree, and when they could meet alone. He found his brother- 
 in-law in a condition of pitiable infirmity; and dreadfully afraid 
 of Rebecca, though eager in his praises of her. She tended him 
 through a series of unheard-of illnesses, with a fidelity most ad- 
 mirable. She had been a daughter to him. "' But — but — oh, 
 for God's sake, do com.e and live near me, and — and — see me 
 sometimes," whim.pered out the unfortunate man. 
 
 The Colonel's brow darkened at this. " We can't, Jos," he 
 said. " Considering the circumstances, Amelia can't visit you." 
 
 " I swear to you — I swear to you on the Bible," gasped out 
 Joseph, wanting to kiss the book, " that she is as innocent as a 
 child, as spotless as your own wife." 
 
 " It may be so," said the Colonel gloomily; " but Emmy can't 
 come to you. Be a man, Jos: break off this disreputable con- 
 nection. Come home to your family. We hear your affau's 
 are involved." 
 
 "Involved!" cried Jos. *' Who has told such calum^nies? 
 All my money is placed out most advantageously. Mrs. 
 Crawley — that is — I mean, — it is laid out to the best interest." 
 
 " You are not in debt then ? Why did you insure your life ? " 
 
 " I thought — a little present to her — in case anything hap- 
 pened; and you know my health is so delicate — common grati- 
 tude, you know — and I intend to leave all my m.oney to you — 
 and I can spare it out of my income, indeed I can," cried out 
 William's weak brother-in-lav/. 
 
 The Colonel besought Jos to fly at once — to go back to India, 
 whither Mrs. Crawley could not follow him; to do anything to 
 break off a connection which might have the most fatal conse- 
 quences to him. 
 
 Jos clasped liis hands, and cried, — " He would go back to India. 
 He would do anything: only he must have time : they mustn't 
 say anything to Mrs. Crawley: — she'd — she'd kill me if she knew 
 it. You don't know what a terrible woman she is," the poor 
 wretch said. 
 
 " Then, why not come away with me? " said Dobbin in reply; 
 but Jos had not the courage. " He would see Dobbin again in 
 the morning; he must on no account say that he had been there. 
 
698 Vanity Fair 
 
 He must go now. Becky might come in." And Dobbin quitted 
 him full of forebodings. 
 
 He never saw Jos more. Three months afterwards Joseph 
 Sedley died at Aix-la-Chapelle. It was found that all his pro- 
 perty had been muddled away in speculations^ and was repre- 
 sented by valueless shares in different bubble companies. All 
 his available assets were the two thousand pounds for which his 
 life was insured^ and which were left equally between his beloved 
 " sister Amelia^ wife of^ etc., and his friend and invaluable 
 attendant during sickness, Rebecca, wife of Lieutenant-Colonel 
 Rawdon Crawley, C.B.," who was appointed administratrix. 
 
 The solicitor of the Insurance Company swore it was the 
 blackest case that ever had come before him; talked of sending 
 a commission to Aix to examine into the death, and the Company 
 refused payment of the policy. But Mrs., or Lady Crawley, as 
 she styled herself, came to town at once (attended with her 
 solicitors, Messrs. Burke, Thurtell, & Hayes, of Thavies Inn), 
 and dared the Company to refuse the payment. They invited 
 examination, they declared that she was the object of an 'in- 
 famous conspiracy, which had been pursuing her all through life, 
 and triumphed finally. The money was paid, and her character 
 estabHshed, but Colonel Dobbin sent back his share of the 
 legacy to the Insurance Office, and rigidly declined to hold any 
 communication with Rebecca. 
 
 She never was Lady Crawley, though she continued so to call 
 herself. His Excellency Colonel Rawdon Crawley died of 
 yellow fever at Coventry Island, most deeply beloved and de- 
 plored, and six weeks before the demise of his brother. Sir Pitt. 
 The estate consequently devolved upon the present Sir Rawdon 
 Crawley, Bart. 
 
 He, too, has declined to see his mother, to whom he makes a 
 liberal allowance; and who, besides, appears to be very wealthy. 
 The Baronet lives entirely at Queen's Crawley, with Lady Jane 
 and her daughter; whilst Rebecca, Lady Crawley, chiefly hangs 
 about Bath and Cheltenham, where a very strong party of ex- 
 cellent people consider her to be a most injured woman. She 
 has her enemies. Who has not ? Her life is her answer to them. 
 She busies herself in works of piety. She goes to church, and 
 never without a footman. Her name is in all the Charity Lists. 
 The Destitute Orange-girl, the Neglected Washerwoman, the 
 Distressed Muffin-man, find in her a fast and generous friend. 
 She is always having stalls at Fancy Fairs for the benefit of 
 these hapless beings. Emmy, her children, and the Colonel, 
 
Births, Marriages, and Deaths 699 
 
 coming to London some time back, found themselves suddenly 
 before her at one of these fairs. She cast down her eyes de- 
 murely and smiled as they started away from her; Emmy 
 skurrying off on the a,rm of George (now grown a dashing 
 young gentleman), and the Colonel seizing up his little Janey, 
 of whom he is fonder than of anything in the world — fonder even 
 than of his " History of the Punjaub." 
 
 " Fonder than he is of me/' Emmy thinks, with a sigh. But 
 he never said a word to Amelia that was not kind and gentle; 
 or thought of a want of hers that he did not try to gratify,; 
 
 Ah ! Vanitas Vaniiatum I which of us is happy in this world ? 
 Which of us has his desire? or, having it, is satisfied? — Come, 
 children, let us shut up the box and the puppets, for our play is 
 played Out, 
 
 THE END 
 
 ^^ADE At The 
 7eMPi-e PRESS ftli/J-ercHwoRTH 
 ' --^ ^'■'^'^^iN Great BRjTAiN 
 
EVERYMAN'S LIBRARY 
 
 By ERNEST RHYS 
 
 "A good book is the precious life-blood of a master-spirit." 
 
 Milton 
 
 ICTOR HUGO said a Library was "an act of faith/* 
 and another writer spoke of one so beautiful^ so perfect, 
 so harmonious in all its parts^ that he who made it was 
 smitten with a passion. In that faith Everyman's Library was 
 planned out originally on a large scale ; and the idea was to make 
 it conform as far as possible to a perfect scheme. However, 
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 years ago, there have been many interruptions, chief among 
 them the Great War of 19 14-18, during which even the City 
 of Books felt a world commotion. But the series is now getting 
 back into its old stride and looking forward to complete its 
 scheme of a Thousand Volumes. 
 
 One of the practical expedients in the original plan was 
 to divide the volumes into separate sections, as Biography, 
 Fiction, History, Belles-lettres, Poetry, Philosophy, Romance, 
 and so forth; with a shelf for Young People. Last, and 
 not least, there was one of Reference Books, in which, beside 
 the dictionaries and encyclopaedias to be expected, there 
 was a special set of literary and historical atlases^ which have 
 been revised from time to time^ so as to chart the New Europe 
 
and the New World at large, which we hope will preserve Kant's 
 "Perpetual Peace" under the auspices of the League of Nations 
 at Geneva. 
 
 That is only one small item, however, in a library list which 
 is running on to the final centuries of its Thousand. The largest 
 slice of this huge provision is, as a matter of course, given to the 
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 both in the same section and just as significantly in other 
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 and Fortunes of Nigel, Lytton's Harold, and Dickens's Tale of 
 Two Cities, have been used as pioneers of history and treated as 
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 to grow more documentary and less literary; and "the historian 
 who is a stylist," as one of our contributors, the late Thomas 
 Seccombe, said, "will soon be regarded as a kind of Phoenix." 
 
 As for history, Everyman's Library has been eclectic enough 
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 Livy in an admirable new translation by Canon Roberts, and 
 Caesar, Tacitus, Thucydides, and Herodotus are not forgotten. 
 
 "You only, Books," said Richard de Bury, "are hberaland 
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 old and new, the wisdom and the wit at the disposal of Everyman 
 in his own Library may well, at times, seem to him a little i 
 embarrassing. In the Essays, for instance, he may turn to 
 Dick Steele in the The Spectator and learn how Cleomira dances, | 
 when the elegance of her motion is unimaginable and "her eyes 
 
— 3 — 
 
 are chastized with the simplicity and innocence of her thoughts." 
 Or he may take A Century of Essays, as a key to the whole 
 roomful of the Enghsh Essayists^ from Bacon to Addison^ 
 Elia to Augustine Birrell. These are the golden gossips of 
 literature, the wTiters who have learnt the delightful art of 
 talking on paper. Or again, the reader who has the right 
 spirit and looks on all literature as a great adventure may 
 dive back into the classics, and in 'Plsito's PhcEdrus read how 
 every soul is divided into three parts (like Caesar's Gaul). The 
 poets next, and we may turn to the finest critic of Victorian 
 times, Matthew Arnold, as their showman, and find in his 
 essay on Maurice de Guerin a clue to the "magical power of 
 poetry," as in Shakespeare, with his 
 
 daffodils 
 That come before the swallow dares, and take 
 The wdnds of March with beauty. 
 
 William Hazlitt's "Table Talk" may help again to 
 show the relationship of one author to another, which is 
 another fonn of the Friendship of Books. His incomparable 
 essay, "On Going a Journey," forms a capital prelude to 
 Coleridge's "Biographia Literaria; " and so throughout the long 
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 in prose or verse that leads to the hidden treasury. In that 
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 In the same way one may turn to the Byron review in Macaulay's 
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 remembering that the poet whom Europe loved more than Eng- 
 land did was as Macaulay said : "the beginning, the middle and 
 the end of all his own poetry." This brings us to the provoking 
 reflection that it is the obvious authors and the books most easy 
 to reprint which have been the signal successes out of the many 
 hundreds in the series, for Everyman is distinctly proverbial in 
 
— 4 — 
 
 his tastes. He likes best of all an old author who has worn well 
 or a comparatively new author who has gained something like 
 newspaper notoriety. In attempting to lead him on from the 
 good books that are known to those that are less known, the 
 publishers may have at times been even too adventurous. But 
 the elect reader is or ought to be a party to this conspiracy of 
 books and bookmen. He can make it possible, by his help and 
 his co-operative zest, to add still some famous old authors like 
 Burton of the Anaio?ny of Melancholy, or longer novels like 
 Richardson's Clarissa Harlowe, a cut-and-come-again book for 
 a winter fireside, or more modern foreign writers like Heine 
 whom Havelock Ellis has promised to sponsor. "Infinite 
 riches in a little room," as the saying is, will be the reward of 
 every citizen who helps year by year to build the City of Books. 
 It was with that belief in its possibilities that the old Chief 
 (J. M. Dent) threw himself into the enterprise. With the zeal of 
 a true book-lover, he thought that books might be alive and 
 productive as dragons' teeth, which, being "sown up and down 
 the land, might chance to spring up armed men." That is a great 
 idea, and it means a fighting campaign in which every recruit, 
 every new reader who buys a volume, counts. 
 
EVERYMAN'S 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 EDITED BY ERNEST RHYS 
 
 A CLASSIFIED LIST 
 OF THE FIRST 939 VOLUMES 
 
 In Cloth Binding 
 
 In Special Library Binding 
 
 Also Selected Volumes in Leather 
 
EVERYMAN'S LIBRARY 
 
 CLASSIFIED LIST of 939 VOLS, in 13 SECTIONS 
 
 In each section of this list the volumes are arranged, as 
 a general rule, alphabetically under the authors' names. 
 Where authors appear in more than one section, a reference 
 is given, viz. : {See also Fiction). The number at the end 
 of each item is the number of the volume in the series. 
 
 Volumes temporarily out of print are marked % 
 Volumes obtainable in Leather are marked L 
 
 BIOGRAPHY 
 
 Audubon the Naturalist, Life and Adventures of. By K. Buchanan. 601 
 Baxter (Richard), Autobiography of. Edited by Rev. J. M. Lioyd 
 
 Thomas, 868 
 Beaconsfield (Lord), Life of. By J. A. Froude. 666 
 Berlioz (Hector), Life of. Translated by Katherine F. Boult. 602 
 Blackwell (Dr. Elizabeth) : Pioneer Work for Women. With an Introduo- 
 tion by Mrs. Fawcett. 667 
 L Boswell's Life of Johnson. 2 vols. 1-2 
 {See also Travel) 
 Browning (Robert), Life of. By E. Dowden. 701 
 
 Buxton (Sir Thomas Fowell). Memoirs of. Edited by Charles Buxton. 
 Introduction by Lord Buxton. 773 
 L Byron's Letters. Introduction by Andr6 Maurois. 931 
 Carey (William), Life of: ShoemaJker and Missionary. 395 
 Carlyle's Letters and Speeches of Cromwell. 3 vols. 266-3 
 Reminiscences. 875 
 (See also Essays and History) 
 t. Cellini's (Benvenuto) Autobiography. 51 
 Gibber's (Colley) An Apology for his Life. 668 
 Constable (John), Memoirs of. By C. R. Leslie, R.A. 563 
 Cowper (William), Selected Letters of. Intro, by W. Hadlev, M.A. 774 
 
 (See also Poetry and Drama) 
 De Quincey's Reminiscences of the Lake Poets. Intro, by E. Rhys. 163 
 
 (See also Essays) 
 De Retz (Cardinal) : Memoirs. By Himself. 2 vols. 735-6 
 Evelyn's Diary. 2 vols. Introduction by G. W. E. RusseU. 220-1 
 Forster's Life of Dickens. Intro, by G. K. Chesterton. 2 vols. 781-2 
 
 (See also Fiction) 
 Fox (George), Journal of. Text revised by Norman Penney, F.S.A. 
 
 Introduction by Rufus M. Jones, LL.D. 754 
 Franklin's (Benjamin) Autobiography. 316 
 Fronde's Life of Benjamin Disraeli, Earl of Beaconsfleld. 666 
 t Gaskell's (Mrs.) Life of Charlotte Bronte. Intro, by May Sinclair. 318 
 Gibbon (Edward), Autobiography of. Intro, by Oliphant Smeaton. 511 
 
 (See also History) 
 Gladstone, Life of. By G. W. E. RusseU ('Onlooker'). 661 
 Hastings (Warren), Life of. By Capt. L. J. Trotter. 452 
 Helps' (Sir Arthur) Life of Columbus. 332 
 Hodson, of Hodson's Horse. By Capt. L. J. Trotter. 401 
 Holmes* Life of Mozart. Introduction by Ernest Newman. 564 
 Houghton's Life and Letters of Keats. Introduction by Robert Lynd. 801 
 Hutchinson (Col.), Memoirs of. Intro. Monograph by F. P. G. Guizot. 317 
 Irving's Life of Mahomet. Introduction by Professor E. V. Arnold. 513 
 Johnson's Lives of the Poets. Intro, by Mrs. Archer-Htud, M.A. 770-1 
 Lamb (Charles), Letters of. 2 vols. 342-3 _ 
 
 (See also Essays and For Youno People) 
 Lewes' Life of Goethe. Introduction by Havelock Ellis. 259 
 Lincoln (Abraham), Life of. By Henry Bryan Binna. 783 
 
 (See also Oratory) 
 Lockhart's Life of Robert Burns. Introduction by E. Rhys. 156 
 L „ Life of Napoleon. 3 
 
 Life of Sir Walter Scott (abridged). 55 
 Mazzini, Life of . By Bolton King, M.A. 562 [Newcastle. 722 
 
 i^ewcastle (First Duke of). Life of, and other writmga by the Duchess oi 
 
 2 
 
BIOGRAPHY— continue J 
 
 Outram (Sir J.), The Bayard of India. By Capt. L. J. Trotter. 396 
 
 Pepys' Diary. Lord Braybrooke's 1854 ed. 2 vols. 53-4 
 
 Plutarch's Lives of Noble Greeks and Romans. Dryden's Translation. 
 Revised, with Introduction, by Arthin: Hugh Clough. 3 vols. 407-8 
 
 Rousseau, Confessions of. 2 vols. 859-60 
 
 Scott's Lives of the Novelists. Introdaction by George Saintsbury. 331 
 {See also Fiction and Poetry) 
 
 Seebohm (Frederic): The Oxford Reformers. With a Preface by Hugh 
 E. Seebohm. 665 
 
 Smeaton's A Life of Shakespeare, with Criticisms of the Plays. 514 
 
 Southey's Life of Nelson. 52 
 
 Strickland's Life of Queen Elizabeth. 100 
 
 Swift's Journal to Stella. Newly deciphered and edited by J. K. Moor- 
 head. Introduction by Sir Walter Scott. 757 
 (/See also Essays and Fob Young People) 
 
 Vasari's Lives of the Painters. Trans, by A. B. Hinds. 4 vols. 784-7 
 
 Voltaire's Life of Charles XII. Introduction by Rt. Hon. J. Burns. 270 
 
 Walpole (Horace), Selected Letters of. Intro, by W. Hadley, M.A. 775 
 
 Wellington, Life of. By G. R. Gleig. 341 
 
 Wesley's Journal. 4 vols. Intro, by Rev. F. W. Macdonald. 105-8 
 
 Woolman's (John) Journal and Other Papers. Introduction by Vida D. 
 Scudder. 402 
 
 CLASSICAL 
 
 iEschylus' Lyrical Dramas. Translated by Professor J. S. Blackle. 62 
 Aristophanes' The Frogs, The Clouds, The Thesmophorians. 516 
 
 „ The Acharnians, The Knights, and The Birds. Frere's 
 
 Translation. Introduction by John P. Maine. 344 
 Aristotle's Politics. Introduction by A. D. Lindsay. 605 
 
 „ Poetics, etc., and Demetrius on Style, etc. Edited by 
 
 {See also I'lirLOSOPHY) [Rev. T. A. Moxon. 901 
 
 Caesar's The Gallic War and Other Commentaries. Translated by W. A. 
 
 McDevitte. 702 
 Cicero's Essays and Select Letters. Intro. Note by de Quincy. 345 
 L Epictetus, Moral Discourses, etc. Elizabeth Carter's Translation. Edited 
 by W.H. D. Rouse, M.A. 404 
 Euripides' Plays in 2 vols. Introduction by V. R. Reynolds. Translated 
 by M. Wodhull and R. Potter, with Shelley's ' Cyclops ' and Dean 
 Milman's 'Bacchanals'. 63,271 
 Herodotus. Rawlinson's Translation. Edited, with Introduction, by 
 E. H. Blakeney, M.A., omitting Translator's Original Essays, and 
 Appendices. 2 vols. 405-8 
 L Homer's Iliad. Lord Derby's Translation. 453 
 
 L ,. Odyssey. WiHiam Cowper's Translation. Introduction by Misa 
 F. M. StaweU. 454 
 Horace. Complete Poetical Works. 515 
 Hutchinson's (W. M. L.) The Muses' Pageant. Vols. I, II, and III. 581. 
 
 606 and 671 
 Livy's History of Rome. Vols. I-VI. Translated by Rev. Canon Roberts. 
 
 603, 669, 670, 749, 755, and 756 
 Lucretius: On the Nature of Things. Translated by W. E. Leonard. 750 
 L Marcus Aui-elius' Meditations. Introduction by W. H. D. Rouse. 9 
 L Plato's Dialogues. 2 vols. Introduction by A. D. Lindsay. 456-7 
 L „ Republic. Translated, with an Introduction, by A. D. Lindsav. G4 
 Plutarch's Moralia. 20 Essays translated by Philemon Holland. 565 
 Sophocles' Dramas. Translated by Su* G. Young, Bart. 114 
 Thucydides' Peloponnesian War. Crawley's Translation. 455 
 L Virgil's jEneid. Translated by E- Fairfax-Taylor, 161 
 
 „ Eclosrues and Georgics. Translated by T. F. Royds, M.A. 222 
 Xenophon's Cyropajdia. Translation revised by Miss F. M. Stawell. 672 
 
 ESSAYS AND BELLES-LETTRES 
 
 L Anthology of Prose. Compiled and Edited by Miss S. L. Edwards. 675 
 Arnold's (Matthew) Essays. Introduction by G. K. Chesterton. 115 
 „ « Study of Celtic Literature, and other CriticalEssays, 
 
 with Supplement by Lord Strangford, etc. 458 
 {See also Poetky) 
 L Bacon's Essays. Introduction bv Oliphant Smeaton. 10 
 {See also Philosophy) 
 Bagehot's Literary Studies. 2 vols. Intro, by George Sampson. 520-1 
 X Brooke's (Stopford, M.A.) Theology in the English Poets. 493 
 L Brown's Rab and bis Friends, etc. 116 
 
ESSAYS AND BELLES-LETTRES— continuecf 
 
 Burke's Reflections on the French. Revolution and contingent Essays. 
 
 Introduction by A. J. Grieve, Ifl.A. 460 (>S'ee also Oratory) 
 Canton's (William) The Invisible Playmate, W. V., Her Book, and In 
 (See also For Young People) [Memory of W. V. 566 
 
 Carlyle's Essays. 2 vols. With Notes by J. Russell Lowell. 703-4 
 „ Past and Present. Introduction by R. W. Emerson. 608 
 L „ Sartor Resartus and Heroes and Hero Worship. 278 
 
 (See also Biography and History) 
 Castiprlione's The Courtier. Translated by Sir Thomas Hoby. Intro- 
 duction by W. H. D. Rouse. 807 
 Centiu-v of Essavs. A. An Anthologv of Engrlish Essavists. 653 
 Chesterfield's (Lord) Letters to his Son. 823 
 L Chestei-ton's (G. K.) Stories, Essays, and Poems. 913 
 
 Coleridge's Biographia Literaria. Introduction by Arthur Synaons. 11 
 „ Essays and Lectures on Shakespeare, etc. 162 
 
 (See also Poetry) 
 t Craik's Manual of English Literature. 346 
 
 Curtis's Prue and I, and Lotus Eating. Introduction by H. W. Mabie. 418 
 De Quincey'a (Thomas) Opium Eater Intro, by Sir G. Douglas. 223 
 
 „ The English Mail Coach and Other Writings. 
 Introduction by S. HiU Burton. 609 
 (See also Biography) 
 Dryden's Dramatic Essays. With an Introduction by W. H. Hudson. 568 
 Elyot's Gouernour. Intro, and Glossary by Prof. Foster Watson. 227 
 L Emerson'fl Essays. First and Second Series. 12 
 L „ Nature, Conduct of Life, Essays from the 'Dial'. 322 
 
 „ Representative Men. Introduction by Ernest Rhys. 279 
 ,, Society and Solitude and Other Essays. 567 
 (See also Poetry) 
 Florio's Montaigne. Introduction by A. R. WaUer, M.A. 3 rols. 440-2 
 Fronde's Short Studies. Vols. I and II. 13, 705 
 
 (See also History and Biography) 
 GUfillan's Literary Portraits. Intro, by Sir W. Robertson Nicoll. 348 
 Goethe's Conversations with Eckermann. Intro, by Havelock EUia 
 
 851. (See also Fiction and Poetry) 
 Goldsmith's Citizen of the World and The Bee. Intro, by R. Church. &02 
 
 (See also Fiction and Poetry) 
 Hamilton's The Federalist. 519 
 
 Hazlitt's Lectures on the English Comic Writers. 411 
 „ Shakespeare's Characters. 65 
 „ Spirit of the Age and Lectm-es on English Poets. 453 
 
 Table Talk, 321 
 „ Plain Speaker. Introduction by P. P. Howe. 814 
 L Holmes' Autocrat of the Breakfast Table. 66 
 „ Poet at the Breakfast Table. 68 
 „ Professor at the Breakfast Table. 67 
 L Hudson's (W. H.) A Shepherd's Life. Introduction by Ernest Rhys. 926 
 
 Hunt's (Leigh) Selected Essays. Introduction by J. B. Priestly. 829 
 L Huxlev's (Aldous) StorieF. Kssays. and Poems. 935 
 L Irving's Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon. 117 
 (See also Biography and History) 
 Lander's Imaginary Conversations and Poems: A selection. Edited 
 with Introduction by Havelock EUis. 890 
 L Lamb's Essays of Elia. Introduction by Augustine Birrell. 14 
 (See also Biography and For Young People) 
 Lowell's (James Russell) Among My Books. 607 
 
 Macaulay's Essays. 2 vols. Introduction by A. J. Grieve, M.A. 225-6 
 L „ Miscellaneous Essays and The Lays of Ancient Rome. 439 
 
 (See also History aiid Oratory) 
 MachiaveUi's Prince. Special Trans, and Intro, by W. K. Marriott. 2S0 
 
 (See also History) 
 Martinengo-Cesaresco (Countess) : Essays in the Study of Folk-Songs 673 
 Mazzini's Duties of Man, etc. Introduction by Thomas Jones, M.A. 224 
 Milton's Areopagitica, etc. Introduction by Professor O. E. Vaughan. 795 
 (See also Poetry) 
 L Mitford'sOurVillaare. Edited, with Introduction, by Sir John Squire. 927 
 Montagu's (Lady) Letters. Introduction by R. Brimley Johnson. 69 
 Newman's On the Scope and Nature of University Education, and a 
 paper on Christianity and Scientific Investigation. Introduction by 
 (;Sec aiso Philosophy) [Wilfred Ward. 723 
 
 Oebornes (Dorothy) Letters to Sir WilUam Temple. Edited and con- 
 notated by Judge Parry. 07 4 
 Penii b The Peace of Eiirope. Sume Fruits of tooiitude, etc. 724 
 
ESSAYS AND BELLES-LETTRES— continued 
 
 Prelude to Poetry, The. Edited by Ernest Rhys. 789 
 Reynold's Discourses. Introduction by L. March Phillip p3« H* 
 li Rhys' New Book of Sense and Nonsense. 813 
 
 Rousseau's Emile. Translated by Barbara Fosley. 513 
 [See also Philosophy an].> Theology) 
 L Rtiskin's Crown of Wild Olive and Cestus of Ai^laia. 323 
 „ Elements of Drawing and Perspective. 217 
 
 Ethics of the Dust. Introduction by Grace Rhys. 282 
 „ Modem Painters. 5 vols. Introduction by Lionel Oust. 20?-12 
 „ Pre-Raphaelitism. Lectures on Architecture and Painting, 
 Academy Notes, 1855-9, and Notes on the Turner Gallery. 
 Introduction by Laurence Binyon. 218 
 L „ Sesame and Lilies, The Two Paths, and The Kins? of the Golden 
 
 River. Introduction by Sir Oliver Lodge. 219 
 „ Seven Lamps of Architecture. Intro, by Selwyn Image. 207 
 „ Stones of Venice. 3 vols. Intro, by L. March Pliiliipps. 213-15 
 „ Time and Tide with other Essavs. 450 
 „ Unto This Last, The Political Economy of Art. 216 
 {See also For Youno People) 
 Spectator, The. 4 vols. Introduction by G. Gregory Smith. 164-7 
 Spencer's (Herbert) Essays on Education. Intro, by C. W. Eliot. 604 
 Sterne's Sentimental Journey and Journal and Letters to Eliza. Intro. 
 (Se^ also Fiction) [by George Saintsbury. 796 
 
 li Stevenson's In the South Seas and Island Nights' Entertainments. 769 
 L „ Virginibus Puerisque and Familiar Studies of Men and 
 
 (-See also Fiction, Poetrt and Travel) [Books. 765 
 
 Swift's Tale of a Tub, The Battle of the Books, etc. 347 
 
 (See also Biography and For Young People) 
 Table Talk. Edited by J. C. Thornton. 906 
 
 Taylor's (Isaac) Word^ and Places, or Etymological lUnstrations of 
 History, Ethnology, and Geography. Intro, by Edward Thomas. 517 
 Thackeray's (^V. M.) The English Humourists and The Four Georges. 
 Introduction by Walter Jerrold. 610 
 (See also Fiction) 
 L Thoreau's Walden. Introduction by Walter Raymond. 281 
 
 Trench's On the Study of Words and English Past and Present. Intro- 
 duction by George Sampson. 788 
 Tytler's Essay on the Principles of Translation. 168 
 Walton's Compleat Angler. Introduction by Andrew Lang. 70 
 
 FICTION 
 
 Aimard's The Indian Scout. 428 
 L Ainsworth's (Harrison) Old St. Paul's. Intro, by W. E. A. Axon. 522 
 
 „ „ The Admirable Crichton. Intro, by E, Rhys. 804 
 
 t, „ „ The Tower of London. 400 
 
 L „ „ Windsor Castle. 709 
 
 „ „ Rookwood. Intro, by Frank Swinnerton. 870 
 
 American Short Stories of the Nineteenth Century. Edited by John 
 Cournos. 840 
 L Austen's (Jane) Emma. Introduction by R. B. Johnson. 24 
 
 „ „ Mansfield Park. Introduction by R. B. Johnson. 23 
 
 L ,, „ Northanger Abbey and Persuasion. Introduction by 
 
 R. B. Johnson. 25 
 L „ „ Pride and Prejudice. Introduction by R. B. Johnson. 22 
 
 I, „ „ Sense and SensibiUty. Intro, by R. B. Johnson. 21 
 
 Balzac's (Honor6 de) Atheist's Mass. Preface by George Saintsbury. 229 
 Catherine de M6dici. Introduction by George 
 
 Saintsbury. 419 
 Christ ia Flanders. Introduction by George 
 
 Saintsbury. 284 
 Cousin Pons. Intro, by George Saintsbtiry. 463 
 Eugenie Grandet. Intro, by George Saintsbury. loQ 
 Lost Illusions. Intro, by George Saintsbury'. 65o 
 OldGoriot. Introduction by George Saintsbury. 170 
 The Cat and Racket, and Other Stories. 349 
 The Chouans. Intro, by George Saintsbury. 285 
 The Country Doctor. Intro. George Saintsbury. 530 
 The Country Parson. 686 
 The Quest of tho Absolute. Introduction by George 
 
 Saintsbury, 286 
 The Rise and Fall of C^sar Birotteau. 596 
 The Wild Ass's Skin. Intro, by George Saintsbury. 26 
 Ursule Mii'ouet. Inti'o. by Gsurgo Saintsbury. 7oJi 
 
FICTION — continued 
 
 Barbusse's Under Fire. Translated by Fitzwater Wray. 793 
 t Beaumont's (Mary) Joan SeaLon. Intro, by R. F. Horton, D.D. 527 
 L Bennett's (Arnold) The Old Wives' Tale. 919 
 I. Blackmore's (R. D.) Loma Doone. 3G4 
 % „ „ Springhaven. 350 
 
 L Borrow's Lavengro. Introduction by Thomas Seccombe. 119 
 L „ Romany Rye. 120 (See also Travel) 
 L Bronte's (Anne) The Tenant of Wildiell Hall and Ag^nes Grey. 685 
 L „ (Charlotte) Jane Eyre. Introduction by May Sinclair. 237 
 
 L, „ „ Shirley. Introduction by May Sinclair. 283 
 
 „ „ The Professor. Introduction by May Sinclair. 417 
 
 L „ „ Villette. Introduction by May Sinclair. 351 
 
 L „ (Emily) Wuthering Heights. 243 
 
 L Burney's (Fanny) Evelina. Introduction by R. B. Johnson. 352 
 
 Butler's (Samuel) Erewhon and Ei'ewhon Revisited. Introduction by 
 Desmond MacCarthy. 881 
 „ „ The Way of All Flesh. Introduction by A. J. Hopp6. 8S5 
 
 CoUlns' (Wilkie) The Woman in White. 464 
 L Conrad's Lord Jim. Introduction by R. B. Cunninghamo Grahsun. 925 
 L Converse's (Florence) Long Will. 328 
 
 Dana's (Richard H.) Two Years before the Mast. 588 
 Daudet's Tartarin of Tarascon and Tartarin on the Alps. 423 
 Defoe's Fortunes and Misfortunes of Moll Flanders. Intro, by G.A . Aitken. 
 „ Captain Singleton. Introduction by Edward Garnett. 74 [837 
 „ Journal of the Plague Year. Introduction by G. A. Aitken. 289 
 „ Memoirs of a Cavalier. Introduction by G. A. Aitken. 283 
 
 (See also For Young People) [Chesterton. 
 
 CHAKLE3 Dickens' Works. Each volume with an Introduction by G. K. 
 L American Notes. 290 L Little Dorrit. 293 
 
 L Barnaby Rudge. 76 L Martin Chuzzlewit. 241 
 
 L Bleak House. 236 L Nicholas Nickleby. 233 
 
 L Child's History of England. 291 L Old Curiosity Shop. 173 
 L Christmas Books. 239 L Oliver IVist. 233 
 
 L Christmas Stories. 414 L Our Mutual Friend. 294 
 
 L David Copperfleld. 242 L Pickwick Papers. 235 
 
 L Dombey and Son. 240 L Reprinted Pieces. 744 
 
 Edwin Drood. 725 Sketches by Boz. 237 
 
 L Great Expectations. 234 l Tale of Two Cities. 102 
 
 Hard Times. 292 L L'ncommercial Traveller. 535 
 
 Disraeli's Contngsby. lutroductJon by Langdon Davies. 535 
 Dostoevsky's (Fyodor) Crime and Punishment. Introduction by 
 Laurence Irving. 501 
 J. „ Letters from the Underworld and Other Tales. 
 
 Translated by C. J. Hogarth. 654 
 „ ,j. Poor Folk and The Gambler. Translated by O. J. 
 
 Hogarth. 711 
 „ „ The Possessed. Introduction by J. Middleton 
 
 Murry. 2 vols. 861-2 [533 
 
 „ Prison Life in Siberia. Intro, by Madame Stepniak. 
 „ The Brothers Karamazov. Translated by Con- 
 stance Garnett. 2 vols. 802-3 
 The Idiot. 682 
 Du I\iaurier's (George) Trilby. Introduction by Sir Gerald du Maurier 
 
 With the original Illustrations. 863 
 Dumas' Black Tulip. Introduction by Ernest Rhys. 174 
 „ Chicot the Jester. 421 
 
 „ Le Chevalier de Maison Rouge. Intro, by Julius Bramont. 614 
 
 „ Marguerite de Valois ('La Heine Margot'). 326 
 
 L „ The Count of Monte Cristo. 2 vols. 393-4 
 
 The Forty-Five. 420 
 L „ The Three Musketeers. 81 
 
 „ The Vicomte de Bragelonne. 3 vols. 593-5 
 
 L „ Twenty Years After. Introduction by Ernest Rhys. 175 
 
 Edgar's Cressy and Poictiers. Introduction by Ernest Rhys. 17 
 „ Runnymede and Lincoln Fair. Intro, by L. K. Hughes. 3iJ 
 
 {See also For Youno People) 
 Edgeworth's Castle Rackrent and The Absentee. 41J 
 L Eliot's (George) Adam Bede. 27 
 Felix Holt. 353 
 „ Middlemarch. 2 vols. 854-5 
 L „ „ MUl on the Floss. Intro. Sir W. Robertson Niooll. 335 
 
 i^ „ „ Romola. Introduction by Rudolf Dircks. 231 
 
 t ., „ Scenes oi Clerical Life. 468 
 
 6 
 
mCTlON— continued 
 
 Eliot's (George) Silas Marner. Introduction by Annie Mathesoa. 121 
 L English Short Stories. An Anthology. 743 
 
 Erckmann-Chatrian's The Conscript and Waterloo. 354 
 
 „ „ The Story of a Peasant. Translated hy O. J. 
 
 Hogarth. 2 vols. 706-7 
 Fenimore Cooper's The Deerslayer. 77 
 
 „ „ The Last of the Mohicans. 79 
 
 „ „ The Pathfinder. 78 
 
 „ „ The Pioneers. 171 
 
 „ „ The Prairie. 172 
 
 Ferrier's (Susan) Marriage. Introduction by H. L. Morrow. 815 
 Fielding's Amelia. Intro, by George Saintsbury. 2 vols. 852-3 
 
 „ Jonathan Wild, and The Journal of a Voyage to Lisbon. 
 
 Introduction by George Saintsbury. 877 
 „ Joseph Andrews. Introduction by George Saintsbury. 467 
 L „ Tom Jones. Intro, by George Saintsbury. 2 vols. 355-6 
 
 Flaubert's Madame Bovary. Translated by Eleanor Marx-Aveling. 
 Introduction by George Saintsbury. 808 
 „ Salammbo. Translated by J. S. Chartres. Introduction by 
 
 Professor F. C. Green. 8G9 
 French Short Stories of the 19th and 20th Centuries. Selected, with 
 an Introduction by Professor F. C Green. 896 
 L Galsworthy's (John) The Country House. 917 
 
 Gait's Annals of a Parish. Introduction by Baillie Macdonald. 427 
 Gaskell's (Mrs.) Cousin Phillis, etc. Intro, by Thos. Seccombe. 615 
 L „ Cranford. 83 
 
 „ Mary Barton. Introduction by Thomas Seccombe. 59 S 
 
 North and South. 680 
 „ Sylvia's Lovers. Intro, by Mrs. Ellis Chadwick. 524 
 
 Gleig's (G. R.) The Subaltern. 708 
 Goethe's Wilhelm Meister. Carlyle's Translation. 2 vols. 599-600 
 
 (See also Essays and Poetry) 
 Gogol's (Nicol) Dead Souls. Translated by C. J. Hogarth. 726 
 „ „ Taras Bulba and Other Tales. 740 
 L Goldsmith's Vicar of Wakefield. Introduction by J. M. D. 295 
 (See also Essays and Poetry) 
 Goncharov's Oblomov. Translated by Natalie Duddington. 873 
 Gorki's Through Russia. Translated by C. J. Hogarth. 741 
 i Gotthelf's Ulric the Farm Servant. Ed. with Notes by John Ruskin. 22S 
 Harte's (Bret) Luck of Roaring Camp and other Tales. 681 
 Hawthorne's The House of the Seven Gables. Intro, by Ernest Rhys. 176 
 L „ The Scarlet Letter. 122 
 
 „ The BUthedale Romance. 592 
 
 „ The Marble Faun. Intro, by Sir Leslie Stephen. 424 
 
 Twice Told Tales. 531 
 (See also For young People) 
 L Hugo's (Victor) Les Mis6rables. Intro, by S. R. John. 2 vols. 363-4 
 L „ „ Notre Dame. Introduction by A. C. Swinburne. 422 
 
 L „ „ Toilers of the Sea. Introduction by Ernest Rhys. 509 
 
 Italian Short Stories. Edited by D. PettoeUo. 876 
 James's (G. P. R.) Richelieu. Introduction by Rudolf Dircks. 357 
 L James's (Henry) The Turn of the Screw and The Aspern Papers. 912 
 
 Kingsley's (Charles) Alton Locke. 462 
 L „ „ Hereward the Wake. Intro, by Ernest Rhys. 296 
 
 L „ „ Hypatia. 230 
 
 L „ „ Westward Ho; Introdnctiou by A. G. Grieve. 20 
 
 ^ „ Yeast. 611 
 
 (See also Poetry and For Young PEOPXiS) 
 „ (Henry) Geoffrey Hamlyn. 416 
 
 „ „ Ravenshoe. 28 
 
 L Lawrence's (D. H.) The White Peacock. 914 
 
 Lever's Harry Lorrequer. Introduction by Lewis Melville. 177 
 L Loti's (Pierre) Iceland fisherman. Translated by W. P. Baines. 920 
 L Lover's Handy Andy. Introduction by Ernest Rhys. 178 
 L Lytton's Harold. Introduction by Ernest Rhys. 15 
 L „ Last Days of Pompeii. 80 
 
 „ Last of the Barons. Introduction by R. G. Watkin. IS 
 „ Rienzi. Introduction by E. H. Blakeney, M.A. o32 
 (See also Travel) 
 MacDonald's (George) Sir Gibbie. 67S 
 
 (See also Romance) [(Mrs. Hinkson). 324 
 
 Manning's Marv Pov/ell and Deborah's Diary. Intro, by J^^atherine Tynan 
 „ Sir Thomas More. Introduction by Ernest Rhys. 19 
 
 7 
 
FICTION— continued 
 
 Marryat's Jacob FaithfiU. 618 
 L „ Mr. Midshipman Easy. Introduction by R. B. Johnson. 82 
 
 „ Percival Keene. Introduction by R. Brimley Johnson. 358 
 
 „ Peter Simple. Introduction by R. Brimley Johnson. 232 
 
 „ The King's Own. 580 
 
 (See also Fob Young People) 
 L Maugham's (Somerset) Cakes and Ale. 932 
 
 Maupassant's Short Stories. Translated by Marjorie Laurie. Intro- 
 duction by Gerald Gould. 907 
 Melville's (Herman) Moby Dick. Introduction by Ernest Rhys. 179 
 „ „ Omoo. Introduction by Ernest Rhys. 297 
 
 ,, ,, Typee. Introduction by Ernest Rhys. 180 
 
 L Meredith's (George) The Ordeal of Richard Feverel. 916 
 
 M6rim6e's Carmen, with Pr6TOSt'8 Manon Lescaut. Introduction by 
 
 Philip Henderson. 834 
 Mickiewicz's (Adam; Pan Tadeusz. 842 
 L Moore's (George) Esther Waters. 933 
 J Morier's Hajji Baba. 679 
 
 Mulock's John Halifax, Gentleman. Introduction by J. Shaylor. 123 
 Neale's (J.M.) The Fall of Constantinople. 655 
 J Oliphant's (Mrs.) Salem Chapel. Intro, by Sir W Robertson NicoU. 244 
 Paltock's (Robert) Peter Wilkins; or. The Flying Indiana. Introduction 
 
 by A. H. BuUen. 676 
 Pater's Marius the Epicurean. Introduction by Osbert Burdett. 903 
 Peacock's Headlong HaU and Nightmare Abbey. 327 
 L Poe's Tales of Mystery and Imagination. Intro, by Padraic Colum. 336 
 (See also Poetry) [Philip Henderson. 83i 
 
 Pr6vogt's Manon Lescaut, with M6rlm6e'a Carmen. Introduction by 
 Prie^• lev's Ani^el Pavrment. 938 
 PushkiiD's (Alexander) The Captain's Daughter and Other Tales. Trans. 
 
 by Natalie Duddington. 898 
 Quiller-Couch's (Sir Arthur) Hetty Wesley. 864 [2 rols. 865-S 
 
 Radcliffe's (Ann) Mysteries of Udolpho, Intro, by R. Austin Freeman. 
 L Reade's (C.) The Cloister and the Hearth. Intro, by A. C. Swinburne. 29 
 Reade's (C.) Peg Woflangton and Christie Johnstone. 299 
 Richardson's (Samuel) Pamela. Intro, by G. Saintsbury. 2 toIs. 683-4 
 „ Clarissa. Intro, by Prof. W L. Phelps. 4 vols. 
 882-5 
 Russian Authors, Short Stories from. Trans, by R. S. Townsend. 768 
 Sand's (George) The Devil's Pool and FranQois the Waif. 634 
 Scheflel's Ekkehard: a Tale of the Tenth Century. 629 
 Scott's (Michael) Tom Cringle's Log. 710 
 Sir Walter Scott's Works: 
 L Abbot, The. 124 L Ivanhoe. Intro, by Ernest Rhys. 16 
 
 Anne of Geierstein. 125 l Kenilworth. 135 
 
 L Antiquary, The. 126 L Monastery, The. 136 
 
 Black Dwarf and Legend of L Old Mortality. 137 
 
 Montrose. 128 Peveril of the Peak. 138 
 
 Bride of Lammermoor. 129 Pirate, The. 139 
 
 Castle Dangerous and The Sur- L Quentin Durward. 140 
 
 geon's Daughter. 130 L Redgauntlet. 141 
 
 Count Robert of Paris. 131 L Rob Roy. 142 
 
 L Fair Maid of Perth. 132 St. Ronan's Well. 143 
 
 Forttmes of Nigel. 71 L Talisman, The. 144 
 
 L Guy Mannering. 133 L Waverley. 75 
 
 L Heart of Midlothian, The. 134 L Woodstock. Intro, by Edward 
 Highland Widow and Betrothed. 127 Garnett. 72 
 
 (See also Biography and Postry] 
 Shcbedrtn's The Golovlyov Family. Translated by Natalie Duddingrton. 
 
 Introduction by Edward Garnett. 908 
 Shelley's (Mary Wollstonecraft) 1^'rankenstein. 616 
 Sheppard's Charles Auchester. Intro, by Jessie M. Middleton. 503 
 Sienkiewicz (Henryk). Tales from. Edited by Monica M. Gardner. 871 
 Shorter Novels, Vol. I. Elizabethan and Jacobean. Edited by Philip 
 Henderson, 824 
 „ Vol. II. Jacobean and Restoration. Edited by Philip 
 Henderson. 841 
 „ „ Vol. Ill Eighteenth Century (Beckford's Vathek, 
 
 Walpole's Castle of Otranto, and Dr. Johnson's 
 Smollett's Peregrine Pickle. 2 vols. 838-9 [Rasselas). 85(» 
 
 „ Roderick Random. Introduction by H. W. Hodges. 790 
 
 I- Sterne's Tristram Shandy. Introduction by George Saintsbury. 617 
 i^ce also EsaAYS) 
 
 8 
 
FICTION — continued 
 
 L Stevenson's Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. The Merry Men. and Other Tales. 
 L „ The Master Of Ballantrae and The Black Arrow. 764 [767 
 
 L „ Treasure Island and Kidnapped. 763 
 
 „ St. Ives. Introduction by Ernest Rhys. 904 
 
 (See also Essays, Poktrt, and Travel) 
 Surtees' Jorrocks* Jaunts and Jollities. 817 
 L Tales of Detection. Edited, vsith Introduction, by Dorothy L. Savers. 928 
 Thackeray's Rose and the Ring: and other stories. Intro, by Walter Jerrold. 
 L „ Esmond. Introduction by Walter Jerrold. 73 [359 
 
 „ Newcomes. Introduction by Walter Jerrold. 2 vols. 465-6 
 
 „ Pendennis. Intro, by Walter Jerrold. 2 vols. 425-6 
 
 „ Roundabout Papers. 687 
 
 L „ Vanity Fair. Introduction by Hon. Whitelaw Reid. 298 
 
 „ Virginians. Introduction by Walter Jerrold. 2 vols. 507-8 
 
 {See also Essays) 
 L Tolstoy 's A nnaKarenina. Trans, by Rochelle S. Townsend. 2 vols. 612-13 
 „ Childhood, Boyhood, and Youth. Trans, by O. J. Hogarth. 591 
 
 „ Master and Man, and other Parables and Tales. 469 
 „ War and Peace. 3 vols. 525-7 
 
 Trollope's (Anthony) Barchester Towei-s. 30 
 „ Dr. Thome. 360 
 
 „ „ Framley Parsonage. Intro, by Ernest Rhys. 181 
 
 i, „ The Golden Lion of Granp6re. Introduction by 
 
 Hugh Walpole. 761 
 „ „ The Last Chronicle of Barset. 2 vols. 391-2 
 
 „ „ PhineasFinn. Intro, by Hugh Walpole. 2 vols. 832-3 
 
 5, „ The Small House at Allington. 361 
 
 „ « The Warden. Introduction bv Ernest Rhys. 182 
 
 Tnrgenev's ra,ther« and Sons. Translated bv C. J. Hogarth. 742 
 „ Liza. Translated by W. R. S. Ralston. 677 
 
 „ Virgin Soil. Translated by Rochelle S. Townsend. 528 
 
 L Voltaire's Canaide and other Tales. 936 
 L Walpole's (Hugh) Mr. Perrin and Mr. Traill. 918 
 L Wells's (H. G.) The Time Machine and The Wheels of Chance. 915 
 Whyte-Melville's The Gladiators. Introduction by J. Mavrogordato. 623 
 Wood's (Mrs. Henry) The Channings. 84 
 Yonge's (Charlotte M.) The Dove in the Eagle's Nest. 329 
 
 The Heir of RedclyfCe. Intro. Mrs. Meynell. 362 
 (See also For YoaNO Pkoplk) 
 Zola's (Eniile) Germinal. TrauKiated by Havelock EUis. 897 
 
 HISTORY 
 
 Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, The. Translated by James Ingram. 624 
 Bede's Ecclesiastical History, etc. Introduction by Vida D. Scudder. 479 
 Burnet's History of His Own Times. 85 
 L Carlyle's French Revolution. Introduction by H. Belloo. 2 vols. 31-2 
 
 (See also Biography and Essays) 
 L Creasy's Decisive Battles of the World. Introduction by B. Rhys. 300 
 De Joinville (See VUlehardouin) 
 
 Duruy's (Jean Victor) A History of Franco. 2 toIs. 737-8 
 Flnlay's Byzantine Empire. 33 
 
 „ ' Greece under the Romans. 185 
 Fronde's Henry VIII. Intro, by Llewellyn Williams, M.P. 3 vols. 372-4 
 „ Edward VI. Intro, by Llewellyn WiUiams, M.P., B.C.L. 375 
 „ Mary Tudor. Intro, by Llewellyn Williams, M.P., B.C.L. 477 
 „ History of Queen Elizabeth's Reign. 5 vols. Completing 
 Fronde's 'History of England', in 10 vols. 583-7 
 (See also Essays and Biogkaphy) 
 Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Edited, with Introduc- 
 tion and Notes, by Oliphant Smeaton, M.A. 6 vols. 434-0, 474:-o 
 (See also Biography") 
 Green's Short History of the English People. Edited and Revised by 
 L. Cecil Jane, with an Appendix by R. P. Farley, B.A. 2 vols. 7 2 7-C) 
 Grote's History of Greece. Intro, by A. D. Lindsay. 12 vols. 186-97 
 Hailam's (Henry) Constitutional History of England. 3 vols. 621-3 
 Koiinshed'g Chronicle as used in Shakespeare's Plays. Introduction by 
 
 Professor Allardyce NicoU. 800 
 living's (Washington) Conquest of Granada. 478 
 
 (See also Essays and Biography) 
 Josephus' Wars of the Jews. Introduction by Dr. Jacob Hart. 7 IS 
 Ltitzow's History of Bohemia. 432 
 L M&cauiay's History of England. 3 vols. 34-6 
 (See also Essavs and Oratory) 
 
 ^ 
 
HISTORY—continueJ 
 
 Machjavelli's History of Florence. 376 (See also EssATa) 
 
 Maine's (Sir Henry) Ancient Law. 734 
 
 Merivale's History of Rome. (An Introductory rol. to Gibbon.) 433 
 
 Mignet's (F. A. M.) The French Revolution. 713 
 
 Mil m an's History of the Jews. 2 vols. 377-8 
 
 Mommsen's History of Rome. Translated by W. P. Dickson, LL.D. 
 
 With a review of the work by E. A. Freeman. 4 vols. 542-5 
 L Motley's Dutch Republic. 3 vols. 86-8 
 
 Parkman's Conspiracy of Pontiac. 2 vols. 302-3 
 
 Paston Letters, The. Based on edition of Knight. Introduction by 
 
 Mrs. Archer-Hind, M. A. 2 vols. 752-3 
 Pilgrim Fathers, The. Introduction by John Masefleld. 480 
 L Pinnow's History of Germany. Translated by M. R. Brailsford. 929 
 Political Liberty, The Growth of. A Source-Book of English History. 
 
 Arranged by Ernest Rhys. 745 
 Preecott's Conquest of Mexico. With Introduction by Thomas Seccombe, 
 M.A. 2 vols. 397-8 
 „ Conquest of Peru. Intro, by Thomas Seccombe, M.A. 301 
 Sismondl's Italian Republics. 250 
 Stanley's Lectures on the Eastern Church. Intro, by A. J. Grieve. 251 
 
 „ Memorials of Canterbury. 89 
 Tacitus. Vol. I Annals. Introduction by E. H. Blakeney. 273 
 
 „ Vol. II. Agricola and Germania. Intro, by E. H. Blakeney. 274 
 Thierry's Norman Conquest. Intro, by J. A. Price, B.A. 2 vols. 19S-9 
 Villehardouin and De Joinville's Chronicles of the Crusades. Translated. 
 
 with Introduction, bv Sir F. Marzials, C.B. 333 
 Voltaire's Agre of Louis XIV. Translated by Martyn P. Pollack. 780 
 
 ORATORY 
 
 L Anthology of British Historical Speeches and Orations. Compiled by 
 Ernest Rhys. 714 
 Bright's (John) Speeches. Selected with Intro, by Joseph Sturge. 252 
 Biu-ke's American Speeches and Letters. 340 
 
 {See also Essays) 
 Demosthenes: Select Orations. 546 
 Fox (Charles James): Speeches (French Revolutionary War Period). 
 
 Edited with Introduction by Irene Cooper Willis, M.A. 759 
 Lincoln's Speeches, etc. Intro, by the Rt. Hon. James Bryce. 206 
 
 (See also Biography) 
 Macaulay's Speeches on Politics and Literature. 399 
 
 (-See also Essays and History) 
 Pitt's Orations on the War with France. 145 
 
 PHILOSOPHY AND THEOLOGY 
 
 L A Kempis' Imitation of Christ. 484 
 
 Ancient Hebrew Literature. Being the Old Testament and Apocrypha 
 
 Arranged by the Rev. R. B. Taylor. 4 vols. 253-6 
 Aristotle, The Nicomachean Ethics of. Translated by D. P. Chase. 
 
 Introduction by Professor J. A. Smith. 547 
 (See also Classical) 
 Bacon's The Advancement of Learning. 719 
 
 (See also Essav'S) 
 Berkeley's (Bishop) Principles of Human Knowledge, New Theory of 
 
 Vision. With Introduction by A. D. Lindsay. 483 
 Boehme's (Jacob) The Signatiire of All Things, with Other Writings. 
 
 Introduction by Clifford Bax. 569 
 Browne's Religio Medici, etc. Introduction by Professor C. H. Herford. 92 
 Bunyan's Grace Aboimding and Mr. Badman. Introduction by G. B. 
 
 Harrison. 815 (See also Romance) 
 
 Burton's (Robert) Anatomy of Melancholy. Introduction by Holbrook 
 
 Jackson. 3 vols. 886-8 
 Butler's Analogy of Religion. Introduction by Rev. Ronald Bayne. 90 
 Descartes' (Rene) A Discourse on Method. Translated by Professor John 
 
 Veitch. Introduction by A. D. Lindsay. 570 
 L Ellis' (Havelock) Selected Essays. Introduction by J. S. CoUis. 930 
 L Gore's (Charles) The Philosophy of the Good Life. 924 
 
 Hobbes' Leviathan, Edited, with Intro, by A. D. Lindsay, M.A. 691 
 Hooker's Ecclesiastical PoUty. Intro, by Rev. H. Bayne. 2 vols. 201-2 
 Hume's Treatise of Human Nature, and other Philosophical Works. 
 
 Introduction by A. D. Lindsay. 2 vols. 548-9 
 James (William): Selected Papers on Philosophy. 739 
 Kant's Critique oi Pure Reason. Translated by J. M. D. Meikiejohn, 
 
 Introduction by Dr. A. D. Lindsay. 909 
 
 iO 
 
PHILOSOPHY AND THEOLOGY— continued \ 
 
 Keble'a The Christian Year. Introduction by J, C. Shairp. 690 
 KiJi;,'' Edward VI. First and Second Prayer Books. Introduction by the 
 Right Rev. Bishop of Gloucester. 448 
 L Koran. The. Rodwell's Translation. 380 
 
 Latimer's Sermons. Introduction by Canon Beeching. 40 
 
 Law's Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life. 91 
 
 Leibniz's Philosophical Writingra Selected and trans, by Mary Morris. 
 
 Introduction by C. R. Morris, M.A. 905 
 Locke's Two Treatises of Civil Government. Introduction by Professor 
 
 WilKam S. Carpenter. 751 
 Malthus on the Principles of Population. 2 vols. 692-3 
 Maurice's Kingdom of Christ. 2 vols. 146-7 (Vol. 146$) 
 Mill's (John Stuart) Utilitarianism, Liberty, Representative Government. 
 With Introduction by A. D. Lindsay. 482 
 „ Subjection of Women. (See WoUstonecraft, Mary, -under Science.) 
 Mere's Utopia. Introduction by Judge O'Hagan. 461 
 L New Testament. Arranged in the order in which the books came to the 
 Christians of the First Century. 93 
 Newman's Apologia pro Vita Sua. Intro, by Dr. Charles Sarolea. 636 
 
 (See also Essays) 
 Nietzsche's Thus Spake Zarathustra. Translated by A. Tille and 
 
 M. M. Bozman. 892 
 Paine's Rights of Man. Introduction by G. J. Holyoake. 718 
 Pascal's Pens6es. Translated by W. F. Trotter. Introduction by 
 T. S. Eliot. 874 
 L Ramayana and the Mahabharata, The. Translated by Romesh Dutt, 
 CLE. 403 
 Kenan's Life of Jesus. Introduction by Right Rev. Chas. Gore, D.D. 805 
 Robertson's (F. W.) Sermons on Religion and Life, Christian Doctrine, 
 and Bible Subjects. Each Volinne with Introduction by Canon 
 Burnett. 3 vols. 37-9 
 Robinson's (Wade) The Philosophy of Atonement and Other Sermons. 
 
 Introduction by Rev. F. B. Meyer. 637 
 Rongseau's (J. J.) The Social Contract, etc. 660 
 
 (See also Essays) 
 St. Augustine's Confessions. Dr. Pusey's Translation. 200 
 L St. Francis: The Little Flowers, and The Life of St. Francis. 485 
 Seeley's Ecce Homo. Introduction by Sir Oliver Lodge. 305 
 Spinoza's Ethics, etc. Translated by Andrew J. Boyle. With Intro- 
 duction by Professor Santayana. 481 
 Swedenborg's (Emmanuel) Heaven and Hell. 379 
 
 „ „ The Divine Love and W^isdom. 635 
 
 „ „ The Divine Providence. 658 
 
 L „ „ The True Christian Religion. 893 
 
 POETRY AND DRAMA 
 
 Anglo-Saxon Poetry. Edited by Professor R. K. Gordon. 794 
 Arnold's (Matthew) Poems, 1840-66, including Thyrsis. 334 
 I, Ballads, A Book of British. Selected by R. B. Johnson. 572 
 
 Beaumont and Fletcher, The Select Plays of. Introduction by Professor 
 
 Baker, of Harvard University. 506 
 Bjomson's Plays. Vol. I. The Newly Married Couple, Leonardo, A 
 Gauntlet. Translated by R. Farquharson Sharp. 
 625 
 „ „ Vol. II. The Editor, The Bankrupt, and The King. 
 
 Translated by R. Farquharson Sharp. 696 
 Blake's Poems and Prophecies. Introduction by Max Plowman. 792 
 L Browning's Poems, 1833-44. Introduction by Ajthur Waugh. 41 
 L Browning's Poems, 1844-64. 42 
 
 L „ The Ring and the Book. Intro, by Chas. W. Hodell. 502 
 
 L Bums' Poems and Songs. Introduction by J. Douglas. 94 
 Byron's Poetical and Dramatic Works. 3 vols. 486-S 
 Calderon: Six Plays, translated by Edward Fitzgerald. 819 
 t. Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. Edited by Principal Burrell, M.A. 307 
 Coleridge, Golden Book of. Edited by Stopford A. Brooke. 43 
 
 (See also Essays) 
 Cowper (William). Poems of. Edited by H. I'Anson Fausset,. 872 
 (See also Biography) 
 L Dante's Divine Comedy (Gary's Translation). Specially edited by 
 Edmund Gardner. 308 
 Donne's Poems. Edited by H. I'Anson Fausset. 867 
 Dry den's Poems. Edited by Bonamy Dobr6e. 910 
 Eighteenth -Century Plays. Edited by John Hampden. 818 
 
POETRY AND DRAMA—continued 
 
 Emerson's T>oeni8. Introduction by Professor Bakewell, Yale, U.S. A. 715 
 Hi Enprlisli Roiigioiis Verse. Edited by G. Lacey Mav. 937 
 
 Everyman and other Interbides, Including eight INliracle Plays. Edited 
 
 by Ernest Rbys. 381 
 
 L Fltzg-erald'8 (Edward) Omar Khayyam and Six Plays of Calderon. 819 
 
 L Goethe's Faust. Parts I and II. Trans, and Intro, by A. G. Latham. 335 
 
 (See also Essays and Fiction) [well. 921 
 
 L Golden Book of Modem English Poetry, The. Edited by Thomas Cald- 
 
 L Golden Treasury of Longer Poems, The. Edited by Ernest Rhys. 746 
 
 Goldsmith's Poems and Plays. Introduction by Austin Dobson. 415 
 
 (-See also Essats ami FlCTiox) 
 Gray's Poems and Letters. Introduction by John Drinkwater. 623 
 Hebbel's Plays. Translated with an Introduction by Dr. C. K. AUen. 694 
 Heine: Prose and Poetry. 911 
 
 Herbert's Temple. Introduction by Edward Thomas. 309 
 X Heroic Verse, A Volume of. Arranged by Arthur BTxrrell, M.A. 574 
 
 Herrick's Hesperides and Noble Numbers. Intro, by Ernest Rhys. 310 
 ■L Ibsen's Brand. Translated by F. E. Garrett. 716 
 L „ Ghosts, The Warriors at Helgeland, and An Enemy of the People. 
 
 Translated by R. Farquharson Sharp. 552 
 L „ Lady Inger of Ostraat, Love's Comedy, and The League of 
 Youth. Translated by R. Farquharson Sharp. 729 
 ^ Peer Gynt. Translated by R. Farquharson Sharp. 747 
 L „ A D oil's House, The Wild Duck, and The Lady from the Sea. 
 
 Translated by R. Farquharson Sharp. 494 
 L „ The Pretenders, Pillars of Society, and Rosmersholm. Translated 
 by R. Farquharson Sharp. 659 
 Jonson's (Ben) Plays. Introduction by Professor Schelling. 2 vols. 489-90 
 Kalidasa: Shakuntala. Translated by Professor A. W. Ryder. 629 
 
 Kingsley's (Charles) Poems. Introduction by Ernest Rhys. 793 
 (See also Fiction and For Young People) 
 L Langland's (William) Piers Plowman. 571 
 
 Lessing's Laocoon, Minna von Barnhelm, and Nathan the Wise. 843 
 L Longfellow's Poems. Introduction by Katherine Tynan. 382 
 L Marlowe's Plays and Poems. Introduction by Edward Thomas. 383 
 L Milton's Poems. Introduction by W. H. D. Rouise. 384 
 (See also Essays) 
 
 Minor Elizabethan Drama. Vol. I. Tragedy. Selected, with Introduction, 
 bv Professor Thorndike. Vol. II. Comedy. 491-2 
 L Minor "Poets of the 18th Century. Edited by H. I' Anson Fausset. 844 
 
 Minor Poets of the 17th Century. Edited by R. G. Howarth. 873 
 
 Molifere's Comedies. Introduction by Prof. F. C. Green. 2 vols. 830-1 
 L New Golden Treasury, The. An Anthology of Songs and Lyrics. 695 
 
 Old Yellow Book, The. Introduction by Charles E. Hodell. 503 
 L Omar Khayyam (The Rubaiyat of). Trans, by Edward Fitzgerald. 819 
 L Palgrave's Golden Treasury. Introduction by Edward Hutton. 96 
 
 Percy's Reliques of Ancient English Poetry. 2 vols. 148-9 
 
 Poe'B (Edgar Allan) Poems and Essays. Intro, by Andrew Lang. 791 
 (See nls') Fiction) 
 
 Pope (Alexander) : Collected Poems. Introduction by Ernest Rhys. 760 
 
 Procter's (Adelaide A.) Legends and Lyrics. 150 
 
 Restoration Plays, A Volume of. Introduction by Edmund Gosse. 604 
 L Roesetti's Poems and Translations. Introduction by E. G. Gardner. 627 
 
 Scott's Poems and Plays. Intro, by Andrew Lang. 2 vols. 550-1 
 (See also Biography and Fiction) 
 L Shakespeare's Comedies. 153 
 
 1, „ Historical Plays, Poems, and Sonnets. 164 
 
 L „ Tragedies, loo 
 
 L Shelley's Poetical Works. Introduction by A. H. Koszul. 2 vols. 257-8 
 L Sheridan's Plays. 95 ^ ^ ^^ ^ „ , 
 
 Spenser's Faerie Queene. Intro, by Prof. J. W. Hales. 2 vols. 443-4 
 „ Shepherd's Calendar and Other Poems. Edited by Philip 
 Henderson. 87 9 ,, 
 
 Stevenson's Poems — A Child's Garden of Verses, Underwoods, aonga of 
 
 (See also Essays, Fiction, and Travel) [Travel, Ballads. 768 
 
 L Teunyson's Poems. Vol. I, 1830-56. Introduction by Ernest Rhys. 44 
 
 i, „ „ Vol. II, 1857-70. 626 [Harrison. 899 
 
 Vv ebster and Ford. Plays. Selected, with Introduction, by Dr. G. B, 
 
 Whitman's (Walt) Leaves of Grass (I), Democratic Vistas, etc. 573 
 
 Wilde (Oscar), Plays, Prose Writings and Poems. 858 
 L Wordfiworth's Shorter Poems. Introduction by Ernest iihys, ^Ui 
 L M Longer Poems. Note by Editor. 311 
 
 12 
 
REFERENCE 
 
 Atlas of Ancient and Classical Geog^raphy. Many coloured and line 
 Maps; Historical Gazetteer, Index, etc. 451 
 
 Biographical Dictionary of English Literature. 449 
 
 Biographical Dictionary of Foreign Literature. 900 
 
 Dates, Dictionary of. 554 
 
 Dictionary or Quotations and Proverbs. 2 vols. 809-10. 
 
 Everyman's English Dictionary. 776 
 
 Literary and Historical Atlaa. I. Europe. Many coloured and lino Maps; 
 
 full Index and Gazetteer. 493 
 „ „ „ II. America. Do. 553 
 
 „ „ „ III. Asia. Do. 633 
 
 „ „ „ IV. Africa and Australia. Do. 662 
 
 Non-Classical Mythology, Dictionary of. 632 
 
 Reader's Guide to Everyman's Library. By R. Farquharson Sharp. 
 Introduction by Ernest Rhys. 889 
 
 Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases. 2 vols. 630-1. 
 
 Smith's Smaller Classical Dictionary. Ptevised and Edited by E, H. 
 Blakeney, M.A. 495 
 
 'A^riffht's An Encyclopaedia of Gardening. 535 
 
 ROMANCE 
 
 Aucassin and Nicolette, with other Medieval Romanoea. 497 
 Boccaccio's Decameron. (Unabridged.) Translated by J. M. Rigg. 
 Introduction by Edward Button. 2 vols. 845-6 
 L Bunyan'8 Pilgrim's Progress. Introduction by Rev. H. E. Lewis. 204 
 
 Burnt Njal, The Story of. Translated by Sir George Dasent. 558 
 L Cervantes' Don Quixote. Motteux' Translation. Lockhart's Intro- 
 duction. 2 vols. 385-6 
 Chr6tien de Troyes : Eric and Enid. Translated, with Introduction and 
 
 Notes, by William Wistar Comfort. 698 
 French Medieval Romances. Translated by Eugene Mason. 557 
 Geoffrey of Monmouth's Histories of the Kings of Britain. 577 
 Grettir Saga, The. Newly Translated by G. Ainslie Hight. 699 
 Gudrim. Done into English by Llargaret Armour. 880 
 Guest's (Lady) Mabinogion. Introduction by Rev. R. Williams. 97 
 Heimskringla: The Olaf Sagas. Translated by Samuel Laing. Lntro- 
 duction and Notes by John Beveridge. 717 
 „ Sagas of the Norse Kings. Translated by Samuel Laing. 
 
 Introduction and Notes by John Beveridge. 847 
 Holy Graal, The High History of the. 445 
 
 Kalevala. Introduction by W. F. Kirby F.L.S., F.E.S. 2 vols. 259-60 
 Le Sage's The Adventures of Gil Bias. Intro, by Anatole Le Bras. 2 vols. 
 MacDonald's (George) Phantastes: A Fa«rie Romance. 732 [437-8 
 (See also Fiction) 
 L Malory*8 Le Morte d' Arthur. Intro, by Professor Rhys. 2 vols. 45-6 
 L Morris (William): Early Romances. Introduction by Alfred Noyes. 261 
 „ „ The Life and Death of Jason. 575 
 
 Morte d' Arthur Romances, Two. Introduction by Lucy A. Paton. 634 
 Nibelungs, The Fall of the. Translated by Margaret Armour. 312 
 Rabelais' The Heroid Deeds of Gargantua and Pantagruel. Introduction 
 
 by D. B. Wyndham Lewis. 2 vols. 826-7 
 Wace's Arthurian Romance. Translated by Eugene Mason. Laya- 
 mon's Brut. Introduction by Lucy A. Paton. 573 
 
 SCIENCE 
 
 Boyle's The Sceptical Ohymist. 559 
 
 Darwin's The Origin of Species. Introduction by Sir Arthur Keith. 811 
 
 (See also Tkavel) [E. F. Bozman. 922 
 
 L Eddington's (Sir Arthur) The Nature of the Physical World. Intro, by 
 
 Euclid: the Elements of. Todhimter's Edition. Introduction by Sir 
 
 Thomas Heath, K.O.B. 891 
 Faraday's (Michael) Experimental Researches in Electricity. 576 
 Galton's Inquiries into Human Faculty. Revised by Author. 263 
 George's (Henry) Progress and Poverty. 560 
 Hahnemann's (Samuel) The Organon of the Rational Art of Healing. 
 
 Introduction by O. E. Wheeler. 663 
 Harvey's Circulation of the Blood. Introduction by Ernest Parkyn, 263 
 Howard's State of the Prisons. Introduction by Kenneth Ruck. 635 
 Huxlev's Essays. Introduction by Sir Oliver Lodge. 47 
 
 „ " Select Lectures and Lay Sermons. Intro. Sir Oliver Lodge. 498 
 LyeQ's Antiquity of Man. With an Introduction by R. H. Rasto.!!. 700 
 Marx's (Karl) Capital. Translated bv Eden and Cedar Paul. Intro- 
 
 ductloD by G. D. ^. Cole. 2 vols. 84S-9 
 
 13 
 
SCIEN CE — coDtiDued 
 
 Miller's Old Red Sandstone. 103 
 
 Owen's (Robert) A New View of Society, etc. Intro, by G. D. H. Cole. 799 
 Pearson's (Kfirl) 'Phe Urammar of Science. ^oH 
 Ricardo's Principles of Political Economy and Taxation. 590 
 Smith's (Adam) The Wealth of Nations. 2 vols. 412-13 
 Tyndall's Glaciers of the Alps and Mountaineering in 1861. 98 
 White's Selborne. Introduction by Principal Windle. 48 
 Wollstonecraft (Mary), The Rights of Woman, with John Stuart Mill'a 
 The Subjection of Women. 825 
 
 TRAVEL AND TOPOGRAPHY 
 
 Anson's Voyages. Introduction \jy John Masefleld. 510 
 
 Bates' Naturalist on the Amazon. With Illustrations. 446 
 
 lielt's The Naturalist in Nicaragua. Intro, by Anthony Belt, F.L.S. 561 
 
 Borrow's (George) The Gypsies in Spain. Intro, by Edward Thomas. 697 
 
 L „ „ The Bible in Spain. Intro, by Edward Thomas. 151 
 
 „ „ Wild Wales. Intro, by Theodore Watts-Dunton. 49 
 
 (See also Fiction) 
 Bosweil's Tour in the Hebrides with Dr. Johnson. 387 
 
 (See also Biographv) 
 Burton's (Sir Richard) First Footsteps in East Africa. 500 
 
 J Calderon de la Barca's (Mme.) Life in Mexico. 664 
 Cobbett's Rural Rides. Introduction by Edward Thomas. 2 vols. 633-9 
 
 L Cook's Voyages of Discovery. 99 
 Cr^veccEur's (H. St. John) Letters from an American Farmer. 640 
 Darwin's Voyage of the Beagle. 104 
 
 (See also Science) 
 Defoe's Tour Through England and Wales. Introduction by Q. D. H. 
 (See also Fiction) [Cole. 820-1 
 
 Dennis' Cities and Cemeteries of Etruria. 2 vols. 183-4 
 Dufferin's (Lord) Letters from High Latitudes. 499 
 Ford's Gatherings from Spain. Introduction by Thomas Okey. 152 
 Franklin's Journey to the Polar Sea. Intro, by Capt. R. F. Scott. 447 
 Giraldus Cambrensis: Itinerary and Description of Wales. 272 
 Hakluyt's Voyages. 8 vols. 264, 265, 313, 314, 338, 339, 388, 389 
 Kinglake's Eothen. Introduction by Harold Spender, M.A. 337 
 
 t Lane's Modern Egyptians. With many Illustrations. 315 
 Lytton's Pilgrims of the Rhine. 390 
 
 (See also Fiction) 
 Mandeville's (Sir John) Travels. Introduction by Jules Bramont. 812 
 Park (Mungo): Travels. Introduction by Ernest Rhys. 205 
 Peaks, Passes, and Glaciers. Selected by E. H. Blakeney, M.A, 778 
 
 L Polo's (Marco) Travels. Introduction by John Masefleld. 306 
 
 Roberts' The Western Avernus. Intro, by Cunninghame Graham. 762 
 
 L Speke's Discovery of the Source of the Nile. 50 
 
 L Stevenson's An Inland Voyage, Travels with a Donkey, and Silverado 
 Squatters. 766 
 
 (See also Essays, Fiction, and Poetry) 
 Stow's Survey of London. Introduction by H. B. Wheatley. 589 
 Wakefield's Letter from Sydney and Other Writings on Colonization. 828 
 Waterton's Wanderings in South America. Intro, by E. Selous. 7 72 
 Young's Travels in France and Italy. Intro, by Thomas Okev. 720 
 
 FOR YOUNG PEOPLE 
 
 1 Abbott's Rollo at Work and Rollo at Play. Intro, by Lucy Crump. 275 
 L iEsop's and Other Fables: An Anthology from all sources. 657 
 L Alcott's Little Men. Introduction by Grace Rhys. 512 
 L Little Women and Good Wives. Intro, by Grace Rhys. 248 
 
 Andersen's Fairy Tales. Illustrated by the Brothers Robinson. 4 
 
 More Fairv Tales. Illustrated by Mary Shillabeer. 822 
 Annals of Faii'vlaud. The Reign of King Oberon. 365 
 ■ „ The Reign of King Cole. 366 
 „ The Reign of King Herla. 541 
 Apga'rd and the Norse Heroes. Translated by Mrs. Boult. 689 
 Baker's Cast Up by the Sea. 539 
 L Ballantyne's Coral Island. 245 
 
 Martin Rattler. 246 
 „ Ungava. Introduction by Ernest Rhys. 276 [113 
 
 L Browne's (Frances) G ranny's Wonderful Chair. Intro, by Dollle Radford. 
 Bulfinch's (Thomas) The Age of Fahle. 472 
 
 Legends of Charlemagne. Intro, by Ernest Rhys. 556 
 L Canton's A Child' Book of Saints. Illustrated by T. H. Robinson. 61 
 (See also Essats) 
 
 14 
 
FOR YOUNG ?EOPLE— continued 
 
 L Carroll's Alice in Wonderland, Throug'h the Looking-Glass, etc. IlluB* 
 
 trated by the Author. Introduction by Ernest Rhys. 836 
 t Clarke's Girlhood of Shakespeare's Heroines. 3 vols. 109-11 
 „ Tales from Chaucer. 537 
 CoUodi's Pinocchio; or, The Story of a Puppet. 538 
 L Converse's (Florence) The House of Prayer. 923 (See also FionoN) 
 
 Cox's (Sir G. W.) Tales of Ancient Greece. 721 
 L Defoe's Robinson Crusoe. Illustrated by J. A. Symington. 59 
 (See also Fiction) 
 I?odge's (Mary Mapes) Hans Brinker; or. The Silver Skates. 620 
 Edgar's Heroes of England. 471 
 (See also Fiction) 
 li Ewing's (Mrs.) Jackanapes, Daddy Darwin's Dovecot, illustrated by 
 R. Caldecott, and The Story of a Short Life. 731 
 ,, Mrs. Overtheway's Remembrances. 730 
 
 L Fairy Gold. Illustrated by Herbert Cole. 157 
 L Fairy Tales from the Arabian Nights. Illustrated. 249 
 Freeman's Old English History for Children. 540 
 Froissart's Chronicles. 57 
 
 Gatty's Parables from Nature. Introduction by Grace Rhys. 153 
 Grimm's Fairy Tales. Illustrated by R. Arming Bell. 55 
 L Hawthorne's Wonder Book and Tanglewood Tales. 5 
 (See also Fiction) 
 Howard's Rattlin the Reefer. Introduction by Guy Pocock. 857 
 L Hughes' Tom Brown's School Days. Illustrated by T. Robinson. 58 
 Ingelow's (Jean) Mopsa the Fairy. Illustrated by Dora Curtis. 619 
 Jefferies's (Richard) Bevis, the Story of a Boy. Introduction by Guy 
 Pocock. 850 
 L Kingsley's Heroes. Introduction by Grace Rhys. 113 
 
 „ Madam How and Lady Why. Introduction by C. I. Gardiner, 
 
 L „ Water Babies and Glaucus. 277 [M.A. 777 
 
 (See also Poetry and Fiction) 
 Kingston's Peter the Whaler. 6 
 „ Three Midshipn>ern. 7 
 
 L Lamb's Tales from Shakespeare. Illustrated by A. Rackham. 8 
 
 (See also Biogbapht and Essays) 
 L Lear (and Others): A Book of Nonsense. 806 
 Marryat's Children of the New Forest. 247 
 
 „ Little Savage. Introduction by R. Brimley Johnson. 159 
 „ Masterman Ready. Introduction by R. Brimley Johnson. 1 >!) 
 „ Settlers in Canada. Introduction by R. Brimley Johnson. li.'J 
 „ (Edited by) Rattlin the Reefer. 857 
 
 (See also Fiction) 
 Martineau's Feats on the Fjords, etc. Illustrated by A. Rackham. 429 
 Mother Goose's Nursery Rhymes. Illustrated. 473 
 Poetry Book for Boys and Girls. Edited by Guy Pocock. 894 
 Reid's (Mayne) The Boy Hunters of the Mississippi. 582 
 
 „ „ The Boy Slaves. Introduction by Guy Pocock. 797 
 
 Ruskin's The Two Boyhoods and Other Passages. 688 
 (See also Essays) 
 L SeweU's (Anna) Black Beauty. Illustrated by Lucy Kemp-Welch. 743 
 L Spyri's (Johanna) Heidi. Illustrations by Lizzie Lawson. 431 
 L Story Book for Boys and Girls, Edited by Guy Pocock. 934 
 
 Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin. 371 
 L Swift's Gulliver's Travels. Illustrated by A. Rackham. 60 
 
 (See also Biography and Essays) 
 L Swiss Family Robinson. ' Illustrations by Chas. Folkard. 430 
 Verne's (Jules) Abandoned. 50 Illustrations. 368 
 
 „ „ Dropped from the Clouds. 50 Illustrations. 367 
 
 L „ „ Five Weeks in a Balloon and Around the World in Eighty 
 
 Days. Translated by Arthur Chambers and P. Desages. 
 L „ „ Tv/enty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea. 319 [779 
 
 „ „ The Secret of the Island. 50 Illustrations. 369 
 
 L Yonge's (Charlotte M.) The Book of Golden Deeds. 330 
 
 M „ The Lances of Lynwood. Illustrated by Dora 
 
 Curtis 579 
 L „ «. The Little Duke. Illustrated by Dora Curtis. 470 
 
 (See also Fiction) 
 
 15 
 
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