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General Tufto at the Hotel du Parc, 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 I would never dream of introjuicing 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 a battle
won like Salamanca? Hey, Dobbin? But where was it he
learnt 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 like Old England. The house was filled
with familiar British faces, and those toilettes for which
the British female has long been celebrated. Mrs.
O'Dowd's was not the least splendid amongst these, and
she had a curl on her forehead, and a set of Irish diamonds
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 which 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 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 turban, and a red satin gown, and a great watch?"
"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 him," 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 compliment 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
relented?"
"Sent me twenty pound, 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; who 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 newcomer 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-a-tete. 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 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 I needn't ask: how pretty she looks! And who is that
nice good-natured looking creature with her--a flame of
yours? O, 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 which showed itself, in
spite of the publicity of the place; for she embraced her
dearest friend in the presence 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 admired Mrs. O'Dowd's
large Cairngorm brooch and superb Irish diamonds, and
wouldn't believe that they were not from Golconda 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 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 rallied. Amelia was overpowered by the flash
and the 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 commands. Osborne and Crawley were repeatedly
together now. General Tufto 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 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, softening the phrase charitably for George's ear.
"Upon my word, I thought when we were at Brighton
she was doing me the honour to be jealous of me; and
now I suppose 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 conquering
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 counter to his fate, but yielded himself
up to it quite complacently. 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
regimental 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 Crawleys' company; losing money to the husband and
flattering himself that the wife was 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
0sborne house, seldom had the advantage of meeting his
old friend, much painful and unavailing 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 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 Bareacres, 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 invitation,
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
dismally unhappy. And so, to finish the poor child at
once, Mrs. 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 born 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 prevent
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 dare say 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 crying 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 remorseless little enemy.
George danced with Rebecca twice or thrice--how many
times Amelia scarcely knew. She sat 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 Emmy said, "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 clinging 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 accustomed 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. "Everything succeeds with me to-night," he said.
But his luck at play even did not cure him of his restlessness,
and he started up after awhile, pocketing his winnings,
and went to a buffet, where he drank off many
bumpers of wine.
Here, as he was rattling away 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
whom 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 reckless he had been! Should any mischance
befall him: what was then left for her? How unworthy he
was of her. Why had he married her? He was not fit for
marriage. Why had he disobeyed 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 stern old man had
done him.
He had looked into Amelia's bedroom when he entered;
she 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 her? He went
in to look at her once again.
She had been awake when he first entered her room,
but had 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 is with the non-combatants. When the decks
are cleared for action we go below and wait meekly. We
should only be 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 belief, 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 signified his opinion that the regiment would
march the next morning, 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 habiliments, 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
"repayther" pointed to half-past one, and its interior
arrangements (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 partaking of this coffee,
which they drank together while the bugles 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 sentiment 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 personally
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 very 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,
stepping 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
milliners, opera-dancers, and the like easy triumphs of the
clumsy military Adonis, were quite insipid when
compared to 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 than any place or company
which he had ever frequented from his childhood until
now. And he cursed his past follies 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 in 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 belonged 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 by-gone 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 laughing 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 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 confounded 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 widow's advantage as, for example,
"My double-barril by Manton, say 40 guineas; my driving
cloak, lined with sable fur, 50 pounds; my duelling pistols in
rosewood case (same which I shot Captain Marker),
20 pounds; my regulation saddle-holsters and housings; my
Laurie ditto," and so forth, over all of which articles he
made Rebecca the mistress.
Faithful to his plan of economy, the Captain 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 on their way
that he left off twirling his moustache and broke silence.
And Rebecca, as we have said, wisely determined not to
give way to unavailing sentimentality 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 hanging 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 slave and worshipper,
had made her many very handsome presents, in the shape
of cashmere shawls bought at the auction of a bankrupt
French general's lady, and numerous tributes from the
jewellers' shops, all of which betokened her admirer's
taste and wealth. As for "tickers," as poor Rawdon called
watches, her apartments were alive with their clicking.
For, happening to mention 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 Brequet,
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 and
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-
satisfaction, 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, like 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 bagpipes in the
British army, but for an interruption, which did 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
taking 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 saying good-bye, you
know," Dobbin said in a very incoherent manner; "because
you know some of us mayn't come back again, and
I like to see you all well, and--and that sort of thing, you
know."
"What do you mean?" Jos asked, rubbing his eyes. The
Captain did not in the least hear him or look at the stout
gentleman in the nightcap, about whom he professed to
have such a tender interest. The hypocrite was looking
and listening with all his might in the direction of George's
apartments, striding about the room, upsetting the chairs,
beating the tattoo, biting his nails, and showing other
signs of great inward emotion.
Jos had always had rather a mean opinion of the
Captain, and now began to think his courage was somewhat
equivocal. "What is it I can do for you, Dobbin?" he said,
in a sarcastic tone.
"I tell you what you can do," the Captain replied, coming
up to the bed; "we march in a quarter of an hour,
Sedley, and neither George nor I may ever come back.
Mind you, you are not to stir from this town until you
ascertain how things go. You are to stay here and watch
over your sister, and comfort her, and see that no harm
comes to her. If anything happens to George, remember
she has no one but you in the world to look to. If it goes
wrong with the army, you'll see her safe back to England;
and you will promise me on your word that you will
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 I would never dream of introjuicing 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 a battle
won like Salamanca? Hey, Dobbin? But where was it he
learnt 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 like Old England. The house was filled
with familiar British faces, and those toilettes for which
the British female has long been celebrated. Mrs.
O'Dowd's was not the least splendid amongst these, and
she had a curl on her forehead, and a set of Irish diamonds
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 which 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 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 turban, and a red satin gown, and a great watch?"
"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 him," 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 compliment 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
relented?"
"Sent me twenty pound, 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; who 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 newcomer 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-a-tete. 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 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 I needn't ask: how pretty she looks! And who is that
nice good-natured looking creature with her--a flame of
yours? O, 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 which showed itself, in
spite of the publicity of the place; for she embraced her
dearest friend in the presence 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 admired Mrs. O'Dowd's
large Cairngorm brooch and superb Irish diamonds, and
wouldn't believe that they were not from Golconda 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 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 rallied. Amelia was overpowered by the flash
and the 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 commands. Osborne and Crawley were repeatedly
together now. General Tufto 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 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, softening the phrase charitably for George's ear.
"Upon my word, I thought when we were at Brighton
she was doing me the honour to be jealous of me; and
now I suppose 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 conquering
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 counter to his fate, but yielded himself
up to it quite complacently. 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
regimental 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 Crawleys' company; losing money to the husband and
flattering himself that the wife was 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
0sborne house, seldom had the advantage of meeting his
old friend, much painful and unavailing 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 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 Bareacres, 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 invitation,
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
dismally unhappy. And so, to finish the poor child at
once, Mrs. 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 born 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 prevent
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 dare say 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 crying 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 remorseless little enemy.
George danced with Rebecca twice or thrice--how many
times Amelia scarcely knew. She sat 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 Emmy said, "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 clinging 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 accustomed 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. "Everything succeeds with me to-night," he said.
But his luck at play even did not cure him of his restlessness,
and he started up after awhile, pocketing his winnings,
and went to a buffet, where he drank off many
bumpers of wine.
Here, as he was rattling away 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
whom 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 reckless he had been! Should any mischance
befall him: what was then left for her? How unworthy he
was of her. Why had he married her? He was not fit for
marriage. Why had he disobeyed 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 stern old man had
done him.
He had looked into Amelia's bedroom when he entered;
she 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 her? He went
in to look at her once again.
She had been awake when he first entered her room,
but had 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 is with the non-combatants. When the decks
are cleared for action we go below and wait meekly. We
should only be 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 belief, 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 signified his opinion that the regiment would
march the next morning, 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 habiliments, 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
"repayther" pointed to half-past one, and its interior
arrangements (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 partaking of this coffee,
which they drank together while the bugles 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 sentiment 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 personally
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 very 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,
stepping 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
milliners, opera-dancers, and the like easy triumphs of the
clumsy military Adonis, were quite insipid when
compared to 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 than any place or company
which he had ever frequented from his childhood until
now. And he cursed his past follies 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 in 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 belonged 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 by-gone 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 laughing 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 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 confounded 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 widow's advantage as, for example,
"My double-barril by Manton, say 40 guineas; my driving
cloak, lined with sable fur, 50 pounds; my duelling pistols in
rosewood case (same which I shot Captain Marker),
20 pounds; my regulation saddle-holsters and housings; my
Laurie ditto," and so forth, over all of which articles he
made Rebecca the mistress.
Faithful to his plan of economy, the Captain 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 on their way
that he left off twirling his moustache and broke silence.
And Rebecca, as we have said, wisely determined not to
give way to unavailing sentimentality 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 hanging 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 slave and worshipper,
had made her many very handsome presents, in the shape
of cashmere shawls bought at the auction of a bankrupt
French general's lady, and numerous tributes from the
jewellers' shops, all of which betokened her admirer's
taste and wealth. As for "tickers," as poor Rawdon called
watches, her apartments were alive with their clicking.
For, happening to mention 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 Brequet,
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 and
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-
satisfaction, 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, like 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 bagpipes in the
British army, but for an interruption, which did 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
taking 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 saying good-bye, you
know," Dobbin said in a very incoherent manner; "because
you know some of us mayn't come back again, and
I like to see you all well, and--and that sort of thing, you
know."
"What do you mean?" Jos asked, rubbing his eyes. The
Captain did not in the least hear him or look at the stout
gentleman in the nightcap, about whom he professed to
have such a tender interest. The hypocrite was looking
and listening with all his might in the direction of George's
apartments, striding about the room, upsetting the chairs,
beating the tattoo, biting his nails, and showing other
signs of great inward emotion.
Jos had always had rather a mean opinion of the
Captain, and now began to think his courage was somewhat
equivocal. "What is it I can do for you, Dobbin?" he said,
in a sarcastic tone.
"I tell you what you can do," the Captain replied, coming
up to the bed; "we march in a quarter of an hour,
Sedley, and neither George nor I may ever come back.
Mind you, you are not to stir from this town until you
ascertain how things go. You are to stay here and watch
over your sister, and comfort her, and see that no harm
comes to her. If anything happens to George, remember
she has no one but you in the world to look to. If it goes
wrong with the army, you'll see her safe back to England;
and you will promise me on your word that you will