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and honour, it did--never was such a cruel persecution
borne so angelically, I may say. Her family has been
most 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 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,
consigned 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 number 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
commands 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 grandpapa--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, encouraging
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 Irae
Frankness and kindness like Amelia's were likely to
touch even such a hardened little reprobate as Becky. She
returned Emmy's caresses and kind speeches with
something very like 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. "Oh, 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 again."
"Was he fair or dark?" went on that absurd little
Emmy. "Show me his hair."
Becky almost laughed at her simplicity. "Not to-day,
love--some other time, when my trunks arrive from
Leipzig, whence I came to this place--and a little drawing
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 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," was the best thing Emmy
could think of to console Becky. If anything could make
her comfortable 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 connections,
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
with indignation at the account of the conduct of the
miserable Rawdon and the unprincipled Steyne. Her eyes
made notes of admiration for every one of the sentences
in which Becky described the persecutions of her
aristocratic 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 consummate little tragedian must have been
charmed to see the effect which her performance
produced on her audience.
Whilst the ladies were carrying on their conversation,
Amelia's constant escort, the Major (who, of course,
did not wish to interrupt their conference, and found
himself rather tired of creaking 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 strepitus of a German inn
in fair time. The waiter brought the Major a mug 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 sat 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 title Englanderinn seems to be en bays de
gonnoisance," said Max, who knew the French language,
to Fritz, his comrade. "After the fat grandfather went
away, there came a pretty little compatriot. 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
nubibus. Hans said that she advertised one at Leipzig, 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 Dresden. She cannot sing, it is my belief:
her voice is as cracked as thine, O thou beer-soaking
Renowner!"
"It is cracked; I hear her trying out of her window a
schrecklich. English 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 trente and quarante 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 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 subsequently,
and until a few weeks after George's marriage,
when he also was caught in the little Circe's toils, and
had an understanding 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.
"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 between 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 tyrannizing 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 times 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 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" dreadfully 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?" bounced out the Major,
jumping 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
continued; "her horrid banker broken and run away; her
husband--wicked wretch--having deserted her and 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'm 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 air and shut her own door briskly on herself
and her outraged dignity.
"To allude to THAT!" 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 was; and that you
were pure--oh, 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 cicatrized 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! 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, 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, Emmy 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 exhibited 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.
"Hullo! 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 off 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
desert Emmy was gone out to superintend further
domestic arrangements; Jos was in his great chair dozing
over Galignani; Georgy and the new arrival sat close to
each other--he had 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.
"You see we are quite good friends already," Becky
said to Emmy, who now re-entered; and it must be owned
that Mrs. Osborne had introduced a most judicious and
amiable companion 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, Tapeworm, 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 all the points of
this narrative, for it was at that very table years 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 to
the simple-hearted Major. When Dobbin said that Mrs.
Osborne and Mr. Sedley had taken her into their house,
Tapeworm 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 scapegrace 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. 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 he
wished very particularly to speak with her. A message
came back to say that Mrs. Osborne was exceedingly
unwell and was keeping her room.
She, too, had been awake all that night. She had been
thinking 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 constancy and her own acknowledged regard,
respect, and gratitude. What are benefits, 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 determined to be free.
When at length, in the afternoon, the Major gained
admission to Amelia, instead of the cordial and
affectionate greeting, to which he had been accustomed now
for many a long day, 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, m'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.
"Dear friend!" Rebecca said with angelic sweetness,
"do hear what Major Dobbin has to say against me."
"I will not 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 anybody 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 suppose 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 castaway, 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--"
"Authority, none!" broke out Amelia "Rebecca,
you stay with me. I won't desert you because you have
been persecuted, 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 to me?"
"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, Amelia," 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 Amelia. 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 you. 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 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 life 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 withdraw. 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 struggle. 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 independence 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 came 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 little; 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 part 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 this work, had her will, and had won 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
appearance 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 court-yard." The "trap" in question
was a carriage which the Major had bought for six pounds
sterling, and about which they used to rally him a good
deal.
Emmy gave a little start, but said nothing.
"Hullo!" Georgy continued, "there's Francis coming out
with the portmanteaus, and Kunz, the one-eyed
postilion, coming down the market with three schimmels.
Look at his boots and yellow jacket--ain't he a rum
one? Why--they're putting the horses to Dob's carriage.
Is he going anywhere?"
"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 showed 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
and had covered George and William after the night
of Quatre Bras.
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 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 postilion 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,
Schwager! The yellow postilion cracked his whip
prodigiously, 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.
She found herself suddenly and unexpectedly in snug
comfortable 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 inexpressibly 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'Affaires, 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 particularly 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 Wahlverwandtschaften of
Goethe is considered an edifying moral book, nobody
thought of refusing to receive her in the very 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 Somersetshire little understand, and a lady
might, in some philosophic and civilized 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, &c., and to
such an angel as him whom she had had the good
fortune to marry, was married forever; 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 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 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 alleine," was one of them, that tender
love-song of Weber's which~ in old-fashioned days,
young ladies, and when you were 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
work-box, 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 time
afterwards, 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
borne so angelically, I may say. Her family has been
most 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 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,
consigned 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 number 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
commands 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 grandpapa--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, encouraging
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 Irae
Frankness and kindness like Amelia's were likely to
touch even such a hardened little reprobate as Becky. She
returned Emmy's caresses and kind speeches with
something very like 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. "Oh, 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 again."
"Was he fair or dark?" went on that absurd little
Emmy. "Show me his hair."
Becky almost laughed at her simplicity. "Not to-day,
love--some other time, when my trunks arrive from
Leipzig, whence I came to this place--and a little drawing
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 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," was the best thing Emmy
could think of to console Becky. If anything could make
her comfortable 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 connections,
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
with indignation at the account of the conduct of the
miserable Rawdon and the unprincipled Steyne. Her eyes
made notes of admiration for every one of the sentences
in which Becky described the persecutions of her
aristocratic 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 consummate little tragedian must have been
charmed to see the effect which her performance
produced on her audience.
Whilst the ladies were carrying on their conversation,
Amelia's constant escort, the Major (who, of course,
did not wish to interrupt their conference, and found
himself rather tired of creaking 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 strepitus of a German inn
in fair time. The waiter brought the Major a mug 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 sat 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 title Englanderinn seems to be en bays de
gonnoisance," said Max, who knew the French language,
to Fritz, his comrade. "After the fat grandfather went
away, there came a pretty little compatriot. 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
nubibus. Hans said that she advertised one at Leipzig, 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 Dresden. She cannot sing, it is my belief:
her voice is as cracked as thine, O thou beer-soaking
Renowner!"
"It is cracked; I hear her trying out of her window a
schrecklich. English 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 trente and quarante 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 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 subsequently,
and until a few weeks after George's marriage,
when he also was caught in the little Circe's toils, and
had an understanding 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.
"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 between 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 tyrannizing 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 times 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 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" dreadfully 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?" bounced out the Major,
jumping 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
continued; "her horrid banker broken and run away; her
husband--wicked wretch--having deserted her and 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'm 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 air and shut her own door briskly on herself
and her outraged dignity.
"To allude to THAT!" 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 was; and that you
were pure--oh, 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 cicatrized 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! 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, 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, Emmy 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 exhibited 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.
"Hullo! 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 off 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
desert Emmy was gone out to superintend further
domestic arrangements; Jos was in his great chair dozing
over Galignani; Georgy and the new arrival sat close to
each other--he had 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.
"You see we are quite good friends already," Becky
said to Emmy, who now re-entered; and it must be owned
that Mrs. Osborne had introduced a most judicious and
amiable companion 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, Tapeworm, 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 all the points of
this narrative, for it was at that very table years 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 to
the simple-hearted Major. When Dobbin said that Mrs.
Osborne and Mr. Sedley had taken her into their house,
Tapeworm 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 scapegrace 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. 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 he
wished very particularly to speak with her. A message
came back to say that Mrs. Osborne was exceedingly
unwell and was keeping her room.
She, too, had been awake all that night. She had been
thinking 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 constancy and her own acknowledged regard,
respect, and gratitude. What are benefits, 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 determined to be free.
When at length, in the afternoon, the Major gained
admission to Amelia, instead of the cordial and
affectionate greeting, to which he had been accustomed now
for many a long day, 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, m'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.
"Dear friend!" Rebecca said with angelic sweetness,
"do hear what Major Dobbin has to say against me."
"I will not 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 anybody 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 suppose 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 castaway, 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--"
"Authority, none!" broke out Amelia "Rebecca,
you stay with me. I won't desert you because you have
been persecuted, 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 to me?"
"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, Amelia," 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 Amelia. 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 you. 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 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 life 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 withdraw. 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 struggle. 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 independence 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 came 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 little; 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 part 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 this work, had her will, and had won 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
appearance 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 court-yard." The "trap" in question
was a carriage which the Major had bought for six pounds
sterling, and about which they used to rally him a good
deal.
Emmy gave a little start, but said nothing.
"Hullo!" Georgy continued, "there's Francis coming out
with the portmanteaus, and Kunz, the one-eyed
postilion, coming down the market with three schimmels.
Look at his boots and yellow jacket--ain't he a rum
one? Why--they're putting the horses to Dob's carriage.
Is he going anywhere?"
"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 showed 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
and had covered George and William after the night
of Quatre Bras.
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 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 postilion 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,
Schwager! The yellow postilion cracked his whip
prodigiously, 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.
She found herself suddenly and unexpectedly in snug
comfortable 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 inexpressibly 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'Affaires, 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 particularly 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 Wahlverwandtschaften of
Goethe is considered an edifying moral book, nobody
thought of refusing to receive her in the very 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 Somersetshire little understand, and a lady
might, in some philosophic and civilized 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, &c., and to
such an angel as him whom she had had the good
fortune to marry, was married forever; 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 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 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 alleine," was one of them, that tender
love-song of Weber's which~ in old-fashioned days,
young ladies, and when you were 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
work-box, 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 time
afterwards, 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