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CORNELL UNIVERSITY
LIBRARIES
ITHACA, N. Y. 14853

 

URIS UNDERGRADUATE
LIBRARY
Cornell University Library

PR 5618.A1 1900

Vanity fair :a nov
078 130 i

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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WORLD’S FAMOUS BOOKS

 

VANITY FAIR

A Novel Without a Hero

By

William Makepeace Thackeray

Illustrated

New York and London
MERRILL AND BAKER
Publishers

URIS. LIBRARY
JUL 17 1985
BEFORE THE CURTAIN.

As the Manager of the Performance sits before the curtain
on the boards, and looks into the Fair, a feeling of profound
melancholy comes over him in his survey of the bustling place
There is a great quantity of eating and drinking, making love
and jilting, laughing and the contrary, smoking, cheating,
fighting, dancing, and fiddling: there are bullies pushing
about, bucks ogling the women, knaves picking pockets,
policemen on the lockout, quacks (other quacks, plague take
them!) bawling in front of their booths, and yokels looking:
up at the tinselled dancers and poor old rouged tumblers,
while the light-fingered folk are operating upon their pockets
behind. Yes, this is Vanity Fair; not a moral place certainly;
nor a merry one, though very noisy. Look at the faces of the
actors and buffoons when they come off from their business;
and Tom Fool washing the paint off his cheeks before he sits
down to dinner with his wife and the little Jack Puddings be-
hind the canvas. The curtain will be up presently, and he
will be turning ever head and heels, and crying, “How are
you?”

A man with a reflective turn of mind, walking through an
exhibition of this sort, will not be oppressed, I take it, by his
own or other people’s hilarity. An episode of humor or kind-
ness touches and amuses him here and there,—a pretty child
looking at a gingerbread stall; a pretty girl blushing whilst
her lover talks to her and chooses her fairing; poor Tom
Fool, yonder behind the wagon, mumbling his bone with the
honest family which lives by his tumbling; but the general
impression is one more melancholy than mirthful. When
you come home, you sit down, in a sober, contemplative, not
uncharitable frame of mind, and apply yourself to your books
or your business.

I have no other moral than this to tag to the present story
of “Vanity Fair.” Some people consider Fairs immoral alto-
gether, and eschew such, with their servants and families;
very likely they are right. But persons who think other-
wise, and are of a lazy, or a benevolent, or a sarcastic mood,
4 BEFORE THE CURTAIN.

may perhaps like to step in for half an hour, and look at the
performances. There are scenes of all sorts; some dreadful
combats, some grand and lofty horse-riding, some scenes of
high life, and some of very middling indeed; some love-
making for the sentimental, and some light comic business;
the whole accompanied by appropriate scenery, and brilliantly
illuminated with the Author’s own candles.

What more has the Manager of the Performance to say?—
To acknowledge the kindness with which it has been received
in all the principal towns of England through which the
Show has passed, and where it has been most favorably noticed
by the respected conductors of the Public Press, and by the
Nobility and Gentry. He is proud to think that his Puppets
have given satisfaction to the very best company in this em-
pire. The famous little Becky Puppet has been pronounced
to be uncommonly flexible in the joints, and lively on the
wire: the Amelia Doll, though it has had a smaller circle of
admirers, has yet been carved and dressed with the greatest
care by the artist: the Dobbin Figure, though apparently
clumsy, yet dances in a very amusing and natural manner:
the Little Boy’s Dance has been liked by some; and please
to remark the richly dressed figure of the Wicked Noble-
man, on which no expense has been spared, and which Old
Nick will fetch away at the end of this singular performance.

And with this, and a profound bow to his patrons, the Man-
ager retires, and the curtain rises.

London, June 28, 1848.
VANITY FAIR.
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO.

CHAPTER I.

CHISWICK MALL,

While the present century was in its teens, and on one sun-
shiny morning in June, there drove up to the great iron
gate of Miss Pinkerton’s academy for young ladies, on Chis-
wick Mall, a large family coach, with two fat horses in blaz-
ing harness, driven by a fat coachman in a three-cornered
hat and wig, at the rate of four miles an hour. A black ser-
vant, who reposed on the box beside the fat coachman, un-
curled his bandy legs as soon as the equipage drew up op-
posite Miss Pinkerton’s shining brass plate, and as he pulled
the bell, at least a score of young heads were seen peering
out of the narrow windows of the stately old brick house.
Nay, the acute observer might have recognized the little red
nose of good-natured Miss Jemima Pinkerton herself, ris-
ing over some geranium-pots in the window of that lady’s own
drawing-room.

“Tt is Mrs. Sedley’s coach, sister,” said Miss Jemima. “Sam-
bo, the black servant, has just rung the bell: and the coach-
man has a new red waistcoat.”

“Have you completed all the necessary preparations inci-
dent to Miss Sedley’s departure, Miss Jemima?” asked Miss
Pinkerton herself, that majestic lady; .the Semiramis of Ham-
mersmith, the friend of Doctor Johnson, the correspondent
of Mrs. Chapone herself.

“The girls were up at four this morning, packing her
trunks, sister,’ replied Miss Jemima; “we have made her a
bow-pot.”

“Say a bouquet, Sister Jemima, ’tis more genteel.”

“Well, a booky as big almost as a haystack; I have put up
6 VANITY FAIR.

two bottles of the gillyflower-water for Mrs. Sedley, and the
receipt for making it, in Amelia’s box.” ;

“And I trust, Miss Jemima, you have made a copy of Miss
Sedley’s account. This is it, is it? Very good,—ninety-three
pounds, four shillings. Be kind enough to address it to John
Sedley, Esquire, and to seal this billet which I have written
to his lady.”

In Miss Jemima’s eyes an autograph letter of her sister,
Miss Pinkerton, was an object of as deep veneration, as would
have been a letter from a sovereign. Only when her pupils
quitted the establishment, or when they were about to be
married, and once, when poor Miss Birch died of the scar-
let fever, was Miss Pinkerton known to-write personally to the
parents of her pupils; and it was Jemima’s opinion that if
anything could console Mrs. Birch for her daughter’s loss,
it would be that pious and eloquent composition in which
Miss Pinkerton announced the event.

In the present instance Miss Pinkerton’s “billet” was to the
following effect:—

“The Mall, Chiswick, June 15, 18—.

“Madam,—After her six years’ residence at the Mall, I have the
honor and happiness of presenting Miss Amelia Sedley to her
parents, as a young lady not unworthy to occupy a fitting posi-
tion in their polished and refined circle. Those virtues which
characterize the young English gentlewoman, those accomplish-
ments which become her birth and station, will not be found want-
ing in the amiable Miss Sedley, whose industry and obedience
have endeared her to her instructors, and whose delightful sweet-
ness of temper has charmed her aged and her youthful com-
panions.

“In music, in dancing, in orthography, in every variety of em-
broidery and needle-work, she will be found to have realized her
friends’ fondest wishes. In geography there is still much to be
desired; and a careful and undeviating use of the backboard, for
four hours daily during the next three years, is recommended as
necessary to the acquirement of that dignified deportment and
carriage, so requisite for every young lady of fashion.

“In the principles of religion and morality, Miss Sedley will be
found worthy of an establishment which has been honored by
the presence of The Great Lexicographer, and the patronage of
the admirable Mrs. Chapone. In leaving the Mall, Miss Amelia
carries with her the hearts of her companions, and the affectionate
regards of her mistress, who has the honor to subscribe herself

“Madam, .
“Your most obliged humble servant,
a hale “BARBARA PINKERTON.

“Pp. 8.—Miss Sharp accompanies Miss Sedley. It is pa
requested that Miss Sharp’s stay in Russell evans ee eee
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. t

ceed ten days. The family of distinction with whom she is en-
SY desire to avail themselves of her services as soon as pOos-
sible.”

This letter completed, Miss Pinkerton proceeded to write
her own name, and Miss Sedley’s, in the fly-leaf of a John-
son’s Dictionary,—the interesting work which she invariably
presented to her scholars, on their departure from the Mall.
On the cover was inserted a copy of “Lines addressed to a
young lady on quitting Miss Pinkerton’s school, at the Mall;
by the late revered Doctor Samuel Johnson.” In fact, the
Lexicographer’s name was always on the lips of this majestic
woman, and a visit he had paid to her was the cause of her
reputation and her fortune.

Being commanded by her elder sister to get “the Diction-
ary” from the cupboard, Miss Jemima had extracted two
copies of the book from the receptacle in question. When
Miss Pinkerton had finished the inscription in the first, Jemi-
ma, with rather a dubious and timid air, handed her the
second.

“For whom is this, Miss Jemima?” said Miss Pinkerton,
with awful coldness.

“For Becky Sharp,” answered Jemima, trembling very
much, and blushing over her withered face and neck, as she
turned her back on her sister,—“for Becky Sharp; she’s going
too.”

“MISS JEMIMA!’ exclaimed Miss Pinkerton, in the larg-
est capitals. “Are you in your senses? Replace the Dixonary
in the closet, and never venture to take such a liberty in fu-
ture.”

“Well, sister, it’s only two and ninepence, and poor Becky
will be miserable if she don’t get one.”

“Send Miss Sedley instantly to me,” said Miss Pinkerton.
And so venturing not to say another word, poor Jemima trotted
off, exceedingly flurried and nervous.

Miss Sedley’s papa was a merchant in London, and a man
of some wealth; whereas Miss Sharp was an articled pupil,
for whom Miss Pinkerton had done, as she thought, quite
enough, without conferring upon her at parting the high
honor of the Dixonary.

Although schoolmistresses’ letters are to be trusted no more
nor less than churchyard epitaphs; yet, as it sometimes hap- _
pens that a person departs this life, who is really deserving”
of all the praises the stone-cutter carves over his bones; who-
8 VANITY FAIR.

is a good Christian, a good parent, child, wife, or husband;
who actually does leave a disconsolate family to mourn his
loss; so in academies of the male and female sex it occurs every
now and then, that the pupil is fully worthy of the praises
bestowed by the disinterested instructor. Now, Miss Amelia
Sedley was a young lady of this singular species, and deserved
not only all that Miss Pinkerton said in her praise, but had
many charming qualities which that pompous old Minerva
of a woman could not see, from the differences of rank and age
between her pupil and herself. :

For she could not only sing like a lark, ora Mrs. Bill-
ington, and dance like Hillisberg or Parisot, and embroider
beautifully, and spell as well as a Dixonary itself; but she had
such a kindly, smiling, tender, gentle, generous heart of her
own, as won the love of everybody who came near her, from
Minerva herself down to the poor girl in the scullery, and the
one-eyed tart-woman’s daughter, who was permitted to vend
her wares once a week to the young ladies in the Mall. She
had twelve intimate and bosom friends out of the twenty-four
young ladies. Even envious Miss Briggs never spoke ill of
her; high and mighty Miss Saltire (Lord Dexter’s granddaugh-
ter) allowed that her figure was genteel; and as for Miss
Swartz, the rich woolly-haired mulatto from St. Kitts, on the
day Amelia went away, she was in such a passion of tears, that
they were obliged to send for Dr. Floss, and half tipsify her
with sal-volatile. Miss Pinkerton’s attachment was as may be
supposed, from the high position and eminent virtues of that
lady, calm and dignified; but Miss Jemima had already whim-
pered several times at the idea of Amelia’s departure; and,
but for fear of her sister, would have gone off in down-right
hysterics, like the heiress (who paid double) of St. Kitt’s. Such
luxury of grief, however, is only allowed to parlor-boarders.
Honest Jemima had all the bills, and the washing, and the
mending, and the puddings, andthe plateand crockery, and the
servants to superintend. But why speak about her? It is
probable that we shall not hear of her again from this moment
to the end of time, and that, when the great filigree iron gates
are once closed on her, she and her awful sister will never is-
sue therefrom into this little world of history.

But as we are to see a great deal of Amelia, there is no harm
in saying, at the outset of our acquaintance, that she was a
dear little creature; and a great mercy it is, both in life and in
novels, which (and the latter especially) abound in villains
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 9

of the most somber sort, that we are to have for a constant
companion so guileless and good-natured a person. As she
is not a heroine, there is no need to describe her person; in-
deed, I am afraid that her nose was rather short than other-
wise, and her cheeks a great deal too round and red for a hero-
ine; but her face blushed with rosy health, and her lips with
the freshest of smiles, and she had a pair of eyes, which spark-
led with the brightest and honestest good-humor, except,
indeed, when they filled with tears, and that was a great deal
too often; for the silly thing would cry over a dead canary-
bird; or over a mouse, that the cat haply had seized upon;
or over the end of a novel, were it ever so stupid; and as for
saying an unkind word to her, were any persons hard-hearted
enough to do so,—why, so much the worse for them. Even
Miss Pinkerton, that austere and god-like woman, ceased scold-
ing her after the first time, and though she no more compre-
hended sensibility that she did algebra, gave all masters and
teachers particular orders to treat Miss Sedley with the utmost
gentleness, as harsh treatment was injurious to her.

So that when the day of departure came, between her two
customs of laughing and crying, Miss Sedley was greatly puz-
zled how to act. She was glad to go home, and yet most wo-
fully sad at leaving school. For three days before, little Laura
Martin, the orphan, followed her about, like a little dog. She
had to make and receive at least fourteen presents,—to make
fourteen solemn promises of writing every week: “Send my
letters under cover to my grandpapa, the Earl of Dexter,”
said Miss Saltire (who, by the way, was rather shabby): “never
mind the postage, but write every day, you dear darling,” said
the impetuous and woolly-headed, but generous and affec-
tionate Miss Swartz; and the orphan, little Laura Martin (who
was just in round-hand) took her friend’s hand, and said, look-
ing up in her face wistfully, “Amelia, when I write to you, I
shall call you Mamma.” All which details, I have no doubt,
JONES, who reads this book at his Club, will pronounce to be
excessively foolish, trivial, twaddling, and ultra-sentimental.
Yes; I can see Jones at this minute (rather flushed with his
joint of mutton and half-pint of wine), taking out his pencil
and scoring under the words “foolish, twaddling,” ete., and
adding to them his own remark of “quite true.” Well, he is a
lofty man of genius, and admires the great and heroic in life
and novels, and so had better take warning and go elsewhere.

Well, then. The flowers, and the presents, and the trunks,
10 VANITY FAIR.

and bonnet-boxes of Miss Sedley having been arranged by
Mr. Sambo in the carriage, together with a very small and
weather-beaten old cow’s-skin trunk with Miss Sharp’s card
neatly nailed upon it, which was delivered by Sambo with a
grin, and packed by the coachman with a corresponding sneer,
—the hour for parting came; and the grief of that moment
was considerably lessened by the admirable discourse which
Miss Pinkerton addressed to her pupil. Not that the parting
speech caused Amelia to philosophize, or that it armed her in
any way to a calmness, the result of argument; but it was in-
tolerably dull, pompous, and tedious; and having the fear of
her schoolmistress greatly before her eyes, Miss Sedley did not
venture, in her presence, to give way to any ebullitions of pri-
vate grief. A seed-cake and a bottle of wine were produced in
the drawing-room, as on the solemn occasions of the visit of
parents, and these refreshments being partaken of, Miss Sed-
ley was at liberty to depart.

“Yowll go in and say good by to Miss Pinkerton, Becky!”
said Miss Jemima to a young lady of whom nobody took any
notice, and who was coming down stairs with her own band-
box.

“T suppose I must,” said Miss Sharp, calmly, and much to
the wonder of Miss Jemima; and the latter having knocked
at the door and receiving permission to come in, Miss Sharp
advanced in a very unconcerned manner, and said in French,
and with a perfect accent, “Mademoiselle, je viens vous faire
mes adieux.”

Miss Pinkerton did not understand French; she only direct-
ed those who did: but biting her lips and throwing up her
venerable and Roman-nosed head (on the top of which figured
a large and solemn turban), she said, “Miss Sharp, I wish you
a good morning.” As the Hammersmith Semiramis spoke,
she waved one hand both by way of adieu, and to give Miss
Sharp and opportunity of shaking one of the fingers of the
hand which was left for that purpose.

Miss Sharp only folded her own hands with a very frigid
smile and bow, and quite declined to accept the proffered hon-
or; on which Semiramis tossed up her turban more indignant-
ly than ever. In fact, it was a little battle between the-young
lady and the old one, and the latter was worsted. “Heaven
bless you, my child,” said she, embracing Amelia, and scowl-
ing the while over the girl’s shoulder at Miss Sharp. “Come
away, Becky,” said Miss Jemima, pulling the young woman
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 11

away in great alarm, and the drawing-room door closed upon
them forever.

Then came the struggle and parting below. Words refuse
to tell it. All the servants were there in the hall,—all the dear
friends,—all the young ladies,—the dancing-master who had
Just arrived; and there was such a scuffling, and hugging,
and kissing, and crying, with the hysterical yoops of Miss
Swartz, the parlor-boarder, from her room, as no pen can de-
pict, and as the tender heart would fain pass over. The em-
bracing was over; they parted,—that is, Miss Sedley parted
from her friends. Miss Sharp had demurely entered the car-
riage some minutes before. Nobody cried for leaving her.

Sambo of the bandy-legs slammed the carriage-door on his
young weeping mistress. He sprang up behind the carriage.
be cried Miss Jemima, rushing to the gate with a par-
cel.

“Tt’s some sandwiches, my dear,” said she to Amelia. “You
may be hungry, you know; and Becky, Becky Sharp, here’s a
book for you that my sister—that is I—Johnson’s Dixonary,
you know; you mustn’t leave us without that. Good bye.
Drive on, coachman. God bless you!”

And the._kind creature retreated into the garden, overcome
with emotions. eae

But, lo! and just as the coach drove off, Miss Sharp put her
pale face out of the window, and actually flung the book back
into the garden.

This almost caused Jemima to faint with terror. “Well, I
never,”—said she,—“what an audacious ” motion pre-
vented her from completing either sentence. The carriage
rolled away; the great gates were closed; the bell rang for
the dancing lesson. The world is before the two young ladies;
and so, farewell to Chiswick Mall.

 
12 VANITY FAIR.

CHAPTER II.

IN WHICH MISS SHARP AND MISS SEDLEY PREPARP TO
OPEN THE CAMPAIGN.

When Miss Sharp had performed the heroical act men-
tioned in the last chapter, and had seen the Dixonary, flying
over the pavement of the little garden, fall at length at the
feet of the astonished Miss Jemima, the young lady’s coun-
tenance, which had before worn an almost livid look of hatred,
assumed a smile that perhaps was scarcely more agreeable, and
she sank back in the carriage in an easy frame of mind, saying,
“So much for the Dixonary; and, thank God, I’m out of Chis-
wick.”

Miss Sedley was almost as flurried at the act of defiance
as Miss Jemima had been; for, consider, it was but one minute
that she had left school, and the impressions of six years
are not got over in that space of time. Nay, with some persons
those awes and terrors of youth last forever and ever. I know,
for instance, an old gentleman of sixty-eight, who said to me
one morning at breakfast, with a very agitated countenance,
“T dreamed last night that I was flogged by Dr. Raine.” Fancy
had carried him back five-and-fifty years in the course of that
evening. Dr. Raine and his rod were just as awful to him in
his heart, then, at sixty-eight, as they had been at thirteen.
If the Doctor, with a large birch, had appeared bodily to him,
even at the age of three-score and eight, and had said in awful
voice, “Boy, take down your pant * * *?” Well, well,
Miss Sedley was exceedingly alarmed at this act of insubor-
dination.

“How could you do so, Rebecca?” at last she said, after a
pause.

“Why, do you think Miss Pinkerton will come out and order
me back to the black-hole?” said Rebecca, laughing.

“No; but ie

“T hate the whole house,” continued Miss Sharp in a fury.
“T hope I may never set eyes on it again. I wish it were in the
bottom of the Thames, I do; and if Miss Pinkerton were there,
I wouldn’t pick her out, that I wouldn’t. O, how I should like
to see her floating in the water yonder, turban and all, with her

 
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 13

train streaming after her, and her nose like the beak of a
wherry.”

“Hush!” cried Miss Sedley.

“Why, will the black footman tell tales?” cried Miss Re-
becca, laughing. “He may go back and tell Miss Pinkerton
that I hate her with all my soul; and I wish he would; and I
wish I had a means of proving it, too. For two years I have
only had insults and outrage from her. I have been treated
worse than any servant in the kitchen. I have never had a
friend or a kind word, except from you. I have been made
to tend the little girls in the lower school-room, and to talk
French to the Misses, until I grew sick of my mother-tongue.
But that talking French to Miss Pinkerton was capital fun,
wasn’t it? She doesn’t know a word of French, and was too
proud to confess it. I believe it was that which made her
part with me; and so thank Heaven for French. Vive la
France! Vive ’Empereur! Vive Bonaparte!”

“OQ Rebecca, Rebecca, for shame!” cried Miss Sedley; for
this was the greatest blasphemy Rebecca had as yet uttered;
and in these days, in England, to say, “Long live Bonaparte!”
was as much as to say, “Long live Lucifer!” “How can you,
how dare you, have such wicked, revengeful thoughts?”

“Revenge may be wicked, but it’s natural,” answered Miss
Rebecca. “I’m no angel.” And, to say the truth, she cer-
tainly was not.

For it may be remarked in the course of this little conversa-
tion (which took place as the coach rolled along lazily by the
river-side) that though Miss Rebecca Sharp has twice had oc-
casion to thank Heaven, it has been, in the first place, for
ridding her of some person whom she hated, and secondly, for ..
enabling her to bring her enemies to some sort of perplexity or
confusion; neither of which are very amiable motives for relig-
ious gratitude, or such as would be put forward by persons of a
kind and placable disposition. Miss Rebecca was not, then, _
in the least kind placable. All the world used her ill, said this /
young misanthropist, and we may be pretty certain that per- |
sons whom all the world treats ill deserve entirely the treat-_.
ment they get. The world is a looking-glass, and gives back
to every man the reflection of his own face. Frown at it, and
it will in turn look sourly upon you; laugh at it, and with it,
and it is a jolly kind companion; and so let all young persons
take their choice. This is certain, that if the world neglected
Miss Sharp, she never was known to have done a good action
14 VANITY FAIR.

in behalf of anybody; nor can it be expected that twenty-four
young ladies should be as amiable as the heroine of this work,
Miss Sedley (whom we have selected for the very reason that
she was the best-natured of all, otherwise what on earth was
to have prevented us from putting up Miss Swartz or Miss
Crump, or Miss Hopkins, as heroine in her place?)—it could
not be expected that every one should be of the humble and
gentle temper of Miss Amelia Sedley, should take an opportun-
ity to vanquish Rebecca’s hard-heartedness and ill-humor, and,
by a thousand kind words and offices, overcome, for once at
least, her hostility to her kind.

Miss Sharp’s father was an artist, and in that quality had
given lessons of drawing at Miss Pinkerton’s school. He was
a clever man, a pleasant companion, a careless student, with
a great propensity for running into debt, and a partiality for
the tavern. When he was drunk, he used to beat his wife and
daughter; and the next morning, with a headache, he would
rail at the world for its neglect of his genius, and abuse, with
a good deal of cleverness, and sometimes with perfect reason,
the fools, his brother painters. As it was with the utmost
difficulty that he could keep himself, and as he owed money,
for a mile round Soho, where he lived, he thought to better
his circumstances by marrying a young woman of the French
nation, who was by profession an opera-girl. The humble
calling of her female parent, Miss Sharp never alluded to, but
used to state subsequently that the Entrechats were a noble
family of Gascony, and took great pride in her descent from
them. And curious it is, that as she advanced in life this young
lady’s ancestors increased in rank and splendor.

Rebecca’s mother had had some education somewhere, and
her daughter spoke French with purity and a Parisian accent.
It was in those days rather a rare accomplishment, and led to
her engagement with the orthodox Miss Pinkerton. For her
mother being dead, her father, finding himself not likely to
recover, after his third attack of delirium tremens, wrote a
manly and pathetic letter to Miss Pinkerton, recommending
the orphan child to her protection, and so descended to the
grave, after two bailiffs had quarreled over his corpse. Re-
becca was seventeen when she came to Chiswick, and was bound
over as an articled pupil; her duties being to talk French, as
we have seen; and her privileges to live cost fre@, and, with
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 583)

a few guineas a year, to gather scraps of knowledge from the
professors who attended the school.

She was small and slight in person; pale, sandy-haired, and
with eyes habitually cast down: when they looked up, they
were very large, odd, and attractive; so attractive that the Rev-
erend Mr. Crisp, fresh from Oxford, and curate to the Vicar
of Chiswick, the Reverend Mr. Flowerdew, fell in love with
Miss Sharp; being shot dead by a glance of her eyes which
was fired all the way across Chiswick Church from
the school-pew to the reading-desk. This infatuated
young man used sometimes to take tea with Miss Pink-
erton, to whom he had been presented by his mamma, and ac-
tually proposed something like marriage in an intercepted
note, which the one-eyed apple-woman was charged to deliver,
Mrs. Crisp was summoned from Buxton, and abruptly carried
off her darling boy; but the idea, even, of such an eagle in the
Chiswick dovecote caused a great flutter in the breast of Miss
Pinkerton, who would have sent away Miss Sharp, but that
she was bound to her under a forfeit, and who never could
thoroughly believe the young lady’s protestations that she had
never exchanged a single word with Mr. Crisp, except under
her own eyes on the two occasions when she had met him at
tea.

By the side of many tall and bouncing young ladies in the
establishment, Rebecca Sharp looked like a child. But she
had the dismal precocity of poverty. Many a dun had she
talked to, and turned away from her father’s door; many a
tradesman had she coaxed and wheedled into good-humor,
and into the granting of one meal more. She sat commonly
with her father who was very proud of her Wit, and heard the
talk of many of his wild companions,—often but ill-suited
for a girl to hear. But she never had been a girl, she said;
she had been a woman since she was eight years old. O why
did Miss Pinkerton let such a dangerous bird into her cage?

The fact is, the old lady believed Rebecca to be the meekest.
creature in the world, so admirably, on the occasions when her
father brought her to Chiswick, used Rebecca to perform the
part of the ingénue; and only a year before the arrangement
by which Rebecca had been admitted into her house, and when
Rebecca was sixteen years old, Miss Pinkerton majestically
and with a little speech made her a present of a doll,—which
was, by the way, the confiscated property of Miss Swindle, dis-
covered surreptitiously nursing it in school-hours. How the
16 VANITY FAIR.

father and daughter laughed as they trudged home together
after the evening party (it was on the occasion of the speeches,
when all the professors were invited), and how Miss Pinker-
ton would have raged had she seen the caricature of herself
which the little mimic, Rebecca, managed to make out of her
doll! Becky used to go through dialogues with it; it formed
the delight of Newman Street, Gerard Street, and the artists’
quarter; and the young painters, when they came to take
their gin-and-water with their lazy, dissolute, clever, jovial
senior, used regularly to ask Rebecca if Miss Pinkerton was at
home; she was well known to them, poor soul! as Mr. Law-
rence or President West. Once she had the honor to pass a
few days at Chiswick; after which she brought back Jemima,
and erected another doll as Miss Jemmy; for though that
honest creature had made and given her jelly and cake enough
for three children, and a seven-shilling piece at parting, the
girl’s sense of ridicule was far stronger than her gratitude,
and she sacrificed Miss Jemmy quite as pitilessly as her sister.

The catastrophe came, and she was brought to the Mall as
to her home. The rigid formality of the place suffocated her;
the prayers and the meals, the lessons and the walks, which
were arranged with a conventional regularity, oppressed her
almost beyond endurance; and she looked back to the freedom
and the beggary of the old studio in Soho with so much regret,
that everybody, herself included, fancied she was consumed
with grief for her father. She had a little room in the garret,
where the maids heard her walking and sobbing at night; but
it was with rage, and not with grief. She had not been much
of a dissembler, until now her loneliness taught her to feign.
She had never mingled in the society of women; her father,
reprobate as he was, was a man of talent; his conversation was
a thousand times more agreeable to her than the talk of such
of her own sex as she now encountered. The pompous vanity
of the old schoolmistress, the foolish good-humor of her sister,
the silly chat and scandal of the elder girls, and the frigid cor-
rectness of the governesses equally annoyed her; and she had no
soft maternal heart, this unlucky girl, otherwise the prattle and
talk of the younger children, with whose care she was chiefly
intrusted, might have soothed and interested her; but she
lived among them two years, and not one was sorry that she
went away. The gentle, tender-hearted Amelia Sedley was
the only person to whom she could attach herself in the least;
and who could help attaching herself to Amelia?
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 17

The happiness, the superior advantages, of the young women
round about her gave Rebecca inexpressible pangs of envy,
“What airs that girl gives herself, because she is an Earl’s
granddaughter,” she said of one. “How they cringe and bow
to that Creole, because of her hundred thousand pounds! [I
am a thousand times cleverer and more charming than that
creature, for all her wealth. I am as well bred as the Earl’s
granddaughter, for all her fine pedigree; and yet every one
passes me by here. And yet, when I was at my father’s, did
not the men give up their gayest balls and parties in order to
pass the evening with me?” She determined, at any rate, to
get free from the prison in which she found herself, and now
began to act for herself, and for the first time to make connect-
ed plans for the future.

She took advantage, therefore, of the means of study the
place offered her; and as she was already a musician and a
good linguist, she speedily went through the little course of
study which was considered necessary for ladies in those days.
Her music she practiced incessantly, and one day, when the
girls were out, and she had remained at home, she was over-
heard to play a piece so well, that Minerva thought wisely,
she could spare herself the expense of a master for the juniors,
and intimated to Miss Sharp that she was to instruct them in
music for the future.

The girl refused; and for the first time, and to the astonish-
ment of the majestic mistress of the school. “I am here to
speak French with the children,” Rebecca said, abruptly, “not
to teach them music, and save money for you. Give me money,
and I will teach them.”

Minerva was obliged to yield, and, of course, disliked her
from that day. “For five-and-thirty years,” she said, and with
great justice, “I have never seen the individual who has dared
in my own house to question my authority. I have nourished
a viper in my bosom.”

“A viper,—a fiddlestick,” said Miss Sharp to the old lady,
almost fainting with astonishment. “You took me because I
was useful. There is no question of gratitude between us. I
hate this place, and want to leave it. I will do nothing here
but what I am obliged to do.”

It was in vain that the old lady asked her if she was aware
she was speaking to Miss Pinkerton? Rebecca laughed in her
face, with a horrid, sarcastic, demoniacal laughter, that almost
sent the schoolmistress into fits. “Give me a sum of money,”

2

%
18 VANITY FAIR.

said the girl, “and get rid of me,—or, if you like better, get
me a good place as governess in a nobleman’s family,—you can
do so if you please.” And in their further disputes she always
returned to this point, “Get me a situation,—we hate each
other, and I am ready to go.”

Worthy Miss Pinkerton, although she had a Roman nose
and a turban, and was as tall as a grenadier, and had been up
to this time an irresistible princess, had no will or strength
like that of her little apprentice, and in vain did battle against
her, and tried to overawe her. Attempting once to scold her
in public, Rebecca hit upon the before-mentioned plan of an-
swering her in French, which quite routed the old woman. In
order to maintain authority in her school, it became necessary
to remove this rebel, this monster, this serpent, this firebrand;
and hearing about this time that Sir Pitt Crawley’s family
was in want of a governess, she actually recommended Miss
Sharp for the situation, firebrand and serpent as she was. “I
cannot, certainly,” she said, “find fault with Miss Sharp’s con-
duct, except to myself, and must allow that her talents and ac-
complishments are of a high order. As far as the head goes,
at least, she does credit to the educational system pursued at
my establishment.”

And so the schoolmistress reconciled the recommendation
to her conscience, and the indentures were canceled, and the
apprentice was free. The battle here described in a few lines,
of course, lasted some months. And as Miss Sedley, being
now in her seventeenth year, was about to leave the school,
and had a friendship for Miss Sharp (“’Tis the only point in
Amelia’s behavior,” said Minerva, “which has not been satis-
factory to her mistress”), Miss Sharp was invited by her friend
to pass a week with her at home, before she entered upon her
duties as governess in a private family.

Thus the world began for these two young ladies. For
Amelia it was quite a new, fresh, brilliant world, with all the
bloom upon it. It was not quite a new one for Rebecca. (In-
deed, if the truth must be told with respect to the Crisp affair,
the tart-woman hinted to somebody, who took an affidavit of
the fact to somebody else, that there was a great deal more
than was made public regarding Mr. Crisp and Miss Sharp,
and that his letter was in answer to another letter.) But who
can tell you the real truth of the matter? At all events, if Re-
becca was not beginning the world, she was beginning it over
again.
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 19

By the time the young ladies reached Kensington turnpike,
Amelia had not forgotten her companions but had dried her
tears, and had blushed very much and been delighted at a
young officer of the Life Guards, who spied her as he was rid-
ing by, and said, “A dem fine gal, egad!” and before the car-
riage arrived in Russell Square, a great deal of conversation
had taken place about the drawing-room, and whether or not
young ladies wore powder as well as hoops when presented,
and whether she was to have that honor: to the Lord Mayor’s
ball she knew she was to go. And when at length home was
reached, Miss Amelia Sedley skipped out on Sambo’s arm as
happy and as handsome a girl as any in the whole big city of
London. Both he and coachman agreed on this point,
and so did her father and mother, and go did every one of the
servants in the house, as they stood bobbing, and courtesying,
and smiling in the hall, to welcome their young mistress.

You may be sure that she showed Rebecca over every room
of the house, and everything in every one of her drawers; and
her books, and her piano, and her dresses, and all her neck-
laces, brooches, laces, and gimcracks. She insisted upon Rebec-
ca accepting the white carnelian and the turquoise rings, and a
sweet sprigged muslin, which was too small for her now,
though it would fit her friend to a nicety; and she determined
in her heart to ask her mother’s permission to present her
white Cashmere shawl to her friend. Could she not spare it?
and had not her brother Joseph just brought her two from
India?

When Rebecca saw the two magnificent Cashmere shawls
which Joseph Sedley had brought home to his sister, she said,
with perfect truth, “that it must be delightful to have a broth-
er,” and easily got the pity of the tender-hearted Amelia for
being alone in the world, an orphan without friends or kin-
dred.

“Not alone,” said Amelia; “you know, Rebecca, I shall al-
ways be your friend, and love you as a sister,—indeed, I will.”

“Ah, but to have parents, as you have, kind, rich, affec-
tionate parents, who give you everything you ask for; and
their love, which is more precious than all! My poor papa
could give me nothing, and I had but two frocks in all the
world! And then, to have a brother, a dear brother! 0,
how you must love him!”

Amelia laughed.
20 VANITY FAIR,

“What! don’t you love him? you, who say you love every-
body?”

“Yes, of course, I do—only——”

“Only what?” :

“Only Joseph doesn’t seem to care much whether I love him
or not. He gave me two fingers to shake when he arrived
after ten years’ absence! He was very kind and good, but he
scarcely ever speaks to me; I think he loves his pipe a great
deal better than his” * * * But here Amelia checked
herself, for why should she speak ill of her brother? “He was
very kind to me as a child,” she added; “I was but five years
old when he went away.” ;

“Tgn’t he very rich?” said Rebecca. “They say all Indian
nabobs are enormously rich.”

“I believe he has a very large income.”

“And is your sister-in-law a nice pretty woman?”

“La! Joseph is not married,” said Amelia, laughing again.

Perhaps she had mentioned the fact already to Rebecca,
but that young lady did not appear to have remembered it; in-
deed, vowed and protested that she expected to see a number
of Amelia’s nephews and nieces. She was quite disappointed
that Mr. Sedley was not married; she was sure Amelia had
said he was, and she doted so on little children.

“T think you must have had enough of them at Chiswick,”
said Amelia, rather wondering at the sudden tenderness on
her friend’s part; and indeed in later days Miss Sharp would
never have committed herself so far as to advance opinions,
the untruth of which would have been so easily detected. But
we must remember that she is but nineteen as yet, unused to
the art of deceiving, poor innocent creature! and making her
own experience in her own person. The meaning of the above
series of queries, as translated in the heart of this ingenious
young woman, was simply this: “If Mr. Joseph Sedley is rich
and unmarried, why should I not marry him? I have only a
fortnight to be sure, but there is no harm in trying.” And she
determined within herself to make this laudable attempt. She
redoubled her caresses to Amelia; she kissed the white car-
nelian necklace as she put it on; and vowed she would never,
never part with it. When the dinner-bell rang she went down
stairs with her arms round her friend’s waist, as is the habit
of young ladies. She was so agitated at the drawing-room
door, that she could hardly find courage to enter. “Feel my
heart, how it beats, dear!” said she to her friend.
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 21

“No, it doesn’t,” said Amelia. “Come in, don’t be fright-
ened. Papa won’t do you any harm.”

CHAPTER III.

REBECCA IS IN PRESENCE OF THE ENEMY.

A very stout, puffy man, in buckskins and Hessian boots,
with several immense neckcloths, that rose almost to his nose,
with a red-striped waistcoat and an apple-green coat with steel
buttons almost as large as crown pieces (it was the morning
costume of a dandy of blood of those days) was reading the
paper by the fire when the two girls entered, and bounced oft
his arm-chair, and blushed excessively, and hid his entire face
almost in his neckcloths at this apparition.

“Tt’s only your sister, Joseph,” said Amelia, laughing and
shaking the two fingers which he held out. “I’ve come home
for good, you know; and this is my friend, Miss Sharp, whom
you have heard me mention.”

“No, never, upon my word,” said the head under the neck-
cloth, shaking very much,—“that is, yes,—what abominably
cold weather, miss;” and herewith he fell to poking the fire
with all his might, although it was in the middle of June.

“He’s very handsome,” whispered Rebecca to Amelia, rather
loud.

“Do you think so?” said the latter. “T’ll tell him.”

“Darling! not for worlds,” said Miss Sharp, starting back
as timid as a fawn. She had previously made a respectful
virgin-like courtesy to the gentleman, and her modest eyes
gazed so perseveringly on the carpet that it was a wonder how
she should have found an opportunity to see him.

“Thank you for the beautiful shawls, brother,” said Amelia
to the fire poker. “Are they not beautiful, Rebecca?”

“Q heavenly!” said Miss Sharp, and her eyes went from the
carpet straight to the chandelier.

Joseph still continued a huge clattering at the poker and
tongs, puffing and blowing the while, and turning as red as
his yellow face would allow him. “I can’t make you such
handsome presents, Joseph,” continued his sister, “but while
I was at school, I have embroidered for you a very beautiful

pair of braces.”
22 VANITY FAIR.

“Good Gad! Amelia,” cried the brother, in serious alarm,
“what do you mean?” and plunging with all his might at the
bell-rope, that article of furniture came away in his hand, and
increased the honest fellow’s confusion. “For Heaven’s sake
see if my buggy’s at the door. I can’t wait. I must go. D——
that groom of mine. I must go.”

At this juncture the father of the family walked in, rattling
his seals like a true British merchant.—“What’s the matter,
Emmy?” says he.

“Joseph wants me to see if his—his buggy is at the door.
What is a buggy, papa?”

“Tt is a one-horse palanquin,” said the old gentleman, who
was a wag in his way.

Joseph at this burst out into a wild fit of laughter, in which,
encountering the eye of Miss Sharp, he stopped all of a sudden,
as if he had been shot.

“This young lady is your friend? Miss Sharp, I am very
happy to see you. Have you and Emmy been quarreling al-
ready with Joseph, that he wants to be off?”

“T promised Bonamy of our service, sir,” said Joseph, “to
dine with him.”

“OQ fie! didn’t you tell your mother you would dine here?”

“But in this dress it’s impossible.”

“Look at him; isn’t he handsome enough to dine anywhere,
Miss Sharp?”

On which, of course, Miss Sharp looked at her friend, and
they both set off in a fit of laughter, highly agreeable to the
old gentleman.

“Did you ever see a pair of buckskins like those at Miss
Pinkerton’s?” continued he, following up his advantage.

“Gracious heavens! Father,” cried Joseph.

“There now, I have hurt his feelings. Mrs. Sedley, my dear,
J have hurt your son’s feelings. I have alluded to his buck-
skins. Ask Miss Sharp if I haven’t? Come, Joseph, be friends
with Miss Sharp, and let us all go to dinner.”

“There’s a pillau, Joseph, just as you like it, and papa has
brought home the best turbot in Billingsgate.”

“Come, come, sir, walk down stairs with Miss Sharp, and I
will follow with these two young women,” said the father; and
he took an arm of wife and daughter and walked merrily off.

If Miss Rebecca Sharp had determined in her heart upon
making the conquest of this big beau, I don’t think, ladies,
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 23

we have any right to blame her; for though the task of hus-
band-hunting is generally, and with becoming modesty, en-
trusted by young persons to their mammas, recollect that Miss
Sharp had no kind parent to arrange these delicate matters for
her, and that if she did not get a husband for herself there
was no one else in the wide world who would take the trouble
off her hands. What causes young people to “come out,” but
the noble ambition of matrimony? What sends them trooping
to watering-places? What keeps them dancing till five o’clock
in the morning through a whole mortal season? What causes
them to labor at piano-forte sonatas, and to learn four songs
from a fashionable master at a guinea a lesson, and to play the
harp if they have handsome arms and neat elbows, and to wear
Lincoln Green toxophilite hats and feathers, but that they
may bring down some “desirable” young man with those kill-
ing bows and arrows of their? What causes respectable par-
ents to take up their carpets, set their houses topsy-turvy, and
spend a fifth of their year’s income in ball suppers and iced
champagne? Is it sheer love of their species, and an unadul-
terated wish to see young people happy and dancing? Psha!
they want to marry their daughters; and, as honest Mrs. Sed-
ley has, in the depths of her kind heart, already arranged a
score of little schemes for the settlement of her Amelia, so
also had our beloved but unprotected Rebecca determined to de
her very best to secure the husband, who was even more neces
sary for her than for her friend. She had a vivid imagination;
she had, besides, read the Arabian Nights and Guthrie’s Geog-
raphy; and it is a fact, that while she was dressing for dinner,
and after she had asked Amelia whether her brother was very
rich, she had built for herself a most magnificent castle in the
air, of which she was mistress, with a husband somewhere in
the background (she had not seen him as yet, and his figure
would not therefore be very distinct); she had arrayed herself
in an infinity of shawls, turbans, and diamond necklaces, and
had mounted upon an elephant to the sound of the march in
Bluebeard, in order to pay a visit of ceremony to the Grand
Mogul. Charming Alnaschar visions! it is the happy privi-
lege of youth to construct you, and many a fanciful young crea-
ture besides Rebecca Sharp has indulged in these delightful
day-dreams ere now! ;
Joseph Sedley was twelve years older than his sister Amelia.
He was in the East India Company’s Civil Service, and his
name appeared, at the period of which we write, in the Bengal
24 VANITY FAIR,

division of the East India Register, as collector of Boggley
Wollah, an honorable and lucrative post, as everybody knows:
in order to know to what higher posts Joseph rose in the ser-
vice, the reader is referred to the same periodical.

Boggley Wollah is situated in a fine, lonely, marshy, jungly
district, famous for snipe-shooting, and where not unfrequent-
ly you may flush a tiger. Ramgunge, where there is a magis-
trate, is only forty miles off, and there is a cavalry station
about thirty miles farther; so Joseph wrote home to his par-
ents, when he took possession of his collectorship. He had
lived for about eight years of his life, quite alone, at this
charming place, scarcely seeing a Christian face except twice
a year, when the detachment arrived to carry cff the revenues
which he had collected to Calcutta.

Luckily, at this time he caught a liver complaint, for the
cure of which he returned to Europe, and which was the source
of great comfort and amusement to him in his native ccun-
try. He did not live with his family while in London, but had
lodgings of his own, like a gay young bachelor. Before he
went to India he was too young to partake of the delightful
pleasures of a man about town, and plunged into them on his
return with considerable assiduity. He drove his horses in
the Park; he dined at the fashionable taverns (for the Orien-
tal Club was not as yet invented); he frequented the theaters,
as the mode was in those days, or made his appearance at the
opera, laboriously attired in tights and a cocked hat.

On returning to India, and ever after, he used to talk of
the pleasure of this period of his existence with great enthu-
siasm, and give you to understand that he and Brummel were
the leading bucks of the day. But he was as lonely here as
in his jungle at Boggley Wollah. He scarcely knew a single
soul in the metropolis; and were it not for his doctor, and the
society of his blue-pill, and his liver complaint, he must have
died of loneliness. He was lazy, peevish, and a bon-vivant;
the appearance of a lady frightened him beyond measure;
hence it was but seldom that he joined the paternal circle in
Russell Square, where there was plenty of gayety, and where
the jokes of his good-natured old father frightened his amour-
propre. His bulk caused Joseph much anxious thought and
alarm; now and then he would make a desperate attempt to
get rid of his superabundant fat; but his indolence and love
of good living speedily got the better of these endeavors at re-
form, and he found himself again at his three meals a day.
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 25

He never was well dressed; but he took the hugest pains to
adorn his big person, and passed many hours daily in that oceu-
pation. His valet made a fortune out of his wardrobe; his toilet-
table was covered with as many pomatums and essences as ever
were employed by an old beauty; he had tried, in order to give
himself a waist, every girth, stay, and waistband then in-
vented. Juike most fat men, he would have his clothes made
too tight, and took care they should be of the most brilliant
colors and youthful cut. When dressed at length, in the after-
noon, he would issue forth to take a drive with nobody in the
Park; and then would come back in order to dress again and
go and dine with nobody at the Piazza Coffee-House. He was
as vain as a girl; and perhaps his extreme shyness was one of
the results of his extreme vamty. If Miss Rebecca can get the
better of him, and at her first entrance into life, she is a young
person of no ordinary cleverness.

The first move showed considerable skill” When she called
Sedley a very handsome man, she knew that Amelia would
tell her mother, who would probably tell Joseph, or who, at
any rate, would be pleased by the compliment paid to her son.
All mothers are. If you had told Sycorax that her son Caliban
was as handsome as Apollo, she would have been pleased, witch
as she was. Perhaps, too, Joseph Sedley would overhear the
compliment,—Rebecca spoke loud enough,—and he did hear,
and (thinking in his heart that he was a very fine man) the
praise thrilled through every fiber of his big body, and made
it tingle with pleasure. Then, hcwever, came arecoil. “Is the
girl making fun of me?” he thought, and straightway he
bounced towards the bell, and was for cctreating, as we have
seen, when his father’s jokes and his mother’s entreaties caused
him to pause and stay where he was. He conducted the young
lady down to dinner in a dubious and agitated frame of mind.
“Toes she really think I am handsome?” thought he, “or is
she only making game of me?” We have talked of Joseph
Sedley being as vain asa girl. Heaven help us! the girls have
only to turn the tables, and say of one of their own sex,
“She is as vain as a man,” and they will have perfect reason.
The bearded creatures are quite as eager for praise, quite as
finikin over their toilets, quite as proud of their personal ad-
vantages, quite as conscious of their powers of fascination, as
any coquette in the world.

Down stairs, then, they went, Joseph very red and blush-
ing, Rebecca very modest, and holding her green eyes down-
26 VANITY FAIR.

wards. She was dressed in white, with bare shoulders as white
as snow,—the picture of youth, unprotected innocence, and
humble virgin simplicity. “I must be very quiet,” thought
Rebecca, “and very much interested about India.”

Now we have heard how Mrs. Sedley had prepared a fine
curry for her son, just as he liked it, and in the course of din-
ner a portion of this dish was offered to Rebecca. “What is
it?” said she, turning an appealing look to Mr. Joseph. ;

“Capital,” said he. His mouth was full of it: his face quite
red with the delightful exercise of gobbling. “Mother, it’s as
good as my own curries in India.” ;

“OQ I must try some, if it is an Indian dish,” said Miss Re-
becca. “I am sure everything must be good that comes from
there.”

“Give Miss Sharp some curry, my dear,” said Mr. Sedley,
laughing.

Rebecca had never tasted the dish before.

“Do you find it as good as everything else from India?” said
Mr. Sedley.

“O excellent!” said Rebecca, who was suffering tortures
with the cayenne pepper.

“Try a chili with it, Miss Sharp, said Joseph, really in-
terested.

“A chili,” said Rebecca, gasping. “O yes!” She thought
a chili was something cool, as its name imported, and was
served with some. “How fresh and green they look!” she said,
and put one into her mouth. It was hotter than the curry; flesh |
and blood could bear it no longer. She laid down her fork.
“Water, for Heaven’s sake, water!” sh2 cried. Mr. Sedley
burst out laughing (he was a coarse man, from the Stock Ex-
change, where they love all sorts of practical jokes). “They
are real Indian, I assure you,” said he. “Sambo, give Miss
Sharp some water.”

The paternal laugh was echoed by Joseph, who thought the
joke capital. The ladies only smiled a little. They thought
poor Rebecca suffered too much. She would have liked to
choke old Sedley, but she swallowed her mortification as well
as she had the abominable curry before it, and as soon as she
could speak, said, with a comical, good-humored air:—

“T ought to have remembered the pepper which the Princess
of Persia puts in the cream-tarts in the Arabian Nights. Do
you put cayenne into your cream-tarts in India, sir?”

Old Sedley began to laugh, and thought Rebecca was a good-
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO, 27

humored girl. Joseph simply said: “Cream-tarts, miss? Our
cream 1s very bad in Bengal. We generally use goats’ milk;
and, ’gad do you know I’ve got to prefer it!”

“You won't like everything from India now, Miss Sharp,”
said the old gentleman; but when the ladies had retired after
dinner, the wily old fellow said to his son: “Have a care, Joe;
that girl is setting her cap at you.”

_ “Pooh! nonsense!” said Joe, highly flattered. “TI recollect,
sir, there was a girl at Dumdum, a daughter of Cutler of the
Artillery, and afterwards married to Lance, the surgeon, who
made a dead set at me in the year *4—at me and Mulliga-
tawney, whom I mentioned to you before dinner,—a devilish
good fellow Mulligatawney; he’s a magistrate at Budgebudge,
and sure to be in council in five years. Well, sir, the Artillery
gave a ball, and Quintin, of the King’s 14th, said to me,
‘Sedley,’ said he, ‘I bet you thirteen to ten that Sophy Cutler
hooks either you or Mulligatawney before the rains.’ ‘Done,’
says I; and egad, sir,—this claret’s very good. Adamson’s
or Carbonell’s?”? * * *

A slight snore was the only reply; the honest stock-broker
was asleep, and so the rest of Joseph’s story was lost for that
day. But he was always exceedingly communicative in a man’s
party, and has told this delightful tale many scores of times
to his apothecary, Dr. Gollop, when he came to inquire about
the liver and the blue-pill.

Being an invalid, Joseph Sedley contented himself with
a bottle of claret besides his Madeira at dinner, and he man-
aged a couple of plates full of strawberries and cream, and
twenty-four little rout cakes, that were lying neglected in a
plate near him, and certainly (for novelists have the privilege
of knowing everything), he thought a great deal about the
girl up stairs. “A nice, gay, merry young creature,” thought
he to himself. “How she looked at me when I picked up her
handkerchief at dinner! She dropped it twice. Who’s that
singing in the drawing-room? ’Gad! shall I go up and see?”

But his modesty came rushing upon him with uncontroll-
able force. His father was asleep; his hat was in the hall;
there was a hackney-coach stand hard by in Southampton
Row. “Tl go and see the Forty Thieves,” said he, “and Miss
Decamp’s dance;” and he slipped away gently on the pointed
toes of his boots and disappeared, without waking his worthy

parent. ; ;
“There goes Joseph,” said Amelia, who was looking from
28 VANITY FAIR.

the open windows of the drawing-room while Rebecca was
singing at the piano. :

“Miss Sharp has frightened him away,” said Mrs. Sedley.
“Poor Joe! why will he be so shy?”

 

CHAPTER IV.

THE GREEN SILK PURSE.

Poor Joe’s panic lasted for two or three days, during which
he did not visit the house, nor during that period did Miss
Rebecca ever mention his name. She was all respectful grati-
tude to Mrs. Sedley; delighted beyond measure at the Ba-
zaars; and in a whirl of wonder at the theater, whither the
good natured lady took her. One day Amelia had a headache
and could not go upon some party of pleasure to which the
two young people were invited; nothing could induce her
friend to go without her. “What! you who have shown the
poor orphan what happiness and love are for the first time in
her life,—quit you? never!’ and the green eyes looked up
to heaven and filled with tears; and Mrs. Sedley could not
but own that her daughter’s friend had a charming kind heart
of her own.

As for Mr. Sedley’s jokes, Rebecca laughed at them with a
cordiality and perseverance which not a little pleased and
softened that good-natured gentleman. Nor was it with the
chiefs of the family alone that Miss Sharp found favor. She
interested Mrs. Blenkinsop by evincing the deepest sympathy
in the raspberry-jam preserving, which operation was then
going on in the Housekeeper’s room; she persisted in calling
Sambo “Sir,” and “Mr. Sambo,” to the delight of that at-
tendant; and she apologized to the lady’s maid for giving her
trouble in venturing to ring the bell, with such sweetness and
humility, that the Servants’ Hall was almost as charmed with
her as the Drawing-Room.

Once, in looking over some drawings which Amelia had
sent from school, Rebecca suddenly came upon one which
caused her to burst into tears and leave the room. It was
on the day when Joe Sedley made his second appearance.

Amelia hastened after her friend to know the cause of this
display of feeling, and the good-natured girl came back, with-
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO, 29

out her companion, rather affected too. “You know her father
was our drawing-master, mamma, at Chiswick, and used to
do all the best parts of our drawings.”

“My love, I’m sure I always heard Miss Pinkerton say that
he did not touch them,—he only mounted them.”

“It was called mounting, mamma. Rebecca remembers the
drawing, and her father working at it, and the thought of it
came upon her rather suddenly,—and so, you know, she—”

“The poor child is all heart,” said Mrs. Sedley.

‘ “T wish she could stay with us another week,” said Ame-
ja.

“She’s devilish like Miss Cutler that I used to meet at
Dumdum, only fairer. She’s married now to Lance, the Ar-
tillery Surgeon. Do you know, ma’am, that once Quintin, of
the 14th, bet me—”

“OQ Joseph, we know that story,” said Amelia, laughing.
“Never mind about telling that; but persuade mamma to
write to Sir Something Crawley for leave of absence for poor
dear Rebecca; here she comes, her eyes red with weeping.”

“Tm better now,” said the girl, with the sweetest smile
possible, taking good-natured Mrs. Sedley’s extended hand and
kissing it respectfully. “How kind you all are to me! All,”
she added, with a laugh, “except you, Mr. Joseph.”

“Me!” said Jeseph, meditating an instant departure. “Gra-
cious Heavens! Good Gad! Miss Sharp!”

“Yes; how could you be so cruel as to make me eat that
horrid pepperdish at dinner the first day I ever saw you? You
are not so good to me as dear Amelia.”

“He doesn’t know you so well,” cried Amelia.

“I defy anybody not to be good to you, my dear,” said her
mother.

“The curry was capital; indeed, it was,” said Joe, quite
gravely. “Perhaps there was not enough citron juice in it;
no, there was not.”

“And the chilis?”

“By Jove, how they made you cry out!” said Joe, caught
by the ridicule of the circumstance, and exploding in a fit
of laughter which ended quite suddenly, as usual.

“T shall take care how I let you choose for me another time,”
said Rebecca, as they went down again to dinner. “TI didn’t
think men were fond of putting poor harmless girls to pain.”

“By Gad, Miss Rebecca, I wouldn’t hurt you for the world.”

“No,” said she, “I know you wouldn’t;” and then she gave

u
86 VANITY FAIR.

him ever so gentle a pressure with her little hand, and drew
it back quite frightened, and looked first for one instant in
his face, and then down at the carpet-rods; and I am not
prepared to say that Joe’s heart did not thump at this little
involuntary, timid, gentle motion of regard on the part of the
simple girl.

It was an advance, and as such, perhaps, some ladies of in-
disputable correctness and gentility will condemn the action
as immodest; but, you see, poor, dear Rebecca had all this
work to do for herself. If a person is too poor to keep a
servant, though ever so elegant, he must sweep his own rooms;
if a dear girl has no dear mamma to settle matters with the
young man, she must do it for herself. And O what a mercy
it is that these women do not exercise their powers oftener!
We can’t resist them, if they do. Let them show ever so lit-
tle inclination, and men go down on their knees.at once; old
or ugly, it is all the same. And this I set down as a positive
truth. A woman with fair opportunities, and without an abso-
lute hump, may marry whom she likes. Only let us be
thankful that the darlings are like the beasts of the field, and
don’t know their own power. They would overcome us en-
tirely if they did.

“Kead!’ thought Joseph, entering the dining-room, “I
exactly begin to feel as I did at Dumdum with Miss Cutler.”
Many sweet little appeals, half tender, half jocular, did Miss
Sharp make to him about the dishes at dinner; for by this
time she was on a footing of considerable familiarity with the
family, and as for the girls, they loved each other like sisters.
Young unmarried girls always do, if they are in a house to-
gether for ten days.

As if bent upon advancing Rebecca’s plans in every way,
what must Amelia do, but remind her brother of a promise
made last Easter holidays,—“When I was a girl at school,”
said she, laughing,—a promise that he, Joseph, would take
her to Vauxhall. “Now,’ she said “that Rebecca is with us,
will be the very time.”

“QO, delightful!” said Rebecca, going to clap her hands;
but she recollected herself, and paused, like a modest creature,
as she was.

“To-night is not the night,” said Joe.

“Well, to-morrow.”

‘ “To-morrow your papa and I dine out,” said Mrs. Sed-
ey.
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. él

“You don’t suppose that ’m going, Mrs. Sed?” said her
husband, “‘and that a woman of your years and size is to catch
cold, in such an abominable damp place?”

“The children must have some one with them,” cried Mrs.
Sedley.

“Let Joe go,” said his father, laughing. “He’s big enough.”
At which speech even Mr. Sambo at the side-board burst out
laughing, and poor, fat Joe felt inclined to become a parricide
almost.

“Undo his stays!” continued the pitiless old gentleman.
“Fling some water in his face, Miss Sharp, or carry him up
stairs; the dear creature’s fainting. Poor victim! carry him
up; he’s as light as a feather!”

“If he stand this, sir, ’m d !” roared Joseph.

“Order Mr. Joe’s elephant, Sambo!” cried the father. “Send
to Exeter Change, Sambo;” but seeing Jos ready almost to
cry with vexation, the old joker stopped his laughter, and said,
holding out his hand to his son, “It’s all fair on the Stock
Exchange, Jos,—and, Sambo, never mind the elephant, but
give me and Mr. Jos a glass of champagne. Boney himself
hasn’t got such in his cellar, my boy!”

A goblet of champagne restored Joseph’s equanimity, and
before the bottle was emptied, of which as an invalid he took
two thirds, he had agreed to take the young ladies to Vaux-
hall.

“The girls must have a gentleman apiece,” said the old
gentleman. “Jos will be sure to leave Emmy in the crowd,
he will be so taken up with Miss Sharp here. Send to 96, and
ask George Osborne if he’ll come.”

At this, I don’t know in the least for what reason, Mrs.
Sedley looked at her husband and laughed. Mr. Sedley’s
eyes twinkled in a manner indescribably roguish, and he
looked at Amelia; and Amelia, hanging down her head,
blushed as only young ladies of seventeen know how to blush,
and as Miss Rebecca Sharp never blushed in her life,—at
least, not since she was eight years old, and when she was
caught stealing jam out of a cupboard by her godmother.
“Amelia had better write a note,” said her father; “and let
George Osborne see what a beautiful hand-writing we have
brought back from Miss Pinkerton’s. Do you remember when
you wrote to him to come on T'welfth-night, Emmy, and spelt
twelfth without the f?”

“That was years ago,” said Amelia.

 
32 VANITY FAIR.

“It seems like yesterday, don’t it, John?” said Mrs. Sedley
to her husband; and that night in a conversation which took
place in a front room in the second-floor, in a sort of tent,
hung round with chintz of a rich and fantastic India pattern,
and doublé with calico of a tender rose-color; in the interior
of which species of marquee was a feather-bed, on which were
two pillows, on which were two round red faces, one in a
laced night-cap, and one in a simple cotton one, ending in a
tassel:— in a curtain lecture, I say, Mrs. Sedley took her hus-
band to task for his cruel conduct to poor Joe.

“It was quite wicked of you, Mr. Sedley,” said she, “to tor-
ment the poor boy so.”

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

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

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

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

When morning came, the good-natured Mrs. Sedley no
longer thought of executing her threats with regard to Miss
Sharp; for though nothing is more keen, nor more com-
mon, nor more justifiable, than maternal jealousy, yet she
could not bring herself to suppose that the little, humble,
grateful, gentle governess would dare to look up to such a
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO, 33

magnificent personage as the Collector of Boggley Wollah.
The petition, too, for an extension of the young lady’s leave
of absence had already been despatched, and it would be diffi-
cult to find a pretext for abruptly dismissing her.

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

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

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

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

“Well, do you remember coming down in a gig to Dr.
Swishtail’s to see me, before you went to India, and giving

3
34 VANITY FAIR.

me half a guinea and a pat on the head? I always had an
idea that you were at least seven feet high, and was quite
astonished at your return from India to find you no taller
than myself.” :

“How good of Mr. Sedley to go to your school and give you
the money!” exclaimed Rebecca, in accents of extreme de-
light.

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

“J delight in Hessian boots,” said Rebecca. Jos Sedley, who
admired his own legs prodigiously, and always wore his orna-
mental chaussure, was extremely pleased at this remark,
though he drew his legs under his chair as it was made.

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

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

“OQ that you could stay longer, dear Rebecca,’ said Ame-
lia.

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

“Let us have some music, Miss Sedley—Amelia,” said
Gecrge, who felt at that moment an extraordinary, almost ir-
resistible impulse to seize the above-mentioned young woman
in his arms, and to kiss her in the face of the company; and
she looked at him for a moment, and if I should say that
they fell in love with each other at that single instant of
time, I should perhaps be telling an untruth, for the fact is,
that these two young people had been bred up by their par-
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 35

ents for this very purpose, and their banns had, as it were,
been read in their respective families any time these ten
years. They went off to the piano, which was situated, as
pianos usually are, in the back drawing-room; and as it was
rather dark, Miss Amelia, in the most unaffected way in the
world, put her hand into Mr. Osborne’s, who, of course, could
see the way among the chairs and ottomans a great deal bet-
ter than she could. But this arrangement left Mr. Joseph
Sedley téte-d-téte with Rebecca, at the drawing-room table,
where the latter was occupied in netting a green silk purse.

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

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

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

When two unmarried persons get together, and talk upon
such delicate subjects as the present, a great deal of confidence
and intimacy is presently established between them. There
is no need of giving a special report of the conversation which
now took place between Mr. Sedley and the young lady; for the
conversation, as may be judged from the foregoing specimen,
was not especially witty or eloquent; it seldom is in private
societies, or anywhere except in very high-flown and ingenious
novels. Ags there was music in the next room, the. talk was
carried on, of course, in a low and becoming tone, though,

‘for the matter of that, the couple in the next apartment would
not have been disturbed had the talking been ever so loud, so
occupied were they with their own pursuits.

Almost for the first time in his life, Mr. SedJey found him-
self talking, without the least timidity or hesitation, to a per-
son of the other sex. Miss Rebecca asked him a great number
of questions about India, which gave him an opportunity of
narrating many interesting anecdotes abcut that country and
himself. He described the balls at Government House, and
the manner in which they kept themselves cool in the hot
weather, with punkahs, tatties, and other contrivances; and
he was very witty regarding the number of Scotchmen whom
Lord Minto, the Governor-General, patronized; and then he
described a tiger-hunt; and the manner in which the mahout
of his elephant had been pulled off his seat by one of the in-
furiated animals. How delighted Miss Rebecca was at the
36 VANITY FAIR.

Government balls, and how she laughed at the stories of the
Scotch aides-de-camp, and called Mr. Sedley a sad, wicked,
satirical creature; and how frightened she was at the story of
the elephant! “For your mother’s sake, dear Mr. Sedley,”
she said, “for the sake of all your friends, promise never to
go on one of those horrid expeditions.” .

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

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

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

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

Having expended her little store of songs, or having stayed
long enough in the back drawing-room, it now appeared pre-
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO, 37

per to Miss Amelia to ask her friend to sing. “You would not
have listened to me,” she said to Mr. Osborne (though she
knew she was telling a fib), “had you heard Rebecca first.”

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

“You shall hear,” said Amelia; and Joseph Sedley was
actually polite enough to carry the candles to the piano. Os-
borne hinted that he should like quite as well to sit in the
dark; but Miss Sedley, laughing, declined to bear him com-
pany any farther, and the two accordingly followed Mr. Jo-
seph. Rebecca sang far better than her friend (though, of
course, Osborne was free to keep his opinion), and exerted her-
self to the utmost, and, indeed to the wonder of Amelia, who
had never known her perform so well. She sang a French
song, which Joseph did not understand in the least, and which
George confessed he did not understand, and then a number
of those simple ballads which were the fashion forty years
ago, and in which British tars, our King, poor Susan, blue-
eyed Mary, and the like, were the principal themes. They
~ are not, it is said, very brilliant, in a musical point of view,

but contain numberless good-natured, simple appeals to the
affections, which people understood better than the milk-and-
water lagrime, sospiri, and felicita of the eternal Donizettian
music with which we are favored nowadays.

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

- Ing-place.

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

the following effect:—

Ah! bleak and barren was the moor,
Ah! loud and piercing was the storm.
The cottage roof was sheltered sure,
The cottage hearth was bright and warm,—
An orphan boy the lattice passed,
And, as he marked its cheerful glow,
Felt doubly keen the midnight blast,
And doubly cold the fallen snow.
They marked him as he onward prest,
With fainting heart and weary limb;
Kind voices bade him turn and rest,
And gentle faces welcomed him,
38 VANITY FAIR.

The dawn is up,—the guest is gone,
The cottage hearth is blazing still;

Heaven pity all poor wanderers lone!
Hark to the wind upon the hill!

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

“Bravo, Jos!” said Mr. Sedley; on hearing the bantering
of which well-known voice, Jos instantly relapsed into an
alarmed silence, and quickly took his departure. He did not
lie awake all night thinking whether or not he was in love with’
Miss Sharp; the passion of love never interfered with the ap-
petite or the slumber of Mr. Joseph Sedley; but he thought
to himself how delightful it would be to hear such songs as
those after Cutcherry—what a distinguée girl she was,—
how she could speak French better than the Governor-Gen-
eral’s lady herself,—and what a sensation she would make at
the Calcutta balls. “It’s evident the poor devil’s in love with
me,” thought he. “She is just as rich as most of the girls who
come out to India. I might go farther and fare worse, egad!”
And in these meditations he fell asleep.

How Miss Sharp lay awake, thinking, will he come or not
to-morrow? need not be told here. To-morrow came, and,
as sure as fate, Mr. Joseph Sedley made his appearance before
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 39

luncheon, He had never been known before to confer such
an honor on Russell Square. George Osborne was somehow
there already (sadly “putting out” Amelia, who was writing
to her twelve dearest friends at Chiswick Mall), and Rebecca
was employed upon her yesterday’s work. As Joe’s buggy
drove up, and while, after his usual thundering knock and
pompous bustle at the door, the ex-Collector of Boggley Wol-
lah labored up stairs to the drawing-room, knowing glances
were telegraphed between Osborne and Miss Sedley, and the
pair, smiling archly, looked at Rebecca, who actually blushed
as she bent her fair ringlets over her netting. How her heart
beat as Joseph appeared,—Joseph, puffing from the stair-
case in shining, creaking boots,—Joseph, in a new waistcoat,
red with heat and nervousness, and blushing behind his
wadded neckcloth. It was a nervous moment for all; and as
for Amelia, I think she was more frightened than even the
people most concerned.

Sambo, who flung open the door and announced Mr. Jo-
seph, followed grinning, in the Collector’s rear, and bear-
ing two handsome nosegays of flowers, which the monster had
actually had the gallantry to purchase in Covent Garden Mar-
ket that morning; they were not as big as the hay-stacks
which ladies carry about with them nowadays in cones of
filigree paper; but the young women were delighted with the
gift, as Joseph presented one to each with an exceedingly
solemn bow.

“Bravo, Jos!” cried Osborne.

“Thank you, dear Joseph,” said Amelia, quite ready to kiss
her brother, if he were so minded. (And I think for a kiss
from such a dear creature as Amelia, I would purchase all Mr.
Lee’s conservatories out of hand.)

“QO heavenly, heavenly flowers!” exclaimed Miss Sharp,
and smelt them delicately, and held them to her bosom, and
cast up her eyes to the ceiling, in an ecstasy of admiration.
Perhaps she just looked first into the bouquet, to see whether
there was a d7llet-douz hidden among the flowers; but there
was no letter.

“Do they talk the language of flowers at Boggley Wollah,
Sedley?” asked Osborne, laughing.

“Pooh, nonsense!” replied the sentimental youth. “Bought
‘em at Nathan’s; very glad you like em; and eh, Amelia, my
dear, I bought a pineapple at the same time, which I gave to
Sambo. Let’s have it for tiffin; very cool and nice this hot
psrceect i

40 VANITY FAIR.

weather.” Rebecca said she had never tasted a pine, and
longed beyond everything to taste one.

So the conversation went on. I don’t know on what pre-
text Osborne left the room, or why, presently, Amelia went
away, perhaps to superintend the slicing of the pineapple;
but Jos was left alone with Rebecca, who had resumed her
work, and the green silk and the shining needles were quiver-
ing rapidly under her white slender fingers.

“What a beautiful, byoo-ootiful song that was you sang last
night, dear Miss Sharp!” said the Collector. “It made me cry
almost; ’pon my honor it did.”

“Because you have a kind heart, Mr. Joseph; all the Sed-
leys have, I think.”

“It kept me awake last night, and I was trying to hum it
this morning in bed; I was, upon my honor. Gollop, my
doctor, came in at eleven (for I’m a sad invalid, you know,
and see Gollop every day), and, ’gad! there I was, singing
away like—a robin.”

“OQ, you droll creature! Do let me hear you sing it.”

“Me? No, you, Miss Sharp; my dear Miss Sharp, do sing
it.”

“Not now, Mr. Sedley,” said Rebecca, with a sigh. “My
spirits are not equal to it; besides, I must finish the purse.
Will you help me, Mr. Sedley?”? And before he had time to
ask how, Mr. Joseph Sedley, of the East India Company’s
service, was actually seated téte-a-téte with a young lady, look-
ing at her with a mosi killing expression; his arms stretched ‘
out before her in an imploring attitude, and his hands bound

in a web of green silk, which she was unwinding.
* * *

* * * * * * *

In this romantic position Osborne and Amelia found the
interesting pair, when they entered to announce that tiffin
was ready. The skein of silk was just wound round the card;
but Mr. Jos had never spoken.

“I am sure he will to-night, dear,” Amelia said, as she
pressed Rebecca’s hand; and Sedley, too, had communed with
his soul, and said to himself, “’Gad, Pll pop the question at
Vauxhall.”
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 41

CHAPTER V.

DOBBIN OF OURS.

Cuff’s fight with Dobbin, and the unexpected issue of that
contest, will long be remembered by every man who was edu-
cated at Dr. Swishtail’s famous school. The latter youth (who
used to be called Heigh-ho Dobbin, Gee-ho Dobbin, and many
other names indicative of puerile contempt) was the quietest,
the clumsiest, and, as it seemed, the dullest of all Dr. Swish-
tail’s young gentlemen. His parent was a grocer in the city;
and it was bruited abroad that he was admitted into Dr.
Swishtail’s academy upon what are called “mutual principles,”
—that is to say, the expenses of his board and schooling were
defrayed by his father in goods, not money; and he stood
there—almost at the bottom of the school, in his scraggy
corduroys and jacket, through the seams of which his great
big bones were bursting—as the representative of so many
pounds of tea, candles, sugar, mottled-soap, plums (of which a
very mild proportion was supplied for the puddings of the
establishment), and other commodities. A dreadful day it
was for young Dobbin when one of the youngsters of the
school, having run into the town upon a poaching excursion
for hardbake and polonies, espied the cart of Dobbin & Rudge,
Grocers and Oilmen, Thames Street, London, at the Doc-
tor’s door, discharging a cargo of the wares in which the firm
dealt.

Young Dobbin had no peace after that. The jokes were
frightful, and merciless against him. “Hullo, Dobbin,” one
wag would say, “here’s good news in the paper. Sugar is
tis’, my boy.” Another would set a sum: “If a pound of
mutton-candles cost seven pence halfpenny, how much must
Dobbin cost?” and a roar would follow from all the circle of
young knaves, usher and all, who rightly considered that the
selling of goods by retail is a shameful and infamous practice,
meriting the contempt and scorn of all real gentlemen.

“Your father’s only a merchant, Osborne,” Dobbin said in
private to the little boy who had brought down the storm ~
upon him. At which the latter replied haughtily, “My fathex’s
a gentleman, and keeps his carriage;” and Mr. Wittfam Dob-

—
42 VANITY FAIR.

bin retreated to a remote outhouse in the play-ground, where
he passed a half-holiday in the bitterest sadness and woe. Who
amongst us is there that does not recollect similar hours of
bitter, bitter childish grief? Who feels injustice, who shrinks
before a slight, who has a sense of wrong so acute, and so glow-
ing a gratitude for kindness, as a generous boy? and how many
of those gentle souls do you degrade, estrange, torture, for
the sake of a little loose arithmetic and miserable dog-latin?

Now, William Dobbin, from an incapacity to acquire the
rudiments of the above language, as they are propounded in
that wonderful book the Eton Latin Grammar, was compelled
to remain among the very last of Doctor Swishtail’s scholars,
and was “taken down” continually by little fellows with pink
faces and pinafores when he marched up with the lower form,
a giant amongst them, with his downcast, stupefied look, his
dog’s-eared primer, and his tight corduroys. High and low
all made fun of him. They sewed up those corduroys, tight
as they were. They cut his bedstrings. They upset buckets
and benches, so that he might break his shins over them,
which he never failed to do. They sent him parcels, which,
when opened, were found to contain the paternal soap and
candles. There was no little fellow but had his jeer and joke
at Dobbin; and he bore everything quite patiently, and was
entirely dumb and miserable.

Cuff, on the contrary, was the great chief and dandy of the
Swishtail Seminary. He smuggled wine in. He fought the
town-boys. Ponies used to come for him to ride home on
Saturdays. He had his top-boots in his room, in which he
used to hunt in the holidays. He had a gold repeater; and
took snuff like the Doctor. He had been to the Opera, and
knew the merits of the principal actors, preferring Mr. Kean
to Mr. Kemble. We could knock you off forty Latin verses
in an hour. He could make French poetry. What else didn’t
he know, or couldn’t he do? They said even the Doctor him-
self was afraid of him.

Cuff, the unquestioned king of the school, ruled over his
subjects, and bullied them, with splendid superiority. This
one blacked his shoes; that toasted his bread; others would
fag out, and give him balls at cricket during whole summer
afternoons. “Figs” was the fellow whom he despised most,
and with whom, though always abusing him, and sneering at
him, he scarcely ever condescended to hold personal communi-
cation.
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 43

One day in private the two young gentlemen had had a
difference. Figs, alone in the school-room, was blundering
over a home letter; when Cuff, entering, bade him go upon
some message, of which tarts were probably the subject.

il can't,” says Dobbin; “I want to finish my letter.”

_ “You can’t?” says Mr. Cuff, laying hold of that document
(in which many words were scratched out, many were mis-
spelt, on which had been spent I don’t know how much
thought, and labor, and tears; for the poor fellow was writ-
ing to his mother, who was fond of him, although she was
a grocer’s wife, and lived in a back parlor in Thames Street),—
“you can’t?” says Mr. Cuff. “I should like to know why, pray?
Can’t you write to old Mother Figs to-morrow?”

“Don’t call names,” Dobbin said, getting off the bench, very
nervous.

“Well, sir, will you go?” crowed the cock of the school.

“Put down the letter,’ Dobbin replied; “no gentleman
readth letterth.”

“Well, now will you go?” says the other.

“No, I won’t. Don’t strike, or ’ll thmash you,” roars out
Dobbin, springing to a leaden inkstand, and looking so
wicked, that Mr. Cuff paused, turned down his coat-sleeves
again, put his hands into his pockets, and walked away with a
sneer. But he never meddled personally with the grocer’s
boy after that; though we must do him the justice to say
he eo: spoke of Mr. Dobbin with contempt behind his
back.

Some time after this interview, it happened that Mr. Cuff,
on a sunshiny afternoon, was in the neighborhood of poor
William Dobbin, who was lying under a tree in the play-
ground, spelling over a favorite copy of the Arabian Nights
which he had,—apart from the rest of the school, who were
pursuing their various sports,—quite lonely, and almost hap-
py. If people would but leave children to them-
selves; if teachers would cease to bully them; if par-
ents would not insist upon directing their thoughts, and
dominating their feclings,—those feelings and thoughts which
are a mystery to all (for how much do you and I know of each
other, of our children, of our fathers, of our neighbor, and
how far more beautiful and sacred are the thoughts of the
poor lad or girl whom you govern likely to be, than those
of the dull and world-corrupted person who rules him?)—if,
44 VANITY FAIR,

I say, parents and masters would leave their children alone
a little more,—small harm would accrue, although a less quan-
tity of asin presenti might be acquired.

Well, William Dobbin had for once forgotten the world,
and was away with Sindbad the Sailor in the Valley of Dia-
monds, or with Prince Ahmed and the Fairy Peribanou in that
delightful cavern where the Prince found her, and whither
we should all like to make a tour, when shrill cries, as of a lit-
tle fellow weeping, woke up his pleasant revery; and look-
ing up, he saw Cuff before him, belaboring a little boy.

It was the lad who had peached upon him about the grocer’s
cart; but he bore little malice, not at least towards the young
and small. “How dare you, sir, break the bottle?’ says
Cuff to the little urchin, swinging a yellow cricket-stump over
him.

The boy had been instructed to get over the play-ground
wall (at a selected spot where the broken glass had been re-
moved from the top, and niches made convenient in the brick);
to run a quarter of a mile; to purchase a pint of rum-shrub
on credit; to brave all the Doctor’s outlying spies, and to
clamber back into the play-ground again; during the per-
formance of which feat, his foot had slipped, and the bottle
was broken, and the shrub had been spilt, and his pantaloons
had been damaged, and he appeared before his employer a per-
fectly guilty and trembling, though harmless wretch.

“How dare you, sir, break it?” says Cuff; “you blundering
little thief. You drank the shrub, and now you pretend to
have broken the bottle. Hold out your hand, sir.”

Down came the stump with a great heavy thump on the
child’s hand. A moan followed. Dobbin looked up, The
Prince Peribanou had fled into the inmost cavern with Prince
Ahmed; the Roc had whisked away Sindbad the Sailor out
of the Valley of Diamonds out of sight, far into the clouds;
and there was every-day life before honest William; and a
big boy beating a little one without cause.

“Hold out your other hand, sir,” roars Cuff to his little
schoolfellow, whose face was distorted with pain. Dobbin
quivered, and gathered himself up in his narrow old clothes.

“Take that, you little devil!” cried Mr. Cuff, and down
came the wicket again on the child’s hand. Don’t be horri-
fied, ladies, every boy at a public school has done it. Your
children will so do and be done by, in all probability. Down
came the wicket again; and Dobbin started up.
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 45

I can’t tell what his motive was. Torture in a public school
is as much licensed as the knout in Russia. It would be un-
gentlemanlike (in a manner) to resist it. Perhaps Dobbin’s
foolish soul revolted against that exercise of tyranny; or per-
haps he had a hankering feeling of revenge in his mind, and
longed to measure himself against that splendid bully and
tyrant, who had all the glory, pride, pomp, circumstance,
banners flying, drums beating, guards saluting, in the place.
Whatever may have been his incentive, however, up he
sprang, and screamed out, “Hold off, Cuff; don’t bully that
child any more; or I’lI1—”

“Or you'll what?” Cuff asked in amazement at this inter-
ruption. “Hold out your hand, you little beast.”

“Tl give you the worst thrashing you ever had in your life,
Dobbin said, in reply to the first part of Cuff’s sentence; and
little Osborne, gasping and in tears, looked up with wonder
and incredulity at seeing this amazing champion put up sud-
denly to defend him; while Cuff’s astonishment was scarcely
less. Fancy our late monarch George III. when he heard of
the revolt of the North American colonies; fancy brazen Go-
liah when little David stepped forward and claimed a meet-
ing; and you have the feelings of Mr. Reginald Cuff when this
rencontre was proposed to him.

“After school,” says he, of course; after a pause and a look,
as much as to say, “Make your will, and communicate your
best wishes to your friends between this time and that.”

“As you please,” Dobbin said. “You must be my bottle-
holder, Osborne.”

“Well, if you like,” little Osborne replied; for you see his
papa kept a carriage, and he was rather ashamed of his cham-
pion.

”

Yes, when the hour of battle came, he was almost ashamed
to say, “Go it, Figs;” and not a single other boy in the place
uttered that cry for the first two or three rounds of this fa-
mous combat; at the commencement of which the scientific
Cuff, with a contemptuous smile on his face, and as light and
as gay as if he was at a ball, planted his blows upon his
adversary, and floored that unlucky champion three times
running. At each fall there was a cheer; and everybody was
anxious to have the honor of offering the conqueror a knee.

“What a licking I shall get when it’s over!” young Os-
borne thought, picking up his man. “You'd best give in,”
46 VANITY FAIR,

he said to Dobbin; “it’s only a thrashing, Figs, and you
know I’m used to it.” But Figs, all whose limbs were in a
quiver, and whose nostrils were breathing rage, put his little
bottle-holder aside, and went in for a fourth time.

_As he did not in the least know how to parry the blows that
were aimed at himself, and Cuff had begun the attack on the
three preceding occasions, without ever allowing his enemy to
strike, Figs now determined that he would commence the en-
gagement by a charge on his own part; and accordingly, be-
ing a left-handed man, brought that arm into action, and hit
out a couple of times with all his might,—once at Mr. Cufi’s
left eye, and once on his beautiful Roman nose.

Cuff went down this time to the astonishment of the assem-
bly. “Well hit, by Jove,” says little Osborne, with the air of
a connoisseur, clapping his man on the back. “Give it him
with the left, Figs, my boy.”

Figs’s left made terrific play during all the rest of the com-
bat. Cuff went down every time. At the sixth round, there
were almost as many fellows shouting out, “Go it, Figs!” as
there were youths exclaiming, “Go it, Cuff!” At the twelfth
round the latter champion was all abroad, as the saying is,
and had lost all presence of mind and power of attack or de-
fense. Figs, on the contrary, was as calm as a Quaker. His
face being quite pes his eyes shining open, and a great cut
on his under lip bleeding profusely, gave this young fellow a
fierce and ghastly air, which perhaps struck terror into many
spectators, Nevertheless, his intrepid adversary prepared to
close for the thirteenth time.

If I had the pen of a Napier, or a Bell’s Life, I should like
to describe this combat properly. It was the last charge of
the Guard (that is, it would have been, only Waterloo had
not yet taken place),—it was Ney’s column breasting the hill
of La Haye Sainte, bristling with ten thousand bayonets,
and crowned with twenty eagles,—it was the shout of the beet-
eating British, as, leaping down the hill, they rushed to hug
the enemy in the savage arms of battle,—in other words, Cufit
coming up full of pluck, but quite reeling and groggy, the
Fig-merchant put in his left as usual on his adversary’s nose,
and sent him down for the last time.

“I think that will do for him,” Figs said, as his opponent
dropped as neatly on the green as I have seen Jack Spot’s
ball plump into the pocket at billiards; and the fact is, when
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO, 47

time was called, Mr. Reginald Cuff was not able, or did not
choose, to stand up again.

And now all the boys set up such a shout for Figs as would
make you think he had been their darling champion through
the whole battle; and as absolutely brought Dr, Swishtail out
of his study, curious to know the cause of the uproar. He
threatened to flog Figs violently, of course; but Cuff, who had
come to himself by this time, and was washing his wounds,
stood up and said, “It’s my fault, sir,—not Figs’s—not Dob-
bin’s. I was bullying a little boy; and he served me right.”
By which magnanimous speech he not only saved his conqueror
a whipping, but got back all his ascendency over the boys,
which his defeat had nearly cost him.

Young Osborne wrote home to his parents an account of the
transaction,

“Sugarcane House, Richmond, March, 18—,

“Dear Mamma: I hope you are quite well. I should be much
obliged to you to send me a cake and five shillings. There has
been a fight here between Cuff & Dobbin. Cuff, you know, was
the Cock of the School. They fought thirteen rounds, and Dob-
bin Licked. So Cuff is now Only Second Cock, The fight was
about me. Cuff was licking me for breaking a bottle of milk, and
Figs wouldn’t stand it. We call him Figs because his father is a
Grocer—Figs & Rudge, Thames St., City—I think as he fought
for me you ought to buy your Tea & Sugar at his father’s. Cuff
goes home every Saturday, but can’t this, because he has 2 Black
Eyes. He has a white Pony to come and fetch him, and a groom
in livery on a bay mare. I wish my Papa would let me have a
Pony, and I am

“Your dutiful Son,

“GEORGE SEDLEY OSBORNE.

“P, $.—Give my love to little Emmy. I am cutting her out a
Coach in cardboard. Please not a seed-cake, but a plum-cake.”

In consequence of Dobbin’s victory, his character rose pro-
digiously in the estimation of all his schoolfellows, and the
name of Figs, which had been a byword of reproach, became
as respectable and popular a nickname as any other in use in
the schoo]. “After all, it’s not his fault that his father’s a
grocer,” George Osborne said, who, though a little chap, had
a very high popularity among the Swishtail youth; and his
opinion was received with great applause. It was voted low to
sneer at Dobbin about this accident of birth. “Old Figs”
grew to be a name of kindness and endearment; and the sneak
of an usher jeered at him no longer,
é

48 VANITY FAIR.

And Dobbin’s spirit rose with his altered circumstances.
He made wonderful advances in scholastic learning. The su-
perb Cuff himself, at whose condescension Dobbin could only
blush and wonder, helped him on with his Latin verses;
“coached” him in play-hours; carried him triumphantly out
of the little-boy class into the middle-sized form; and even
there got a fair place for him. It was discovered, that al-
though dull at classical learning, at mathematics he was un-
commonly quick. To the contentment of all he passed third
in algebra, and got a French prize-book, at the public mid-
summer examination. You should have seen his mother’s
face when Telemaque (that delivious romance) was presented
to him by the Doctor in the face of the whole school and the
parents and company, with an inscription to Gulielmo Dobbin.
All the boys clapped hands in token of applause and
sympathy. His blushes, his stumbles, his awkwardness, and
the number of feet which he crushed as he went back to his
place, who shall describe or calculate? Old Dobbin, his fa-
ther, who now respected him for the first time, gave him two
guineas publicly; most of which he spent in a general tuck-
out for the school; and he came back in a tail-coat after the

holidays.
+ ~ Dobbin was much too modest a young fellow to suppose

that this happy change in all his circumstances arose from his

‘own generous and manly disposition; he chose, from some

Ranier

perverseness, to attribute his good fortune to the sole agency
and benevolence of little George Osborne, to whom henceforth
he vowed such a love and affection as is only felt by children,—
such an affection, as we read in the charming fairy-book, un-
couth Orson had for splendid young Valentine his conqueror.
He flung himself down at little Osborne’s feet, and loved him.
Even before they were acquainted, he had admired Osborne
in secret. Now he was his valet, his dog, his man Friday. He
believed Osborne to be the possessor of every perfection, to be
the handsomest, the bravest, the most active, the cleverest,
the most generous of created boys. He shared his money with
him: bought him unaccountable presents of knives, pencil-
cases, gold seals, toffee, Little Warblers, and romantic books,
with large colored pictures of knights and robbers, in many
of which latter you might read inscriptions to George Sedley
Osborne, Esquire, from his attached friend William Dobbin,
—the which tokens of homage George received very gracious-
ly, as became his superior merit.
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 49

So that when Lieutenant Osborne, coming to Russell
Square on the day of the Vauxhall party, said to the ladies,
“Mrs. Sedley, ma’am, I hope you have room; I’ve asked Dob-
bin of ours to come and dine here, and go with us to Vauxhall.
He’s almost as modest as Jos.”

“Modesty! pooh,” said the stout gentleman, casting a vain-
queur look at Miss Sharp.

“He is,—but you are incomparably more graceful, Sedley,”
Osborne added, laughing. “I met him at the Bedford, when I
went to look for you; and I told him that Miss Amelia was
come home, and that we were all bent on going out for a
night’s pleasuring; and that Mrs. Sedley had forgiven his
breaking the punch-bowl at the child’s party. Don’t you re-
member the catastrophe, ma’am, seven years ago?”

“Over Mrs. Flamingo’s crimson silk gown,” said good-na-
tured Mrs. Sedley. “What a gawky it was! And his sisters
are not much more graceful. Lady Dobbin was at Highbury
last night with three of them. Such figures! my dears.”

“The Alderman’s very rich, isn’t he?” Osborne said, archly.
“Don’t you think one of the daughters would be a good spec
for me, ma’am?”

“You foolish creature! Who would take you, I should like
to know, with your yellow face?”

“Mine a yellow face? Stop till you see Dobbin. Why, he
had the yellow fever three times; twice at Nassau, and once
at St. Kitts.”

“Well, well, yours is quite yellow enough for us. Isn’t it,
Emmy?” Mrs. Sedley said: at which speech Miss Amelia only
made a smile and a blush; and looking at Mr. George Os-
borne’s pale, interesting countenance, and those beautiful
black, curling, shining whiskers, which the young gentleman
himself regarded with no ordinary complacency, she thought
in her little heart, that in his Majesty’s army, or in the wide
world, there never was such a face or such a hero. “I don’t
care about Captain Dobbin’s complexion,” she said, “or about
his awkwardness. I shall always like him, I know;” her little
reason being that he was the friend and champion of George.

“Thereisnotafinerfellow in the service,” Osborne said, “nor
a better officer, though he is not an Adonis, certainly.” And
he looked towards the glass himself with much naiveté; and
in so doing, caught Miss Sharp’s eye fixed keenly upon him,
at which he blushed a little, and Rebecca thought in her heart,

4
50 VANITY FAIR.

“Ah, mon beaw Monsieur! I think I have your gage,”—the
little artful minx!

That evening, when Amelia came tripping into the draw-
ing-room in a white muslin frock, prepared for conquest at
Vauxhall, singing like a lark and as fresh as a rose, a very tall,
ungainly gentleman, with large hands and feet, and large ears,
set off by a closely cropped head of black hair, and in the
hideous military frogged coat and cocked-hat of those times,
advanced to meet her, and made her one of the clumsiest bows
that was ever performed by a mortal.

This was no other than Captain William Dobbin, of his
Majesty’s Regiment of Foot, returned from yellow fever,
in the West Indies, to which the fortune of the service had
ordered his regiment, whilst so many of his gallant comrades
were reaping glory in the Peninsula.

He had arrived with a knock so very timid and quiet, that
it was inaudible to the ladies up stairs: otherwise, you may.
be sure, Miss Amelia would never have been so bold as to come
singing into the room. As it was, the sweet fresh little voice
went right into the Captain’s heart, and nestled there. When
she held out her hand for him to shake, before he enveloped
it in his own, he paused, and thought, “Well, is it possible,—
are you the little maid I remember in the pink frock, such a
short time ago,—the night I upset the punch-bowl, just after
I was gazetted? Are you the little girl that George Osborne
said should marry him? What a blooming young creature
you seem, and what a prize the rogue has got!” All this he
thought, before he took Amelia’s hand into his own, and as he
let his cocked hat fall.

His history since he left school, until the very moment when
we have the pleasure of meeting him again, although not fully
narrated, has yet, I think, been indicated sufficiently for an
ingenious reader by the conversation in the last page. Dob-
bin, the despised grocer, was Alderman Dobbin,—Alderman
Dobbin was Colonel of the City Light Horse, then burning
with military ardor to resist the French Invasion. Colonel
Dobbin’s corps, in which old Mr. Osborne himself was but an
indifferent corporal, had been reviewed by the Sovereign and
the Duke of York; and the Colonel and alderman had been.
knighted. His son had entered the army; and young Os-
borne followed presently in the same regiment. They had
served in the West Indies and in Canada. Their regiment had
just come home, and the attachment of Dobbin to George Os-

 
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 51

borne was as warm and generous now as it had been when the
two were school-boys.

So these worthy people sat down to dinner presently. They
talked about war and glory, and Boney and Lord Wellington,
and the last Gazette. In those famous days every gazette had
a victory in it, and the two gallant young men longed to see
their own names in the glorious list, and cursed their unlucky
fate to belong to a regiment which had been away from the
chances of honor. Miss Sharp kindled with this exciting talk,
but Miss Sedley trembled and grew quite faint as she heard it.
Mr. Jos told several of his tiger-hunting stories, finished the
one about Miss Cutler and Lance the surgeon; helped Rebec-
ca to everything on the table, and himself gobbled and drank
a great deal.

He sprang to open the door for the ladies, when they re-
tired, with the most killing grace, and, coming back to the
table, filled himself bumper after bumper of claret, which he
swallowed with nervous rapidity.

“He’s priming himself,” Osborne whispered to Dobbin, and
at length the hour and the carriage arrived for Vauxhall.

CHAPTER VI.

VAUXHALL,

I know that the tune I am piping is a very mild one (al-
though there are some terrific chapters coming presently), and
must beg the good-natured reader to remember that we are
only discoursing at present about a stock-broker’s family in
Russell Square, who are taking walks, or luncheon, or dinner,
or talking and making love as people do in common life, and
without a single passionate and wrongful incident to mark
the progress of their loves. The argument stands thus,—Os-
borne, in love with Amelia, has asked an old friend to dinner
and to Vauxhall,—Jos Sedley is in love with Rebecca. Will
he marry her? That is the great subject now in hand.

We might have treated this subject in the genteel, or in
the romantic, or in the facetious manner. Suppose we had
laid the scene in Grosvenor Square, with the very same adven-
tures,—would not some people have listened? Suppose we
52 VANITY FAIR.

had shown how Lord Joseph Sedley fell in love, and the Mar-
quis of Osborne became attached to Lady Amelia, with the
full consent of the Duke, her noble father; or instead of the
supremely genteel, suppose we had resorted to the entirely low,
and described what was going on in Mr. Sedley’s kitchen;
—how black Sambo was in love with the cook (as indeed he
was), and how he fought a battle with the coachman in her
behalf; how the knife-boy was caught stealing a cold shoulder
of mutton, and Miss Sedley’s new femme de chambre refused
to go to bed without a wax candle; such incidents might be
made to provoke much delightful laughter, and be supposed
to represent scenes of “life.” Or if, on the contrary, we had
taken a fancy for the terrible, and made the lover of the new
Semme de chambre a professional burglar, who bursts into
the house with his band, slaughters black Sambo at the feet
of his master, and carries off Amelia in her night-dress, not
to be let loose again till the third volume, we should easily
have constructed a tale of thrilling interest, through the fiery
chapters of which the reader should hurry, panting. But my
readers must hope for no such romance, only a homely story,
and must be content with a chapter about Vauxhall, which
is so short that it scarce deserves to be called a chapter at all.
And yet it is a chapter, and a very important one, too. Are
not there little chapters in everybody’s life, that seem to be
nothing, and yet affect all the rest of the history?

Let us then step into the coach with the Russell Square
party, and be off to the Gardens. There is barely room be-
tween Jos and Miss Sharp, who are on the front seat. Mr.
Osborne sitting bodkin opposite, between Captain Dobbin and
Amelia.

Every soul in the coach agreed that on that night Jos would
propose to make Rebecca Sharp Mrs. Sedley. The parents at
home had acquiesced in the arrangement, though, between
ourselves, old Mr. Sedley had a feeling very much akin to
contempt for his son. He said he was vain, selfish, lazy, and
effeminate. He could not endure his airs, as a man of fashion,
and laughed heartily at his pompous, braggadocio stories. “I
shall leave the fellow half my property,” he said; “and he will
have, besides, plenty of his own; but as I am perfectly sure
that if you, and I, and his sister were to die to-morrow he
would say, ‘Good Gad! and eat his dinner just as well as
usual, I am not going to make myself anxious about him.
Let him marry whom he likes. It’s no affair of mine.”
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 53

Amelia, on the other hand, as became a young woman of
her prudence and temperament, was quite enthusiastic for the
match. Once or twice Jos had been on the point of sayliy
something very important to her, to which she was most will-
ing to lend an ear, but the fat fellow could not be brought
to unbosom himself of his secret, and very much to his sister's
disappointment he only rid himself of a large sigh and turned
away.

This mystery served to keep Amelia’s gentle bosom in a
perpetual flutter of excitement. If she did not speak with Re-
becca on the tender subject, she compensated herself with
long and intimate conversations with Mrs. Blenkinsop, the
housekeeper, who dropped some hints to the lady’s-maid, who
may have cursorily mentioned the matter to the cook, who
carried the news, I have no doubt, to all the tradesmen, so
that Mr. Jos’s marriage was now talked of by a very consid-
erable number of persons in the Russell Square world.

It was, of course, Mrs. Sedley’s opinion that her son would
demean himself by a marriage with an artist’s daughter. “But,
lor’, ma’am,” ejaculated Mrs. Blenkinsop, “we was only grocers
when we married Mr. 8., who was a stock-broker’s clerk, and
we hadn’t five hundred pounds among us, and we’re rich
enough now.” And Amelia was entirely of this opinion, to
which, gradually, the good-natured Mrs. Sedley was brought.

Mr. Sedley was neutral. “Let Jos marry whom he likes,”
he said; “it’s no affair of mine. This girl has no fortune; no
more had Mrs. Sedley. She seems good-humored and clever,
and will keep him in order, perhaps. Better she, my dear,
than a black Mrs. Sedley and a dozen of mahogany grandchil-
dren.”

So that everything seemed to smile upon Rebecca’s fortunes.
She took Jos’s arm, as a matter of course, on going to dinner;
she had sat by him on the box of his open carriage (a most
tremendous “buck” he was, as he sat there, serene, in state,
driving his grays), and though nobody said a word on the sub-
ject of the marriage, everybody seemed to understand it. All
she wanted was the proposal, and ah! how Rebecca now felt
the want of a mother!—a dear, tender mother, who would
have managed the business in ten minutes, and, in the course
of a little delicate confidential conversation, would have ex-
tracted the interesting avowal from the bashful lips of the

young man!
54 VANITY FAIR.

Such was the state of affairs as the carriage crossed West-
minster Bridge. ;

The party was landed at the Royal Gardens in due time.
As the majestic Jos stepped out of the creaking vehicle, the
crowd gave a cheer for the fat gentleman, who blushed and
looked very big and mighty, as he walked away with Rebecca
under his arm. George, of course, took charge of Amelia.
She looked as happy as a rose-tree in sunshine.

“I say, Dobbin,” says George, “just look to the shawls and
things, there’s a good fellow.” And so while he paired off
with Miss Sedley, and Jos squeezed through the gate into the
gardens with Rebecca at his side, honest Dobbin contented
himself by giving an arm to the shawls, and by paying at the
door for the whole party.

He walked very modestly behind them. He was not willing
to spoil sport. About Rebecca and Jos he did not care a fig.
But he thought Amelia worthy even of the brilliant George
Osborne, and as he saw that good-looking couple threading
the walks to the girl’s delight and wonder, he watched her art-
less happiness with a sort of fatherly pleasure. Perhaps he
felt that he would have liked to have something on his own
arm besides a shawl (the people laughed at seeing the gawky
young officer carrying this female burden); but William Dob-
bin was very little addicted to selfish calculation at all; and
so long as his friend was enjoying himself, how should he be
discontented? And the truth is, that of all the delights of
the Gardens; of the hundred thousand extra lamps, which
were always lighted; the fiddlers in cocked hats who played
ravishing melodies, under the gilded cockle-shell in the midst
of the gardens; the singers, both of comic and sentimental
ballads, who charmed the ears there; the country dances,
formed by bouncing cockneys and cockneyesses, and executed
amidst jumping, thumping, and laughter; the signal which
announced that Madame Saqui was about to mount skyward
on a slack-rope ascending to the stars; the hermit that always
sat in the illuminated hermitage; the dark walks, so favorable
to the interviews of young lovers; the pots of stout handed
about by the people in the shabby old liveries; and the twink-
ling boxes, in which the happy feasters made believe to eat
slices of almost invisible ham;—of all these things, and of the
gentle Simpson, that kind smiling idiot, who, I dare say, pre-
sided even then over the place, Captain William Dobbin did
hot take the slightest notice.
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 55

He carried about Amelia’s white cashmere shawl, and hav-
ing attended under the gilt cockle-shell, while Mrs. Salmon
performed the Battle of Borodino (a savage cantata against
the Corsican upstart, who had lately met with his Russian
reverses), Mr. Dobbin tried to hum it as he walked away, and
found he was humming—the tune which Amelia Sedley sang
on the stairs, as she came down to dinner.

He burst out laughing at himself; for the truth is, he could
sing no better than an owl.

It is to be understood, as a matter of course, that our young
people, being in parties of two and two, made the most solemn
promises to keep together during the evening, and separated
in ten minutes afterwards. Parties at Vauxhall always did
separate, but *twas only to meet again at supper-time, when
they could talk of their mutual adventures in the interval.

What were the adventures of Mr. Osborne and Miss Amelia?
That is a secret. But be sure of this,—they were perfectly
happy, and correct in their behavior; and, as they had been
in the habit of being together any time these fifteen years,
their téte-a-téte offered no particular novelty.

But when Miss Rebecca Sharp and her stout companion lost
themselves in a solitary walk, in which there was not above
fivescore more of couples similarly straying, they both felt that
the situation was extremely tender and critical, and now or
never was the moment, Miss Sharp thought, to provoke that
declaration which was trembling on the timid lips of Mr. Sed-
ley. They had previously been to the panorama of Moscow,
where a rude fellow, treading on Miss Sharp’s foot, caused her
to fall back with a little shriek into the arms of Mr. Sedley,
and this little incident increased the tenderness and confidence
of that gentleman to such a degree, that he told her several of
his favorite Indian stories over again, for at least the sixth
time.

“How I should like to see India!’ said Rebecca.

“Should you?” said Joseph, with a most killing tenderness,
and was no doubt about to follow up this artful interrogatory
by a question still more tender (for he puffed and panted a
great deal, and Rebecca’s hand, which was placed near his
heart, could count the feverish pulsations of that organ),
when, O provoking! the bell rang for the fireworks, and, a
great scuffling and running taking place, these interesting
lovers were obuged to follow in the stream of people.

Captain Dobbin had some thoughts of joining the party at
56 VANITY FAIR,

supper,—as, in truth, he found the Vauxhall amusement hot
particularly lively,—but he paraded twice before the box
where the now united couples were met, and nobody took any
notice of him. Covers were laid for four. The mated pairs
were prattling away quite happily, and Dobbin knew he was
as clean forgotten as if he had never existed in this world.

“J should only be de trop,” said the Captain, looking at
them rather wistfully. “I’d best go in and talk to the hermit.’
And so he strolled off out of the hum of men, and noise, and
clatter of the banquet, into the dark walk at the end of which
lived that well-known pasteboard Solitary. It wasn’t very
good fun for Dobbin,—and, indeed, to be alone at Vauxhall,
I have found, from my own experience, to be one of the most
dismal sports ever entered into by a bachelor.

The two couples were perfectly happy then in their box,
where the most delightful and intimate conversation took
place. Jos was in his glory, ordering about the waiters with
great majesty. He made the salad; and uncorked the cham-
pagne; and carved the chickens; and ate and drank the great-
er part of the refreshments on the tables. Finally, he insisted
upon having a bowl of rack punch; everybody had rack punch
at Vauxhall. “Waiter, rack punch.”

That bowl of rack punch was the cause of all this history.
And why not a bowl of rack punch as well as any other cause?
Was not a bowl of prussic acid the cause of fair Rosamond’s
retiring from the world? Was not a bowl of wine the cause of
the demise of Alexander the Great, or, at least, does not Dr.
Lempriere say so?—so did this bowl of rack punch influence
the fates of all the principal characters in this “Novel without
a Hero,” which we are now relating. It influenced their life,
although most of them did not taste a drop of it.

The young ladies did not drink it; Osborne did not like it:
and the consequence was that Jos, that fat gourmand, drank
up the whole contents of the bowl; and the consequence of his
drinking up the whole contents of the bowl was, a liveliness
which was at first astonishing, and then became almost pain-
ful; for he talked and laughed so loud as to bring scores of
listeners round the box, much to the confusion of the innocent
party within it; and, volunteering to sing a song (which he
did in that maudlin high-key peculiar to gentlemen in an
inebriated state), he almost drew away the audience who were
gathered round the musicians in the gilt scallop-shell, and
received from his hearers a great deal of applause.
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 57

“Brayvo, Fat un!” said one; “Angcore, Daniel Lambert!”
said another. “What a figure for the tight-rope!” exclaimed
another wag, to the inexpressible alarm of the ladies, and the
great anger of Mr. Osborne.

“For Heaven’s sake, Jos, let us get up and go,” cried that
gentleman, and the young women rose.

“Stop, my dearest diddle-diddle-darling,” shouted J os, now
as bold as a lion, and clasping Miss Rebecca round the waist.
Rebecca started, but she could not get away her hand. The
laughter outside redoubled. Jos continued to drink, to make
love, and to sing; and, winking and waving his glass grace-
fully to his audience, challenged all or any to come in and take
a share of his punch.

Mr. Osborne was just on the point of knocking down a gen-
tleman in top-boots, who proposed to take advantage of this
invitation, and a commotion seemed to be inevitable, when
by the greatest good luck a gentleman of the name of Dobbin,
who had been walking about the gardens, stepped up to the
box. “Be off, you fools!” said this gentleman,—shouldering
off a great number of the crowd, who vanished presently be-
fore his cocked hat and fierce appearance,—and he entered
the box in a most agitated state.

“Good Heavens! Dobbin, where have you been?” Osborne
said, seizing the white cashmere shawl from his friend’s arm,
and huddling up Amelia in it. “Make yourself useful, and
take charge of Jos here, whilst I take the ladies to the car-
Tiage.”

Jos was for rising to interfere,—but a single push from Os-
borne’s finger sent him puffing back into his seat again, and
the lieutenant was enabled to remove the ladies in safety. Jos
kissed his hand to them as they retreated, and hiccoughed out,
“Bless you! Bless you!” Then seizing Captain Dobbin’s hand,
and weeping in the most pitiful way, he confided to that gen-
tleman the secret of his loves. He adored that girl who had
just gone out; he had broken her heart, he knew he had, by
his conduct; he would marry her next morning at St. George’s,
Hanover Square; he’d knock up the Archbishop of Canter-
bury at Lambeth,—he would, by Jove! and have him in readi-
ness; and, acting on this hint, Captain Dobbin shrewdly in-
duced him to leave the gardens and hasten to Lambeth Palace,
and, when once out of the gates, easily conveyed Mr. Jos Sed-
ley into a hackney-coach, which deposited him safely at his
lodgings.

¢
58 VANITY FAIR.

_George Osborne conducted the girls home in safety; and
when the door was closed upon them, and as he walked across
Russell Square, laughed so as to astonish the watchman.
Amelia looked very ruefully at her friend, as they went up
stairs, and kissed her, and went to bed without any more talk-
ing.

“He must propose to-morrow,” thought Rebecca. “He called
me his soul’s darling four times; he squeezed my hand in
Amelia’s presence. He must propose to-morrow.” And so
thought Amelia too. And I dare say she thought of the dress
she was to wear as bride’s-maid, and of the presents which
she should make to her nice little sister-in-law, and of a subse-
quent ceremony in which she herself might play a principal
part, ete., etc., ete., ete.

O ignorant young creatures! How little do you know the
effect of rack punch! What is the rack in the punch, at night,
to the rack in the head of a morning? ‘To this truth I can
vouch as a man; there is no headache in the world like that
caused by Vauxhall punch. Through the lapse of twenty
years, I can remember the consequences of two glasses!—two
wineglasses!—but two, upon the honor of a gentleman; and
Joseph Sedley, who had a liver complaint, had swallowed at
least a quart of the abominable mixture.

That next morning, which Rebecca thought was to daw
upon her fortune, found Sedley groaning in agonies which the
pen refuses to describe. Soda-water was not invented yet.
Small beer—will it be believed?—was the only drink with
which the unhappy gentlemen soothed the fever of their pre-
vious night’s potation. With this mild beverage before him,
George Osborne found the ex-collector of Boggley Wollah
groaning on the sofa at his lodgings. Dobbin was already in
the room, good-naturedly tending to his patient of the night
before. The two officers looking at the prostrate Bacchanalian,
and askance at each other, exchanged the most frightful sym-
pathetic grins. Even Sedley’s valet, the most solemn and cor-
rect of gentlemen, with the muteness and gravity of an under-
taker, could hardly keep his countenance in order, as he looked
at his unfortunate master.

“Mr. Sedley was uncommon wild last night, sir,” he whis-
pered in confidence to Osborne, as the latter mounted the
stair. “He wanted to fight the ’ackney-coachman, sir. The
Capting was obliged to bring him up stairs in his harms like
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 59
a babby.” A momentary smile flickered over Mr. Brush’s fea-
tures as he spoke; instantly, however, they relapsed into their
usual unfathomable calm, as he flung open the drawing-room
door, and announced “Mr. Hogbin.”

“How are you, Sedley?” that young wag began, after sur-
veying his victim. “No bones broke? There’s a hackney-
coachman down stairs with a black eye, and a tied-up head,
vowing he’ll have the law on you.”

“What do you mean,—law?” Sedley faintly asked.

“Por thrashing him last night,—didn’t he, Dobbin? You
hit out, sir, like Molyneux. The watchman says he never saw
a fellow go down so straight. Ask Dobbin.”

“You did have a round with the coachman,” Captain Dobbin
said, “and showed plenty of fight too.”

“And that fellow with the white coat at Vauxhall! How
Jos drove at him! How the women screamed! By Jove, sir,
it did my heart good to see you. I thought you civilians had
no pluck; but Ill never get in your way when you are in your
cups, Jos.”

“T believe I’m very terrible, when I’m roused,” ejaculated
Jos from the sofa, and made a grimace so dreary and ludicrous,
that the Captain’s politeness could restrain him no longer,
and he and Osborne fired off a ringing volley of laughter.

Osborne pursued his advantage pitilessly. He thought Jos
a milk-sop. He had been resolving in his mind the marriage
question pending between Jos and Rebecca, and was not over
well pleased that a member of a family into which he, George
Osborne, of the th, was going to marry,should make a més-
alliance with a little nobody,—a little upstart governess. “You
hit, you poor old fellow?” said Osborne. “You terrible?
Why, man, you couldn’t stand,—you made everybody laugh in
the Gardens, though you were crying yourself. You were
maudlin, Jos. Don’t you remember singing a song?”

“A what?” Jos asked.

“A sentimental song, and calling Rosa, Rebecca, what’s her
name, Amelia’s little friend, your dearest diddle-diddle-darl-
ing?” And this ruthless young fellow, seizing hold of Dob-
bin’s hand, acted over the scene, to the horror of the original
performer, and in spite of Dobbin’s good-natured entreaties
to him to have mercy. : ee,

“Why should I spare him?” Osborne said to his friend’s
remonstrances; when they quitted the invalid, leaving him
under the hands of Doctor Gollop. “What the deuce right

 
60 VANITY FAIR.

has he to give himself his patronizing airs, and make fools of
us at Vauxhall? Who’s this little schoolgirl that is ogling
and making love to him? Hang it, the family’s low enough
already, without her. A governess is a!] very well, but I'd
rather have a lady for my sister-in-law. I’m a liberal man;
but I’ve proper pride, and know my own station: let her know
hers. And I'll take down that great hectoring Nabob, and
prevent him from being made a greater fool than he is. That’s
why I told him to look out, lest she brought an action against
him.”

“T suppose you know best,” Dobbin said, though rather
dubiously. “You always were a Tory, and your family’s one
of the oldest in England. But——”

“Come and see the girls, and make love to Miss Sharp your-
self,” the lieutenant here interrupted his friend; but Captain
Dobbin declined to join Osborne in his daily visit to the young
ladies in Russell Square.

As George walked down Southampton Row, from Holborn,
he laughed as he saw at the Sedley Mansion, in two different
stories, two heads on the lookout.

The fact is, Miss Amelia, in the drawing-room balcony, was
looking very eagerly towards the opposite side of the Square,
where Mr. Osborne dwelt, on the watch for the lieutenant
himself; and Miss Sharp, from her little bedroom on the sec-
ond floor, was in observation until Mr. Joseph’s great form
should heave in sight.

“Sister Anne is on the watch-tower,” said he to Amelia,
“but there’s nobody coming;” and, laughing and enjoying
the joke hugely, he described in the most ludicrous terms to
Miss Sedley the dismal condition of her brother...

“T think it’s very cruel of you to laugh, George,” she said,
looking particularly unhappy; but George only laughed the
more at her piteous and discomfited mien, persisted in think-
ing the joke a most diverting one, and when Miss Sharp
came down stairs, bantered her with a great deal of liveliness
upon the effect of her charms on the fat civilian.

“OQ Miss Sharp! if you could but see him this morning,” he
said, “moaning in his flowered dressing-gown, writhing on his
sofa; if you could but have seen him lolling out his tongue to

tollop the apothecary.”

“See whom?” said Miss Sharp.

“Whom? O, whom? Captain Dobbin, of course, to whom
we were all so attentive, by the way, last night.”
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. bt

“We were very unkind to him,” Emmy said, blushing very
much. “I—TI quite forgot him.”

“Of course you did,” cried Osborne, still on the laugh. “One
can’t be always thinking about Dobbin, you know, Amelia.
Can one, Miss Sharp?”

“Except when he overset the glass of wine at dinner,” Miss
Sharp said, with a haughty air and a toss of the head, “I never
gave the existence of Captain Dobbin one single moment’s
consideration.”

“Very good, Miss Sharp, I’ll tell him,” Osborne said; and
as he spoke Miss Sharp began to have a feeling of distrust and
hatred towards this young officer, which he was quite uncon-
scious of having inspired. “He is to make fun of me, is he?”
thought Rebecca. “Has he been laughing about me to Jo-
seph? Has he frightened him? Perhaps he won’t come.” A
film passed over her eyes, and her heart beat quite quick.

“Youre always joking,” said she, smiling as innocently as
she could. “Joke away, Mr. George; there’s nobody to de-
fend me.” And George Osborne, as she walked away, and
Amelia looked reprovingly at him, felt some little manly com-
punction for having inflicted any unnecessary unkindness
upon this helpless creature. “My dearest Amelia,” said he,
“you are too good, too kind. You don’t know the world. I
do. And your little friend Miss Sharp must learn her sta-
tion.”

“Don’t you think Jos will ie

“Upon my word, my dear, I don’t know. He may or may
not. I’m not his master. I only know he is a very foolish,
vain fellow, and put my dear little girl into a very painful and
awkward position last night. My dearest diddle-diddle-darl-
ing!” He was off laughing again; and he did it so drolly that
Emmy laughed too.

All that day Jos never came. But Amelia had no fear about
this; for the little schemer had actually sent away the page,
Mr. Sambo’s aide-de-camp, to Mr. Joseph’s lodgings, to ask
for some book which he had promised, and how he was; and
the reply, through Jos’s man, Mr. Brush, was, that his master
was ill in bed, and had just had the doctor with him. He must
come to-morrow, she thought, but she never had the courage
to speak a word on the subject to Rebecca; nor did that young
woman herself allude to it in any way during the whole even-
ing after the night at Vauxhall.

The next day, however, as the two young ladies sat on the

 
62 VANITY FAIR.

sofa, pretending to work or to write letters, or to read novels,
Sambo came into the room with his usual engaging grin, with
a packet upder his arm, anda note ona tray. “Note from Mr.
Jos, miss,” says Sambo.

How Amelia trembled as she opened it!

So it ran:—

“Dear Amelia:—I send you the Orphan of the Forest. I was
too ill to come yesterday. I leave town to-day for Cheltenham.
Pray excuse me, if you can, to the amiable Miss Sharp, for my
conduct at Vauxhall, and entreat her to pardon and forget every
word I may have uttered when excited by that fatal supper. As
soon as I have recovered, for my health is very much shaken, I
shall go to Scotland for some months, and am

“Truly yours,
“JOS. SEDLEY.”’

It was the death-warrant. All was over. Amelia did not
dare to look at Rebecca’s pale face and burning eyes, but she
dropped the letter into her friend’s lap, and got up and went
up stairs to her own room, and cried her little heart out.

Blenkinsop, the housekeeper, there sought her presently
with consolation; on whose shoulder Amelia wept confidential-
ly, and relieved herself a good deal. “Don’t take on, miss. I
didn’t like to tell you. But none of us in the house have liked
her except at fust. I sor her with my own eyes reading your
ma’s letters. Pinner says she’s always about your trinket-box
and drawers, and everybody’s drawers, and she’s sure she’s put
your white ribbing into her box.”

“I gave it her, I gave it her,” Amelia said.

But this did not alter Mrs. Blenkinsop’s opinion of Miss
Sharp. “I don’t trust them governesses, Pinner,” she re-
marked to the maid. “They give themselves the hairs and
hupstarts of ladies, and their wages is no better than you nor
me.”

It now became clear to every soul in the house, except poor
Amelia, that Rebecca should take her departure, and high and
low (always with the one exception) agreed that that event
should take place as speedily as possible. Our good child ran-
sacked all her drawers, cupboards, reticules, and gimcrack
boxes,—passed in review all her gowns, fichus, tags, bobbins,
laces, silk stockings, and fallals,—selecting this thing and
that and the other, to make a little heap for Rebecca. And
going to her papa, that generous British merchant, who had
promised to give her as many guineas as she was years old,
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 63
she begged the old gentleman to give the money to dear Re-
becca, who must want it, while she lacked for nothing.

She even made George Osborne contribute, and nothing
loath (for he was as free-handed a young fellow as any in the
army), he went to Bond Street and bought the best hat and
spencer that money could buy.

“That’s George’s present to you, Rebecca dear,” said Amelia,
quite proud of the bandbox conveying these gifts. “What a
taste he has! There’s nobody like him.”

“Nobody,” Rebecca answered. “How thankful I am to
him!” She was thinking in her heart, “It was George Os-
borne who prevented my marriage.’ And she loved George
Osborne accordingly.

She made her preparations for departure with great equan-
imity; and accepted all the kind little Amelia’s presents, after
just the proper degree of hesitation and reluctance. She vowed
eternal gratitude to Mrs. Sedley, of course, but did not in-
trude herself upon that good lady too much, who was em-
barrassed, and evidently wishing to avoid her. She kissed
Mr. Sedley’s hand when he presented her with the purse, and
asked permission to consider him for the future as her kind,
kind friend and protector. Her behavior was so affecting,
that he was going to write her a check for twenty pounds more;
but he restrained his feelings: the carriage was in waiting to
take him to dinner; so he tripped away with a “God bless you,
my dear, always come here when you come to town, you know.
Drive to the Mansion House, James.”

Finally came the parting with Miss Amelia, over which pic-
ture I intend to throw a veil. But after a scene in which one
person was in earnest and the other a perfect performer, after
the tenderest caresses, the most pathetic tears, the smelling-
bottle, and some of the very best feelings of the heart, had been
called into requisition, Rebecca and Amelia parted, the for
mer vowing to love her friend for ever and ever and ever.
64 VANITY FAIR.

CHAPTER VII.
CRAWLEY OF QUEEN’S CRAWLEY.

Among the most respected of the names beginning in C,
which the Court-Guide contained, in the year 18—, was that
of Crawley, Sir Pitt, Baronet, Great Gaunt Street, and Queen’s
Crawley, Hants. This honorable name had figured constantly,
also, in the Parliamentary list for many years, in conjunction
with that of a number of other worthy gentlemen who sat in
turns for the borough.

It is related, with regard to the borough of Queen’s Craw-
ley, that Queen Elizabeth in one of her progresses, stopping
at Crawley to breakfast, was so delighted with some remark-
ably fine Hampshire beer which was then presented to her by
the Crawley of the day (a handsome gentleman with a trim
beard and a good leg), that she forthwith erected Crawley into
a borough to send two members to Parliament; and the place,
from the day of that illustrious visit, took the name of Queen’s
Crawley, which it holds up to the present moment. And
though by the lapse of time, and those mutations which age
produces in empires, cities, and boroughs, Queen’s Crawley
was no longer so populous a place as it had been in Queen
Bess’s time,—nay, was come down to that condition of bor-
ough which used to be denominated rotten,—yet, as Sir Pitt
Crawley would say with perfect justice in his elegant way,
“Rotten! be hanged,—it produced me a good fifteen hundred
a year.”

Sir Pitt Crawley (named after the great Commoner) was the
son of Walpole Crawley, first Baronet, of the Tape and Seal-
ing-Wax Office in the reign of George II., when he was im-
peached for peculation, as were a great number of other honest
gentlemen of those days; and Walpole Crawley was, as need
scarcely be said, son of John Churchill Crawley, named after
the celebrated military commander of the reign of Queen
Anne. The family tree (which hangs up at Queen’s Crawley)
furthermore mentions Charles Stuart, afterwards called Bare-
bones Crawley, son of the Crawley of James the First’s time;
and finally, Queen Elizabeth’s Crawley, who is represented as
the foreground of the picture in his forked beard and armor.

 
A NOVEL WITHOUT A, HERO. 65

Out of his waistcoat, as usual, grows a tree, on the main
branches of which the above illustrious names are inscribed.
Close by the name of Sir Pitt Crawley, Baronet (the subject
of the present memoir), are written that of his brother, the
Reverend Bute Crawley (the great Commoner was in disgrace
when the reverend gentleman was born), rector of Crawley-
cum-Snailby, and of various other male and female members
of the Crawley family.

Sir Pitt was first married to Grizzel, sixth daughter of Mun-
go Binkie, Lord Binkie, and cousin, in consequence, of Mr.
Dundas. She brought him two sons: Pitt, named not so much
after his father as after the heaven-born minister; and Rawdon
Crawley, from the Prince of Wales’s friend, whom his Majesty
George IV. forgot so completely. Many years after her lady-
ship’s demise, Sir Pitt led to the altar Rosa, daughter of Mr.
G. Dawson, of Mudbury, by whom he had two daughters, for
whose benefit Miss Rebecca Sharp was now engaged as gover-
ness. It will be seen that the young lady was come into a
family of very genteel connections, and was about to move in
a much more distinguished circle than that humble one which
she had just quitted in Russell Square.

She had received her orders to join her pupils, in a note
which was written upon an old envelope, and which contained
the following words:—

“Sir Pitt Crawley begs Miss Sharp and baggidge may be hear
on Tuesday, as I leaf for Queen’s Crawley to-morrow morning
erly.

“Great Gaunt Street.”

Rebecca had never seen a Baronet, as far as she knew, and
as soon as she had taken leave of Amelia, and counted the
guineas which good-natured Mr. Sedley had put into a purse
for her, and as soon as she had done wiping her eyes with her
handkerchief (which operation she concluded the very mo-
ment the carriage had turned the corner of the street), she be-
gan to depict in her own mind what a baronet must be. “I
wonder, does he wear a star?” thought she, “or is it only lords
that wear stars? But he will be very handsomely dressed in
a court suit, with ruffles and his hair a little powdered, like
Mr. Wroughton at Covent Garden. I suppose he will be aw-
fully proud, and that I shall be treated most contemptuously.
Still I must bear my hard lot as well as I can,—at least, I shall
be amongst gentlefolks, and not with vulgar city people:” and

5

Ss
.
66 VANITY FAIR.

she fell to thinking of her Russell Square friends with that
very same philosophical bitterness with which, in a certain
apologue, the fox is represented as speaking of the grapes.

Having passed through Gaunt Square into Great Gaunt
Street, the carriage at length stopped at a tall gloomy house
between two other ‘tall gloomy houses, each with a hatchment
over the middle drawing-room window; as is the custom of
houses in Great Gaunt Street, in which gloomy locality death
seems to reign perpetual. The shutters of the first-floor win-
dows of Sir Pitt’s mansion were closed,-—those of the dining-
room were partially open, and the blinds nearly covered up
in old newspapers. ; ata

John, the groom, who had driven the carriage alone, did
not care to descend to ring the bell, and so prayed a passing
milk-boy to perform that office for him. When the bell was
rung, a head appeared between the interstices of the dining-
room shutters, and the door was opened by a man in drab
breeches and gaiters, with a dirty old coat, a foul old neck-
cloth lashed round his bristly neck, a shining bald head, a
leering red face, a pair of twinkling gray eyes, and a mouth
perpetually on the grin.

“This is Sir Pitt Crawley’s?” says John, from the box.

“Bes,” says the man at the door, with a nod.

“Hand down these ’ere trunks then,” said John.

“land’n down yourself,” said the porter.

“Don’t you see I can’t leave my hosses? Come, bear a hand,
my fine feller, and miss will give you some beer,” said John,
with a horse-laugh, for he was no longer respectful to Miss
Sharp, as her connection with the family was broken off, and
as she had given nothing to the servants on coming away.

The bald-headed man, taking his hands out of his breeches-
pockets, advanced on this summons, and, throwing Miss
Sharp’s trunk over his shoulder, carried it into the house.

“Take this basket and shawl, if you please, and open the
door,” said Miss Sharp, and descended from the carriage in
much indignation. eT shall write to Mr. Sedley and inform
him of your conduct,” said she to the groom.

“Don’t,” replied that functionary. “I hope you’ve forgot
nothink? Miss ’Melia’s gownds.—have you got them?—as the
lady’s maid was to have ’ad. I hope they'll fit you. Shut the
door, Jim, yowll get no good out of ’er,’ continued John,
pointing with his thumb towards Miss Sharp: “a bad lot, I
tell you, a bad lot;” and, so saying, Mr. Sedley’s groom drove
A’ NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 67

away. The truth is, he was attached to the lady’s maid in
question, and indignant that she should have been robbed of
her perquisites.

_ On entering the dining-room, by the orders of the individual
in gaiters, Rebecca found that apartment not more cheerful
than such rooms usually are, when genteel families are out of
town. The faithful chambers seem, as it were, to mourn the
absence of their masters. The turkey carpet has rolled itselt
up, and retired sulkily under the sideboard; the pictures have
hidden their faces behind old sheets of brown paper; the ceil-
ing lamp is muffled up in a dismal sack of brown holland; the
window-curtains have disappeared under all sorts of shabby
envelopes; the marble bust of Sir Walpole Crawley is looking
from its black corner at the bare boards and the oiled fire-
irons, and the empty card-racks over the mantelpiece; the
cellaret has lurked away bebind the carpet; the chairs are
turned up heads and tails along the walls; and in the dark
corner opposite the statue is an old-fashioned crabbed knife-
box, locked and sitting on a dumb-waiter.

Two kitchen chairs, and a round table, and an attenuated
old poker and tongs, were, however, gathered round the fire-
place, as was a saucepan over a feeble, sputtering fire. There
was a bit of cheese and bread, and a tin candlestick on the
table, and a little black porter in a pint-pot.

“Had your dinner, I suppose? It is not too warm for you?
Like a drop of beer?”

“Where is Sir Pitt Crawley?” said Miss Sharp, majestical-

ly.
‘ “He, he! I’m Sir Pitt Crawley. Reklect you owe me a pint
for bringing down your luggage. He, he! Ask Tinker if I
aynt. Mrs. Tinker, Miss Sharp; Miss Governess, Mrs. Char-
woman. Ho, ho!”

The lady addressed as Mrs. Tinker at this moment made her
appearance with a pipe and a paper of tobacco, for which she
had been dispatched a minute before Miss Sharp’s arrival;
and she handed the articles over to Sir Pitt, who had taken his
seat by the fire.

“Where’s the farden?” said he. “I gave you three half-
pence. Where’s the change, old Tinker?” : ;

“There!” replied Mrs. Tinker, flinging down the coin; “Gt’s
only baronets as cares about farthings.”

“A farthing a day is seven shillings a year,” answered the
M. P.; “seven shillings a year is the interest of seven guineas.
68 VANITY FAIR.

Take care of your farthings, old Tinker, and your guineas will
come quite nat’ral.” ES

“You may be sure it’s Sir Pitt Crawley, young woman,
said Mrs. Tinker, surlily; “because he looks to his farthing.
You'll know him better afore long.”

“And like me none the worse, Miss Sharp,” said the old
gentleman, with an air almost of politeness. “I must be just
before I’m generous.” ;

“He never gave away a farthing in his life,” growled Tin-
ker.

“Never, and never will; it’s against my principle. Go and
get another chair from the kitchen, Tinker, if you want to
sit down; and then we’ll have a bit of supper.”

Presently the baronet plunged a fork into the saucepan on
the fire, and withdrew from the pot a piece of tripe and an
onion, which he divided into pretty equal portions, and of
which he partook with Mrs. Tinker. “You see, Miss Sharp,
when I’m not here, Tinker’s on board wages: when I’m in
town, she dines with the family. Haw, haw! I’m glad Miss
Sharp’s not hungry, ain’t you, Tink?” And they fell to upon
their frugal supper.

After supper Sir Pitt Crawley began to smoke his pipe; and
when it became quite dark he lighted the rushlight in the tin
candlestick, and, producing from an interminable pocket a
huge mass of papers, began reading them, and putting them
in order.

“I’m here on law business, my dear, and that’s how it hap-
pens that I shall have the pleasure of such a pretty traveling
companion to-morrow.”

“He’s always at law business,” said Mrs. Tinker, taking up
the pot of porter.

“Drink and drink about,” said the Baronet. “Yes, my dear,
Tinker is quite right: I’ve lost and won more lawsuits than
any man in England. Look here at Crawley, Bart. v. Snaf-
fle. Pll throw him over, or my name’s not Pitt Crawley. Pod-
der and another versus Crawley, Bart. Overseers of Snaily
parish against Crawley, Bart. They can’t prove it’s common:
I'll defy ’em; the land’s mine. It no more belongs to the
parish than it does to you or Tinker here. I'll beat ’em, if it
cost me a thousand guineas. Look over the papers; you may
if you like, my dear. Do you write a good hand? Tl make
you useful when we’re at Queen’s Crawley, depend on it,
Miss Sharp. Now the dowager’s dead I want some one.”
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 69

“She was as bad as he,” said Tinker. “She took the law of
every one of her tradesmen; and turned away forty-eight foot-
men in four year.”

“She was close, very close,” said the baronet, simply; “but
she was a valyble woman to me, and saved me a steward.” And
in this confidential strain, and much to the amusement of the
new-comer, the conversation continued for a considerable
time. Whatever Sir Pitt Crawley’s qualities might be, good
or bad, he did not make the least disguise of them. He talked
of himself incessantly, sometimes in the coarsest and vulgarest
Hampshire accent; sometimes adopting the tone of a man of
the world. And so, with injunctions to Miss Sharp to be ready
at five in the morning, he bade her good night. “You'll sleep
with Tinker to-night,” he said; “it’s a big bed, and there’s
room for two. Lady Crawley died in it. Good night.”

Sir Pitt went off after this benediction, and the solemn
Tinker, rushlight in hand, led the way up the great bleak
stone stairs, past the great dreary drawing-room doors, with the
handlesmuffled upin paper,into the great front bedroom where
Lady Crawley had slept her last. The bed and chamber were
so funereal and gloomy, you might have fancied, not only that
Lady Crawley died in the room, but that her ghost in-
habited it. Rebecca sprang about the apartment, however,
with the greatest liveliness, and had peeped into the huge
wardrobes, and the closets, and the cupboards, and tried the
drawers, which were locked, and examined the dreary pictures
and toilet appointments, while the old charwoman was saying
her prayers. “I shouldn’t like to sleep in this yeer bed with-
out a good conscience, miss,” said the old woman. “There’s
room for us and a half-dozen ghosts in it,” says Rebecca. “Tell
me all about Lady Crawley and Sir Pitt Crawley, and every-
body, my dear Mrs. Tinker.”

But old Tinker was not to be pumped by this little cross-
questioner; and signifying to her that bed was a place for
sleeping, not conversation, set up in her corner of the bed
suchiasnoreasonlythe nose of innocence can produce. Rebecca
lay awake for a long, long time, thinking of the morrow, and
of the new world into which she was going, and of her chances
of success there. The rushlight flickered in the basin. The
mantel-piece cast up a great black shadow, over half of a
mouldy old sampler, which her defunct ladyship had worked,
no doubt, and over two little family pictures of young lads,
one in a college gown, and the other in a red jacket like a
70 VANITY FAIR.

soldier. When she went to sleep, Rebecca chose that one to
dream about.

At four o’clock, on such a roseate summer’s morning as even
made Great Gaunt Street look cheerful, the faithful Tinker,
having wakened her bedfellow, and bid her prepare for depar-
ture, unbarred and unbolted the great hall door (the clanging
and clapping whereof startled the sleeping echoes in the
street), and, taking her way into Oxford Street, summoned a
coach from a stand there. It is needless to particularize the
number of the vehicle, or to state that tbe driver was stationed
thus early in the neighborhood of Swallow Street, in hopes
that some young buck, reeling homeward from the tavern,
might need the aid of his vehicle, and pay him with the gener-
osity of intoxication.

It is likewise needless to say, that the driver, if he had any
such hopes as those above stated, was grossly disappointed;
and that the worthy Baronet whom he drove to the City did
not give him one single penny more than his fare. It was.in
vain that Jehu appealed and stormed; that he flung down
Miss Sharp’s bandboxes in the gutter at the "Necks, and swore
he would take the law of his fare.

“You'd better not,” said one of the ostlers; “it’s Sir Pitt
Crawley.”

“So it is, Joe,” cried the Baronet, approvingly; “and I'd
like to see the man can do me.”

“So should oi,” said Joe, grinning sulkily, and mounting the
baronet’s. baggage on the roof of the coach.

“Keep the box for me, Leader,” exclaims the Member of
Parliament to the coachman; who replied, “Yes, Sir Pitt,”
with a touch of his hat, and rage in his soul (for he had
promised the box to a young gentleman from Cambridge, who
would have given a crown to a certainty), and Miss Sharp
was accommodated with a back seat inside the carriage, which
may be said to be carrying her into the wide world.

How the young man from Cambridge sulkily put his five
great-coats in front, but was reconciled when little Miss Sharp
was made to quit the carriage, and mount up beside him,—
when he covered her up in one of his Benjamins, and became
perfectly good-humored,—how the asthmatic gentleman, the
prim lady, who declared upon her sacred honor she had never
traveled in a public carriage before, (there is always such a
lady in a coach,—alas! was; for the coaches, where are they?)
and the fat widow with the brandy-bottle took their places
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 7

inside,—how the porter asked them all for money, and got
sixpence from the gentleman and five greasy halfpence from
the fat widow,—and how the carriage at length drove away,
—now threading the dark lanes of Aldersgate, anon clattering
by the Blue Cupola of Paul’s, jingling rapidly by the stran-
gers’ entry of Fleet-Market, which, with Exeter Change, has
now departed to the world of shadows,—how they passed. the
White Bear in Piccadilly, and saw the dew rising up from the
market gardens of Knightsbridge—hew Turnham-green,
Brentford, Bagshot, were passed,— need not be told here. But
the writer of these pages, who has pursued in farmer days, and
in the same bright weather, the same remarkable journey, can-
not but think of it with a sweet and tender regret. Where is
the road now, and its merry incidents of life? Is there no
Chelsea or Greenwich for the old honest, pimple-nosed coach-
men? I wonder where are they, those good fellows? 1s old
Weller alive or dead? and the waiters, yea, and the
inns at which they waited, and the cold rounds of heef
inside, and the stunted ostler, with his blue nose and
clinking pail, where is he, and where is his generation? To
those great geniuscs now in petticoats, who shall write novels
for the beloved reader’s children, these men and things will
be as much legend and history as Nineveh, or Coeur de Lion,
or Jack Sheppard. For them stage-coaches will have become
romances,—a team of four bays as fabulous as Bucephalus or
Black Bess. Ah, how their coats shone, as the stable-men
pulled their clothes off, and away they went,—ah, how thejr
tails shook, as with smoking sides, at the stage’s end, they
demurely walked away into the inn-yard. Alas! we shall never
hear the horn sing at midnight, or see the pike-gates fly open
any more, Whither, however, is the light four-inside Tra-
falgar coach carrying us? Let us be set down at Queen’s
Crawley without further divagation, and see how Miss Rebecca
Sharp speeds there.
73 VANITY FAIR,

CHAPTER VIII.
PRIVATE AND CONFIDENTIAL,

Miss Rebecca Sharp to Miss Amelia Sedley, Russell Square,
London.—(Free.—Pitt Crawley.)

“My dearest, sweetest Amelia,—With what mingled joy and
sorrow do I take up the pen to write to my dearest friend!
0, what a change between to-day and yesterday! Now I am
friendless and alone; yesterday I was at home, in the sweet
company of a sister whom I shall ever, ever cherish!

“JT will not tell you in what tears and sadness I passed the
fatal night in which I separated from you. You went on
Juesday to joy and happiness, with your mother and your
devoted young soldier by your side; and I thought of you all
night, dancing at the Perkins’s, the prettiest, Iam sure, of all
the young ladies at the ball. I was brought by the groom in
the old carriage to Sir Pitt Crawley’s town house, where, after
John the groom had behaved most rudely and insolently to me,
(alas! *t was safe to insult poverty and misfortune!) I
was given over to Sir P.’s care, and made to pass the night in
an old gloomy bed, and by the side of a horrid gloomy old
charwoman, who keeps the house. I did not sleep one single
wink the whole night.

“Sir Pitt is not what we silly girls, when we used to read.
Cecilia at Chiswick, imagined a baronet must have been. Any-
thing, indeed, less like Lord Orville cannot be imagined.
Fancy an old, stumpy, short, vulgar, and very dirty man, in old
clothes and shabby old gaiters, who smokes a horrid pipe, and
cooks his own horrid supper in a saucepan. He speaks with a
country accent, and swore a great deal at the old charwoman
at the hackney-coachman who drove us to the inn where the
coach went from, and on which I made the journey outside for
the greater part of the way.

“YT was awakened at daybreak by the charwoman, and. hav-
ing arrived at the inn, was at first placed inside the coach.
But when we got to a place called Leakington, where the
rain began to fall very heavily,—will you believe it?—I was
forced to come outside; for Sir Pitt is a proprietor of the
coach, and as a passenger came at Mudbury, who wanted an
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO, 73

inside place, I was obliged to go outside in the rain, where,
however, a young gentleman from Cambridge College shel-
tered me very kindly in one of his several great-coats.

“This gentleman and the guard seemed to know Sir Pitt
very well, and laughed at him a great deal. They both agreed
in calling him an old screw; which means a very stingy,
avaricious person. He never gives any money to anybody, they
said (and this meanness I hate); and the young gentleman
made me remark that we drove very slow for the last two
stages on the road, because Sir Pitt was on the box, and be-
cause he is proprietor of the horses for this part of the jour-
ney. ‘But won’t I flog “em on to Squashmore, when I take
the-ribbons?’ said the young Cantab. ‘And sarve ’em right,
Master Jack, said the guard. When I comprehended the
meaning of this phrase, and that Master Jack intended to drive
the rest of the way, and revenge himself on Sir Pitt’s horses,
of course I laughed too.

“A carriage and four splendid horses, covered with armorial
bearings, however, awaited us at Mudbury, four miles from
Queen’s Crawley, and we made our entrance to the baronet’s
park in state. There is a fine avenue of a mile long leading to
the house, and the woman at the lodge-gate (over the pillars
of which are a serpent and a dove, the supporters of the
Crawley arms,) made us a number of courtesies as she flung
open the old iron carved doors, which are something like those
at odious Chiswick.

“<There’s an avenue,’ said Sir Pitt, ‘a mile long. There’s
six thousand pcund of timber in them there trees. Do you
call that nothing?’ He pronounced avenue—evenue, and
nothing—nothink, so droll; and he had a Mr. Hodson, his
hind from Mudbury, into the carriage with him, and they
talked about distraining, and selling up, and draining, and
subsoiling, and a great deal about tenants and farm-
ing,—Much more than I could understand. Sam Miles
had been caught poaching, and Peter Bailey had gone to
the work-house at last. ‘Serve him right,’ said Sir Pitt; ‘him
and his family has been cheating me on that farm these hun-
dred and fifty years.’ Some old tenant, I suppose, who could
not pay his rent. Sir Pitt might have said ‘he and his family,’
to be sure; but rich baronets do not need to be careful about
grammar, as poor governesses must be. ae hd

“As we passed, I remarked a beautiful church-spire rising
above some old elms in the park; and before them, in the
74 VANITY FAIR.

midst of a lawn, and some out-houses, an old red house with
tall chimneys covered with ivy, and the windows shining in the
sun. ‘Is that your church, sir? I said.

“Yes, hang it, said Sir Pitt (only he used, dear, a much
wickeder word); ‘how’s Buty, Hobson? Buty’s my brother
Bute, my dear,—my brother the parson. Buty and the Beast,
I call him, ha, ha!’

“Hodson laughed too, and then, looking more grave and
nodding his head, said, ‘?’m afraid he’s better, Sir Pitt. He
was out on his pony, yesterday, looking at our eorn,’

“ ‘Looking after his tithes, hang ’un (only he used the same
wicked word). Will brandy and water never kill him? He’s
as tough as old whatdyecallum?—old Methusalem.’

“Mr. Hodson laughed again. ‘The young men is home
from college. They’ve whopped John Scroggins till he’s well-
nigh dead.’

“«Whop my second keeper! roared out Sir Pitt.

“<Fe was on the parson’s ground, sir,’ replied Mr. Hobson;
and Sir Pitt in a fury swore that if he ever caught ’em poach-
ing on his ground, he’d transport ’em, by the Lord he would.
However, he said, ‘I've sold the presentation of the living,
Hodson; none of that breed shall get it, I warnt;’ and Mr.
Hodson said he was quite right: and I have no doubt from
this that the two brothers are at variance,—as brothers of-
ten. are, and sisters, too. Don’t you remember the two Miss
Scratchleys, at Chiswick, how they used always to fight and
quarrel,—and Mary Box, how she was always thumping
Louisa?

“Presently, seeing two little boys gathering sticks in the
wood, Mr. Hodson jumped out of the earriage, at Sir Pitt’s
order, and rushed upon them with his whip. ‘Pitch into ’em,
Hodson? roared the baronet; “flog their little souls out, and
bring ’em up to the house, the vagabonds; I’ll commit ’em as
sure as my name’s Pitt.’ And presently we heard Mr. Hodson’s
whip clacking on the shoulders of the poor little blubbering
wretches, and Sir Pitt, seeing that the malefactors were in
custody, drove on to the hall.

“All the servants were ready to meet us, and

* * * 2

ok * * * *« *

“Here, my dear, I was interrupted last night. by a dreadful
thumping at my door: and who do you think it was? Sir
Pitt Crawley in his night-cap and dressing-gown, such a fig-
ure! As I shrank away from such a visitor, he came forward
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 15

and seized my candle. ‘No candles after eleven o’clock, Miss
Becky,’ said he. ‘Go to bed in the dark, you pretty little
hussy’ (that is what he called me), ‘and unless you wish me
to come for the candle every night, mind and be in bed at
eleven.’ And with this he and Mr. Horrocks the butler went
off, laughing. You may be sure I shall not encourage any
more of their visits. They let loose two immense bloodhounds
at night, which all last night were yelling and howling at the
moon. ‘I call the dog Gorer, said Sir Pitt; ‘he’s killed a man,
that dog has, and is master of a bull, and the mother I used
to call Flora; but now I calls her Aroarer, for she’s too old to
bite. Haw, haw!

“Before the house of Queen’s Crawley, which is an odious,
old-fashioned red brick mansion, with tall chimneys and gables
of the style of Queen Bess, there is a terrace flanked by the
family dove and serpent, and on which the great hall-door
opens. And O, my dear, the great hall I am sure is as big
and as glum as the great hall in the dear castle of Udolpho.
It has a large fireplace, in which we might put half Miss Pin-
kerton’s school, and the grate is big enough to roast an ox at
the very least. Round the room hang I don’t know how many
generations of Crawleys, some with beards and ruffs, some
with huge wigs and toes turned out, some dressed in long
straight stays and gowns that look as stiff as towers, and some
with long ringlets, and O, my dear! scarcely any stays at all.
At one end of the hall is the great staircase all in black oak,
as dismal as may be, and on either side are tall doors with
stags’ heads over them, leading to the billiard-room and the
library, and the great yellow saloon, and the morning-rooms.
I think there are at least twenty bedrooms on the first floor;
one of them has the bed in which Queen Elizabeth slept; and
J have been taken by my new pupils through all these fine
apartments this morning. They are not rendered less gloomy,
I promise you, by having the shutters always shut; and there
is scarce one of the apartments but, when the light was let into
it, I expected to see a ghost in the room. We have a school-
room on the second floor, with my bedroom leading into it on
one side, and that of the young ladies on the other. Then
there are Mr. Pitt’s apartments,—Mr. Crawley, he is called,—
the eldest son, and Mr. Rawdon Crawley’s rooms,—he is an
officer, like somebody, and away with his regiment. There is
no want of room, I assure you. You might lodge all the peo-
76 VANITY FAIR.

ple in Russell Square in the house, I think, and have space to
spare.

ee Flalf an hour after our arrival, the great dinner-bell was
rung, and I came down with my two pupils (they are very thin,
insignificant little chits of ten and eight years old). I came
down in your dear muslin gown (about which that odious
Mrs. Pinner was so rude, because you gave it me); for I am
to be treated as one of the family, except on company days,
when the young ladies and I are to dine up stairs.

“Well, the great dinner-bell rang, and we all assembled in
the little drawing-room where my Lady Crawley sits. She is
the second Lady Crawley, and mother of the young ladies.
She was an ironmonger’s daughter, and her marriage was
thought a great match. She looks as if she had been hand-
some once, and her eyes are always weeping for the loss of her
beauty. She is pale and meagre and high-shouldered; and has
not a word to say for herself, evidently. Her step-son, Mr.
Crawley, was likewise in the room. He was in full dress, as
pompous as an undertaker. He is pale, thin, ugly, silent;
he has thin legs, no chest, hay-colored whiskers, and straw-
colored hair. He is the very picture of his sainted mother
over the mantel-piece,—Griselda of the noble house of Bin-
kie.

“ «This is the new governess, Mr. Crawley,’ said Lady Craw-
ley, coming forward, and taking my hand. ‘Miss Sharp.’

“Oh? said Mr. Crawley, and pushed his head once for-
ward and began again to read a great pamphlet with which he
was busy.

“*T hope you will be kind to my girls, said Lady Crawley,
with her pink eyes always full of tears.

“Taw, ma, of course she will, said the eldest; and I saw
at a glance that I need not be afraid of that woman.

“ “My lady is served,’ says the Butler in black, in an im-
mense white shirt-frill, that looked as if it had been one of
the Queen Elizabeth’s ruffs depicted in the hall; and so, tak-
ing Mr. Crawley’s arm, she led the way to the dining-room,
whither I followed with my little pupils in each hand.

“Sir Pitt was already in the room with a silver jug. He had
just been to the cellar, and was in full dress too; that is, he
had taken his gaiters off, and showed his little dumpy legs in
black worsted stockings. The side-board was covered with
glistening old plate,—old cups, both gold and silver; old
salvers and cruet-stands, like Rundell and Bridge’s shop.
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO, 77

Kverything on the table was in silver too, and two footmen,
with red hair and canary-colored liveries, stood on either side
of the sideboard.

“Mr. Crawley said a long grace, and Sir Pitt said amen, and
the great silver dish-covers were removed.

““What have we for dinner, Betsy? said the Baronet.

' “Mutton broth, I believe, Sir Pitt, answered Lady Craw-
ey.
__ ‘Mouton aux navets,’ added the Butler, gravely (pronounce,
if you please, moutongonavvy): ‘and the soup is potage de
mouton & ?Ecossaise. The side-dishes contain pommes de
terre au naturel and choufleur & Peau.’

“*Mutton’s mutton,’ said the Baronet, ‘and a devilish good
thing. What ship was it, Horrocks, and when did you kill?”

“*One of the black-faced Scotch, Sir Pitt; we killed on
Thursday.’

* “Who took any?

“Steel of Mudbury took the saddle and two legs, Sir Pitt;
but he says the last was too young and confounded woolly,
Sir Pitt?

“ “Will you take some potage, Miss ah—Miss Blunt?’ said
Mr. Crawley.

“ “Capital Scotch broth, my dear,’ said Sir Pitt, ‘though they
call it by a French name.’

““T believe it is the custom, sir, in decent society,’ said Mr.
Crawley, haughtily, ‘to call the dish as I have called it;’ and
it was served to us on silver soup-plates by the footmen in
the canary coats, with the mouton aux navets. Then “ale and
water’ were brought, and served to us young ladies in wine-
glasses. I am not a judge of ale, but I can say with clear con-
science I prefer water.

“While we were enjoying our repast, Sir Pitt took occasion
to ask what had become of the shoulders of the mutton.

“T believe they were eaten in the servants’ hall,’ said my
Jady, humbly. F

“<They was, my lady,’ said Horrocks, ‘and precious little
else we get there neither.’

“Sir Pitt burst into a hoarse laugh, and continued his con-
versation with Mr. Horrocks. ‘That there little black pig of
the Kent sow’s breed must be uncommon fat now.’

“Tt’s not quite busting, Sir Pitt,’ said the Butler, with the
gravest air, at which Sir Pitt, and with him the young ladies,
this time, began to laugh violently.
78 VANITY FAIR.

“Miss Crawley, Miss Rose Crawley,’ said Mr. Crawley,
‘your laughter strikes me as being exceedingly out of place.’

“Never mind, my lord,’ said the Baronet, ‘we’ll try the
porker on Saturday. Kill un on Saturday morning, John
Horrocks. Miss Sharp adores pork; don’t you, Stee

“And I think this is all the conversation that I remember
at dinner, When the repast was concluded, a jug of hot water
was placed before Sir Pitt, with a case bottle, containing, [
believe, rum. Mr. Horrocks served myself and my pupils with
three little glasses of wine, and a bumper was poured ont: for
my lady. When we retired, she took from her work-drawer
an enormous interminable piece of knitting; the young ladies
began to play at cribbage with a dirty pack of cards. We had
but one candle lighted, but it was in a magnificent old sil-
ver candlestick, and, after a very few questions from my lady,
I had my choice of amusement between a volume of sermons
and a pamphlet on the corn-laws, which Mr. Crawley had been
reading before dinner.

“So we sat for an hour until steps were heard..

“<“Put away the cards, girls,’ cried my lady, in a great tre-
mor; ‘put down Mr, Crawley’s books, Miss Sharp;’ and these
orders had been scarcely obeyed when Mr. Crawley entered the
room. ;

“We will resume yesterday’s discourse, young ladies,’ said
he, ‘and you shall each read a page by turns, so that Miss a—
Miss Short may have an opportunity of hearing you;’ and the
poor girls began to spell a long dismal sermon delivered at
Bethesda Chapel, Liverpool, on behalf of the mission for the
Chickasaw Indians, Was it not a charming evening?

“At ten the servants were told to call Sir Pitt and the house-
hold to prayers. Sir Pitt came in first, very much flushed,
and rather unsteady in his gait; and after him the butler,
the canaries, Mr. Crawley’s man, three other men, smelling
very much of the stable, and four women, one of whom, I
remarked, was very much over-dressed, and who flung me a
look of great scorn as she plumped down on her knees.

“After Mr. Crawley had done haranguing and expounding,
we received our candles, and then we went to bed; and then I
was disturbed in my writing, as I have described to my dearest,
sweetest Amelia. .

“Good night. A thousand, thousand, thousand kisses! _

“Saturday.—This morning, at five, I heard the shrieking of
the little black pig. Rose and Violet introduced me to it yes-
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO, 79

terday, and to the stables, and to the kennel, and to the gar-
dener, who was picking fruit to send to market, and from
whom they begged hard a bunch of hot-house grapes; but he
said that Sir Pitt had numbered every ‘Man Jack’ of them,
and it would be as much as his place was worth to give any
away. The darling girls caught a colt in a paddock, and asked
me if I would ride, and began to ride themselves, when the
groom coming with horrid oaths drove them away.

“Lady Crawley is always knitting the worsted. Sir Pitt is
always tipsy every night, and, I believe, sits with Horrocks,
the butler.

“Mr. Crawley always reads sermons in the evening, and in
the morning is locked up in his study, or else rides to Mud-
bury, on county business, or to Squashmore, where he preaches
on Wednesdays and Fridays to the tenants there.

“A hundred thousand gratcful loves to your dear papa and
mamma. Is your poor brother recovered of his rack punch?
O dear! O dear! How men should beware of wicked punch!

“Ever and ever thine own
“Rebecca.”

Everything considered, I think it is quite as well for our
dear Amelia Sedley, in Russell Square, that Miss Sharp and
she are parted. Rebecca is a droll, funny creature, to be sure;
and those descriptions of the poor lady weeping for the loss of
her beauty, and the gentleman “with hay-colored whiskers
and straw-colored hair,” are very smart, doubtless, and show
a great knowledge of the world. That she might, when on
her knees, have been thinking of something better than Miss
Horrock’s ribbons has possibly struck both of us. But my kind
reader will please to remember that this history has “Vanity
Fair” for a title, and that Vanity Fair is a very vain, wicked,
foolish place, full of all sorts of humbugs and falseness and
pretensions. And while the moralist, who is holding forth
on the cover (an accurate portrait of your humble servant),
professes to wear neither gown nor bands, but only the very
same long-eared livery in which his congregation 1s arrayed;
yet, look you, one is bound to speak the truth as far as one
knows it, whether one mounts a cap and bells or a shovel hat;
and a deal of disagreeable matter must come out in the course
of such an undertaking. 2

I have heard a brother of the story-telling trade, at Naples,
§0 VANITY FAIR,

preaching to a pack of good-for-nothing, honest, lazy fellows
by the sea-shore, work himself up into such a rage, and pas-
sion with some of the villains whose wicked deeds he was
describing and inventing, that the audience could not resist
it; and they and the poet together would burst out into a
roar of oaths and execrations against the fictitious monster of
the tale, so that the hat went round, and the bajocchi tumbled
into it, in the midst of a perfect storm of sympathy.

At the little Paris theaters, on the other hand, you will
not only hear the people yelling out, ‘‘Ah gredin! Ah mon-
stre,” and cursing the tyrant of the play from the boxes; but
the actors themselves positively refuse to play the wicked
parts, such as those of imfdmes Anglais, brutal Cossacks, and
what not, and prefer to appear at a smaller salary, in their
real characters as loyal Frenchmen. I set the two stories one
against the other, so that you may see that it is not from mere
mercenary motives that the present performer is desirous to
show up and trounce his villains; but because he has a sin-
cere hatred of them, which he cannot keep down, and which
must find a vent in suitable abuse and bad language.

I warn my “kyind friends,” then, that I am going to tell a
story of harrowing villainy and complicated—but, as I trust,
intensely interesting—crime. My rascals are no milk-and-
water rascals, I promise you. When we come to the proper
places, we won’t spare fine language—No, no! But when we
are going over the quiet country, we must perforce be calm.
A tempest in a slop-basin is absurd. We will reserve that sort
of thing for the mighty ocean and the lonely midnight. The
present chapter is very mild. Others—But we will not antici-
pate those.

And, as we bring our characters forward, I will ask leave,
| as a man and a brother, not only to introduce them, but

» occasionally to step down from the platform, and talk about

‘them; if they are good and kindly, to love them and shake

. them by the hand; if they are silly, to laugh at them con-

' fidentially in the reader’s sleeve; if they are wicked and heart-

~ less, to abuse them in the strongest terms which politeness ad-
mits of.

Otherwise you might fancy it was I who was sneering at the
practice of devotion, which Miss Sharp finds so ridiculous;
that it was I who laughed good-humoredly at the reeling old
Silenus of a baronet,—whereas the laughter comes from one
who has no reverence except for prosperity, and no eye for

my
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 81

anything beyond success. Such people there are living and
flourishing in the world.—Faithless, Hopeless, Charityless:
let us have at them, dear friends, with might and main. Some
there are, and very successful too, mere quacks and fools 5 and
it was to combat and expose such as those, no doubt, that
Laughter was made.

CHAPTER IX.

FAMILY PORTRAITS.

Sir Pitt Crawley was a philosopher with a taste for what is
called low life. His first marriage with the daughter of the
noble Binkie had been made under the auspices of his parents;
and as he often told Lady Crawley in her lifetime she was
such a confounded quarrelsome, high-bred jade that when she
died he was hanged if he would ever take another of her sort,
at her ladyship’s demise he kept his promise, and selected
for a second wife Miss Rose Dawson, daughter of Mr. John
Thomas Dawson, ironmoger, of Mudbury. What a happy
woman was Rose to be my Lady Crawley!

Let us set down the items of her happiness. In the first
place, she gave up Peter Butt, a young man who kept company
with her, and, in consequence of his disappointment in love,
took to smuggling, poaching, and a thousand other bad
courses. Then she quarreled, as in duty bound, with all the
friends and intimates of her youth, who, of course, could not
be received by my Lady at Queen’s Crawley,—nor did she find
in her new rank and abode any persons who were willing to
welcome her. Whoever did? Sir Huddleston Fuddleston had
three daughters who all hoped to be Lady Crawley. Sir
Giles Wapshot’s family were insulted that one of the Wap-
shot girls had not the preference in the marriage, and the
remaining baronets of the county were indignant at their com-
rade’s misalliance. Never mind the commoners, whom we
will leave to grumble anonymously.

Sir Pitt did not care, as he said, a brass farden for any one
of them. He had his pretty Rose, and what more need a man
require than to please himself? So he used to get drunk every
night; to beat his pretty Rose sometimes; to leave her in
Hampshire when he went to London for the parliamentary

é
82 VANITY FAIR.

session, without a single friend in the wide world. Even Mrs.
Bute Crawley, the rector’s wife, refused to visit her, as she
said she would never give the pas to a tradesman’s daugh-
ter.

As the only endowments with which Nature had gifted
Lady Crawley were those of pink cheeks and a white skin,
and as she had no sort of character, nor talents, nor opinions,
nor occupations, nor amusements, nor that vigor of soul and
ferocity of temper which often falls to the lot of entirely fool-
ish women, her hold upon Sir Pitt’s affections was not very
great. Her roses faded out of her cheeks, and the pretty fresh-
ness left her figure after the birth of a couple of children, and
she became a mere machine in her husband’s house, of no
more use than the late Lady Crawley’s grand piano. Being
a light-complexioned woman, she wore light clothes, as most
blondes will, and appeared, in preference, in draggled sea~
green, or slatternly sky-blue. She worked that worsted day
and night, or other pieces like it. She had counterpanes in
the course of a few years to all the beds in Crawley. She
had a small flower-garden, for which she had rather an affec-
tion; but beyond this no other like or disliking. When her
husband was rude to her, she was apathetic; whenever he
struck her, she cried. She had not character enough to take
to drinking, and moaned about, slipshod and in curl-papers
all day. O Vanity Fair,—Vanity Fair! This might have been,
but for you, a cheery lass:—Peter Butt and Rose a happy
man and wife, in a snug farm, with a hearty family, and an
honest portion of pleasures, cares, hopes, and struggles; but
a title and a coach and four are toys more precious than hap-
piness in Vanity Fair; and if Harry the Highth or Bluebeard
were alive now, and wanted a tenth wife, do you suppose he
could not get the prettiest girl that shall be presented this
season ?

The languid dullness of their mamma did not, as it may
be supposed, awaken much affection in her little daughters,
but they were very happy in the servants’ hall and in the
stables; and, the Scotch gardener having luckily a good wife
and some good children, they got a little wholesome society
and instruction in his lodge, which was the only education
bestowed upon them until Miss Sharp came.

Her engagement was owing to the remonstrances of Mr.
Pitt Crawley, the only friend or protector Lady Crawley ever
had, and the only person, besides her children, for whom
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 83

she entertained a little feeble attachment. Mr. Pitt took after
the noble Binkies, from whom he was descended, and was a
very polite and proper gentleman. When he grew to man’s
estate, and came back from Christ-church, he began to re-
form the slackened discipline of the hall, in spite of his
father, who stood in awe of him. He was a man of such rigid
refinement, that he would have starved rather than have dined
without a white neckcloth. Once, when just from college,
and when Horrocks the butler brought him a letter with-
out placing it previously on a tray, he gave that domestic a
look, and administered to him a speech so cutting that Hor-
rocks ever after trembled before him; the whole household
bowed to him; Lady Crawley’s curl-papers came off earlier
when he was at home; Sir Pitt’s muddy gaiters disappeared;
and if that incorrigible old man still adhered to other old
habits, he never fuddled himself with rum-and-water in his
son’s presence, and only talked to his servants in a very re-
served and polite manner; and those persons remarked that
Sir Pitt never swore at Lady Crawley while his son was in the
room.

It was he who taught the butler to say, “My lady is served,”
and who insisted on handing her ladyship in to dinner. He
seldom spoke to her, but when he did it was with the most
powerful respect; and he never let her quit the apartment
without rising in the most stately manner to open the door,
and making an elegant bow at her egress.

At Eton he was called Miss Crawley; and there, I am sorry
to say, his younger brother Rawdon used to lick him violently.
But, though his parts were not brilliant, he made up for his
lack of talent, by meritorious industry, and was never known,
during eight years at school, to be subject to that punishment
which it is generally thought none but a cherub can escape.

At college his career was of course highly creditable. And
here he prepared himself for public life, into which he was to
be introduced by the patronage of his grandfather, Lord
Binkie, by studying the ancient and modern orators with great °
assiduity, and’ by speaking unceasingly at the debating so-
cieties. But though he had a fine flux of words, and deliv-
ered his little voice with great pomposity and pleasure to
himself, and never advanced any sentiment or opinion which
was not perfectly trite and stale, and supported by a latin
quotation; yet he failed somehow, in spite of a mediocrity
which ought to have insured any man a success. He did not
84 VANITY FAIR.

even get the prize poem, which all his friends said he was
sure of.

After leaving college he became Private Secretary to Lord
Binkie, and was then appointed Attaché to the Legation at
Pumpernickel, which post he filled with perfect honor, and
brought home despatches, consisting of Strasbourg pie, to the
Foreign Minister of the day. After remaining ten years At-
taché (several years after the lamented Lord Binkie’s demise,)
and finding the advancement slow, he at length gave up the
diplomatic service in some disgust, and began to turn country
gentleman.

He wrote a pamphlet on Malt on returning to England (for
he was an ambitions man and always liked to be
before the public), and took a strong part in the
Negro Emancipation question. Then he became a friend
of Mr. Wilberforce’s, whose politics he admired, and had that
famous correspondence with the Reverend Silas Hornblower,
on the Ashantee Mission. He was in London, if not for
the parliament session, at least in May, for the religious
meetings. In the country he was a magistrate, and an active
visitor and speaker among those destitute of religious instruc-
tion. He was said to be paying his addresses to Lady Jane
Sheepshanks, Lord Southdown’s third daughter, and whose
sister, Lady Emily, wrote those sweet tracts, “The Sailor’s
True Binnacle,’ and “The Applewoman of Finchley Com-
mon.”

Miss Sharp’s account of his employment at Queen’s Craw-
ley were not caricatures. He subjected the servants there to
the devotional exercises before mentioned, in which (and so
much the better) he brought his father to join. He patronized
an Independent meeting-house in Crawley parish, much to the
indignation of his uncle the rector, and to the consequent
delight of Sir Pitt, who was induced to go himself once or
twice, which occasioned some violent sermons at Crawley par-
ish church, directed point-blank at the Baronet’s old gothic
pew there. Honest Sir Pitt, however, did not feel the force
ue these discourses, as he always took his nap during sermon-
ime.

Mr. Crawley was very earnest, for the good of the nation
and of the Christian world, that the old gentleman should
yield him up his place in Parliament; but this the elder con-
stantly refused to do. Both were of course too prudent to
give up the fifteen hundred a year which was brought in by
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 85

the second seat (at this period filled by Mr. Quadroon, with
carte-blanche on the slave question); indeed the family estate
was much embarrassed, and the income drawn from the
borough was of great use to the house of Queen’s Crawley.

It had never recovered the heavy fine imposed upon Wal-
pole Crawley, first baronet, for peculation in the Tape and
Sealing-Wax Office. Sir Walpole was a jolly fellow, eager to
seize and to spend money (“alieni appetens, sui profusus,” as
Mr. Crawley would remark with a sigh), and in his day be-
loved by all the county for the constant drunkenness and
hospitality which was maintained at Queen’s Crawley. The
cellars were filled with burgundy then, the kennels with
hounds, and the stables with gallant hunters; now, such
horses as Queen’s Crawley possessed went to plough, or ran in
the Trafalgar Coach; and it was with a team of these very
horses, on an off-day, that Miss Sharp was brought to the
Hall; for, boor as he was, Sir Pitt was a stickler for his dignity
while at home, and seldom drove out but with four horses,
and, though he dined off boiled mutton, had always three foot-
men to serve it.

If mere parsimony would have made a man rich, Sir Pitt
Crawley might have become very wealthy; if he had been an
attorney in a country town, with no capital but his brains, it
is very possible that he would have turned them to good ac-
count, and might have achieved for himself a very considera-
ble influence and competency. But he was unluckily endowed
with a good name and a large though encumbered estate, both
of which went rather to injure than to advance him. He had
a taste for law, which cost him many thousands yearly; and
being a great deal too clever to be robbed, as he said, by any
single agent, allowed his affairs to be mismanaged by a dozen,
whom he all equally mistrusted. He was such a sharp land-
lord, that he could hardly find any but bankrupt tenants; and
such a close farmer as to grudge almost the seed to the ground,
whereupon revengeful Nature grudged him the crops which
she granted to more liberal hushandmen. He speculated in
every possible way; he worked mines, bought canal-shares,
horsed coaches, took government contracts, and was the busiest
man and magistrate of the county. As he would not pay hon-
est agents at his granite quarry, he had the satisfaction of find-
ing that four overseers ran away, and took fortunes with them
to America. For want of proper precautions, his coal-mines
filled with water: the government flung his contract of dam-
86 VANITY FAIR.

aged beef upon his hands: and for his coach-horses, every
mail proprietor in the kingdom knew that he lost more horses
than any man in the country, from underfeeding and buying
cheap. In disposition he was sociable, and far from being
proud; nay, he rather preferred the society of a farmer or a
horse-dealer to that of a gentleman, like my lord, his son: he
was fond of drink, of swearing, of joking with the farmers’
daughters: he was never known to give away a shilling or to
doa good action, but was of a pleasant, sly, laughing mood, and
would cut his joke and drink his glass with a tenant.and sell
him up the next day; or have his laugh with the poacher he
was transporting with equal good-humor. His politeness for
the fair sex has already been hinted at by Miss Rebecca Sharp,
—in a word, the whole baronetage, peerage, commonage of
England did not contain a more cunning, mean, selfish, fool-
ish, disreputable old man. That blood-red hand of Sir Pitt
Crawley’s would be in anybody’s pocket except his own; and it
is with grief and pain, that, as admirers of the British aris-
tocracy, we find ourselves obliged to admit the existence of so
many ill qualities in a person whose name is in Debrett.

One great cause why Mr. Crawley had such a hold over the
affections of his father resulted from money arrangements.
The Baronet owed his son a sum of money out of the jointure.
of his mother, which he did not find it convenient to pay; in-
deed, he had an almost invincible repugnance to paying any-
body, and could only be brought by force to discharge his
debts. Miss Sharp calculated (or she became, as we shall hear
speedily, inducted into most of the secrets of the family) that
the mere payment of his creditors cost the honorable baronet
several hundreds yearly; but this was a delight he could not
forego; he had a savage pleasure in making the poor wretches
wait, and in shifting from court to court and from term to
term the period of satisfaction. What’s the good of being in
Parliament, he said, if you must pay your debts? Hence, in-
deed, his position as a senator was not a little useful to him.

Vanity Fair—Vanity Fair! Here was a man, who could not
spell, and did not care to read, who had the habits and the
cunning of a boor; whose aim in life was pettifogging; who
never had a taste, or emotion, or enjoyment, but what was
sordid and foul; and yet he had rank and honors, and power,
somehow: and was a dignitary of the land, and a pillar of the
state. He was high sheriff, and rode in a golden coach. Great
ministers and statesmen courted him; and in Vanity Fair he
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 87

an a higher place than the most brilliant genius or spotless
virtue.

Sir Pitt had an unmarried half-sister who inherited her
mother’s large fortune, and, though the Baronet proposed to
borrow this money of her on mortgage, Miss Crawley declined
the offer, and preferred the security of the funds. She had
signified, however, her intention of leaving her inheritance
between Sir Pitt’s second son and the family at the rectory,
and had onee or twice paid the debts of Rawdon Crawley in
his career at college and in the army. Miss Crawley was, in
consequence, an object of great respect when she came to
Queen’s Crawley, for she had a balance at her banker’s which
would have made her beloved anywhere.

What a dignity it gives an old lady, that balance at the
banker’s! How tenderly we look at her faults if she is a rela-
tive (and may every reader have a score of such), what a kind
good-natured old creature we find her! How the junior part-
ner of Hobbs and Dobbs leads her smiling to the carriage with
the lozenge upon it, and the fat wheezy coachman! How,
when she comes to pay us a visit, we generally find an oppor-
tunity to let our friends know her station im the world! We
say (and with perfect truth), I wish I had Miss MacWhirter’s
signature to a check for five thousand pounds. She wouldn’t
miss it, says your wife. She is my aunt, say you, in an easy,
careless way, when your friend asks if Miss MacWhirter is any
relative. Your wife is perpetually sending her little testimonies
of affection, your little girls work endless worsted baskets,
cushions, and footstools for her. What a good fire there is in
her room when she comes to pay you a visit, although your
wife laces her stays without one! The house during her stay
assumes a festive, neat, warm, jovial, snug appearance not visi-
ble at other seasons. You yourself, dear sir, forget to go to
sleep after dinner, and find yourself all of a sudden (though
you invariably lose) very fond of a rubber. What good dinners
you have,—game every day, Malmsey-Madeira, and no end of
fish from London. Even the servants in the kitchen share in
the general prosperity; and, somehow, during the stay of Miss
MacWhirter’s fat coachman, the beer is grown much stronger,
and the consumption of tea and sugar im the nursery (where
her maid takes her meals) is not regarded in the least. Is it
so, or is it not so? I appeal to the middle classes. Ah, gracious
powers! I wish you would send me an old aunt,—a maiden
aunt,—an aunt with a lozenge on her carriage, and a front
88 VANITY FAIR.

of light coffee-colored hair,—how my children should work
workbags for her, and my Julia and I would make her com-
fortable! Sweet—sweet vision! Foolish—foolish dream!

CHAPTER X.

MISS SHARP BEGINS TO MAKE FRIENDS.

And now, being received as a member of the amiable fami-
ly whose portraits we have sketched in the foregoing pages,
it became naturally Rebecca’s duty to make herself, as she said,
agreeable to her benefactors, and to gain their confidence to
the utmost of her power. Who can but admire this quality
of gratitude in an unprotected orphan? and, if there entered
some degree of selfishness into her calculations, who can say
but that her prudence was perfectly justifiable? “I am alone
in the world,’ said the friendless girl. “I have nothing to
look for but what my own labor can bring me; and while that
little pink-faced chit Amelia, with not half my sense, has ten
thousand pounds and an establishment secure, poor Rebecca
(and my figure is far better than hers) has only herself and
her own wits to trust to. Well, let us see if my wits cannot
provide me with an honorable maintenance, and if some day
or the other I cannot show Miss Amelia my real superiority
over her. Not that I dislike poor Amelia,—who can dislike
such a harmless, good-natured creature?—only it will be a fine
day when I can take my place above her in the world, as why,
indeed, should I not?” Thus it was that our little romantic
friend formed visions of the future for herself,—nor must we
be scandalized that, in all her castles in the air, a husband
was the principal inhabitant. Of what else have young ladies
to think, but husbands? Of what else do their dear mammas
think? “TI must be my own mamma,” said Rebecca; not with-
out a tingling consciousness of defeat, as she thought over her
little misadventure with Jos Sedley.

So she wisely determined to render her position with the
Queen’s Crawley family comfortable and secure, and to this
end resolved to make friends of every one around her who
could at all interfere with her comfort.

As my lady Crawley was not one of these personages, and
a woman, moreover, so indolent and void of character as not
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 89

to be of the least consequence in her own house, Rebecca soon
found that it was not at all necessary to cultivate her good-
will,—indeed, impossible to gain it. She used to talk to her
pupils about their “poor mamma;” and, though she treated:
that lady with every demonstration of cool respect, it was to
the rest of the family that she wisely directed the chief part of
her attentions.

With the young people, whose applause she thoroughly
gained, het method was pretty simple. She did not pester
their young brains with too much learning, but, on the con-
trary, let them have their own way in regard to educating
themselves; for what instruction is more effectual than self-
instruction? The eldest was rather fond of books,
and as there was in the old library at Queen’s Craw-
ley a considerable provision of works of light literature of the
last century, both in the French and English languages (they
had been purchased by the Secretary of the Tape and Sealing-
Wax Office at the period of his disgrace), and as nobody ever
troubled the book-shelves but herself, Rebecca was enabled
agreeably, and, as it were, in playing, to impart a great deal
of instruction to Miss Rose Crawley.

She and Miss Rose thus read together many delightful
French and English works, among which may be mentioned
those of the learned Dr. Smollett, of the ingenious Mr. Henry
Fielding, of the graceful and fantastic Monsieur Crébillon the
younger, whom our immortal poet Gray so much admired,
and of the universal Monsieur de Voltaire. Once, when Mr.
Crawley asked what the young people were reading, the gov-
erness replied, “Smollett.” “O, Smollett,” said Mr. Crawley,
quite satisfied. “Elis history is more dull, but by no means so
dangerous as that of Mr. Hume. It is history you are read-
ing?” “Yes,” said Miss Rose: without, however, adding that
it was the history of Mr. Humphrey Clinker. On another occa-
sion he was rather scandalized at finding his sister with a book
of French plays; but, as the governess remarked that it was
for the purpose of acquiring the French idiom in conversation,
he was fain to be content. Mr. Crawley, as a diplomatist, was
exceedingly proud of his own skill in speaking the French lan-
guage (for he was of the world still), and not a little pleased
with the compliments which the governess continually paid
him upon his proficiency.

Miss Violet’s tastes were, on the contrary, more rude and
boisterous than those of her sister. She knew the sequestered
90 VANITY FAIR.

spots where the hens laid their eggs. She could climb a tree to
rob the nests of the feathered songsters of their speckled spoils.
And her pleasure was to ride the young colts, and to scour the
plains like Camilla. She was the favorite of her father and
of the stable-men. She was the darling, and withal the terror, .
of the cook; for she discovered the haunts of the jam-pots,
and would attack them when they were within her reach,
She and her sister were engaged in constant battles. Any of
which peccadilloes, if Miss Sharp discovered, she did not tell
them to Lady Crawley, who would have told them to the fath-
er, or, worse, to Mr. Crawley; but promised not to tell if Miss
Violet would be a good girl and love her governess.

With Mr. Crawley Miss Sharp was respectful and obedient.
She used to consult him on passages of French which she
could not understand, though her mother was a French-
woman, and which he would construe to her satisfaction; and,
besides giving her his aid in profane literature, he was kind
enough to select for her books of a more serious tendency,
and address to her much of his conversation. She admired,
beyond measure, his speech at the Quashimaboo-Aid Society;
took an interest in his pamphlet on malt; was often affected,
even to tears, by his discourses of an evening, and would say,
“O, thank you, sir,” with a sigh and a look up to heaven, that
made him occasionally condescend to shake hands with her.
“Blood is everything, after all,” would that aristocratic re-
ligionist say. “How Miss Sharp is awakened by my words, when
not one of the people here is touched. Iam too fine for them,
too delicate. I must familiarize my style,—but she under-
stands it. Her mother was a Montmorency.”

Indeed it was from this famous family, as it appears, that
Miss Sharp, by the mother’s side, was descended. Of course
she did not say that her mother had been on the stage; it
would have shocked Mr. Crawley’s religious scruples. How
many noble émigrées had this horrid revolution plunged in
poverty! She had several stories about her ancestors ere she
had been many months jn the house; some of which Mr. Craw-
ley happened to find in D’Hozier’s dictionary, which was in
the library, and which strengthened his belief in their truth,
and in the high-breeding of Rebecca. Are we to suppose from
this curiosity and prying into dictionaries, could our herione
suppose, that Mr. Crawley was interested in her?—-no, only in
a friendly way. Have we not stated that he was attached to
Lady Jane Sheepshanke? é
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 91

He took Rebecca to task once or twice about the propriety
of playing at backgammon with Sir Pitt, saying that it was a
godless amusement, and that she would be much better en-
gaged in reading “Thrump’s Legacy,” or “The Blind Wash-
erwoman of Moorfield’s,” or any work of a more serious nature;
but Miss Sharp said her dear mother used often to play the
same game with the old Count de Trictrae and the venerable
Abbé du Cornet, and so found an excuse for this and other
worldly amusements.

But it was not only by playing at backgammon with the
Baronet, that the little governess rendered herself agreeable
to her employer. She found many different ways of being
useful to him. She read over, with indefatigable patience, all
those law papers, with which, before she came to Queen’s
Crawley, he had promised to entertain her. She volunteered
to copy many of his letters, and adroitly altered the spelling
of them so as to suit the usages of the present day. She be-
came interested in everything appertaining to the estate,
to the farm, the park, the garden, and the stables; and so de-
lightful a companion was she, that the Baronet would seldom
take his after-breakfast walk without her (and the children
of course), when she would give her advice as to the trees
which were to be lopped in the shrubberies, the garden-beds
to be dug, the crops which were to be cut, the horses which
were to go to cart or plough. Before she had been a year at
Queen’s Crawley she had quite won the Baronet’s confidence;
and the conversation at the dinner-table, which before used to
be held between him and Mr. Horrocks the butler, was now
almost exclusively between Sir Pitt and Miss Sharp. She was
almost mistress of the house when Mr. Crawley was absent,
but conducted herself in her new and exalted situation with
such circumspection and modesty as not to offend the authori-
ties of the kitchen and stable, among whom her behavior was
always exceedingly modest and affable. She was quite a differ-
ent person from the haughty, shy, dissatisfied little girl whom
we have known previously, and this change of temper proved
great prudence, a sincere desire of amendment, or, at any rate,
great moral courage on her part. Whether it was the heart
which dictated this new system of complaisance and humility
adopted by our Rebecca, is to be proved by her after-history.
A system of hypocrisy, which lasts through whole years, is one
seldom satisfactorily practiced by a person of one-and-twen-
ty; however, our readers will recollect, that, though young

'
92 VANITY FAIR.

in years, our heroine was old in life and experience, and we
have written to no purpose if they have not discovered that
she was a very clever woman.

The elder and younger son of the house of Crawley were,
like the gentleman and lady in the weather-box, never at
home together,—they hated each other cordially; indeed,
Rawdon Crawley, the dragoon, had a great contempt for the
establishment altogether, and seldom came thither except
when his aunt paid her annual visit.

The great good quality of this old lady has been mentioned.
She possessed seventy thousand pounds, and had almost
adopted Rawdon. She disliked her elder nephew ex-
ceedingly, and despised him as a milksop. In return he did
not hesitate to state that her soul was irretrievably lost, and
was of opinion that his brother’s chance in the next world
was not a whit better. “She is a godless woman of the world,”
would Mr. Crawley say; “she lives with atheists and French-
men. My mind shudders when I think of her awful,
awful situation, and that, near as she is to the grave,
she should be so given up to vanity, licentiousness,
profaneness, and folly.” In fact, the old lady declined
altogether to hear his hour’s lecture of an evening; and when
she came to Queen’s Crawley alone, he was obliged to pre-
termit his usual devotional exercises.

“Shut up your sarmons, Pitt, when Miss Crawley comes
down,” said his father; “she has written to say that she won’t
stand the preachifying.”

“OQ sir! consider the servants.”

“The servants be hanged,” said Sir Pitt; and his son
thought even worse would happen were they deprived of the
benefit of his instruction.

“Why, hang it, Pitt!” said the father, to his remonstrance.
“You wouldn’t be such a flat as to let three thousand a year
go out of the family?”

“What is money compared to our souls, sir?” continued
Crawley.

“You mean that the old lady won’t leave the money to you?”
—and who knows but it was Mr. Crawley’s meaning?

Old Miss Crawley was certainly one of the reprobate. She
had a snug little house in Park Lane, and, as she ate and drank
a great deal too much during the season in London, she went
to Harrowgate or Cheltenham for the summer. She was the
most hospitable and jovial of old vestals, and had been a beau-
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 93

ty in her day, she said. (All old women were beauties once,
we very well know.) She was a ded esprit, and a dreadful
Radical for those days. She had been in France (where St.
Just, they say, inspired her with an unfortunate passion), and
loved, ever after, French novels, French cookery, and French
wines. She read Voltaire, and had Rousseau by heart; talked
very lightly about divorce, and most energetically of the rights
of women. She had pictures of Mr. Fox in every room in the
house; when that statesman was in opposition, 1 am not sure
that she had not flung a main with him; and when he came
into office, she took great credit for bringing over to him Sir
Pitt and his colleague for Queen’s Crawley, although Sir Pitt
would have come over himself, without any trouble on the
honest lady’s part. It is needless to say that Sir Pitt was
brought to change his views after the death of the great
Whig statesman.

This worthy old lady took a fancy to Rawdon Crawley when
a boy, sent him to Cambridge (in opposition to his brother at
Oxford), and, when the young man was requested by the
authorities of the first-named University to quit after a resi-
dence of two years, she bought him his commission in the
Life Guards Green.

A perfect and celebrated “blood,” or dandy about town, was
this young officer. Boxing, rat-hunting, the fives’ court, and
four-in-hand driving were then the fashion of our British
aristocracy; and he was an adept in all these noble sciences.
And though he belonged to the household troops, who, as it
was their duty to rally round the Prince Regent, had not
shown their valor in foreign service yet, Rawdon Crawley had
already (apropos of play, of which he was immoderately fond)
fought three bloody duels, in which he gave ample proofs of
his contempt for death.

“And for what follows after death,” would Mr. Crawley
observe, throwing his gooseberry-colored eyes up to the ceiling.
He was always thinking of his brother’s soul or of the souls of
those who differed with him in opinion: it is a sort of comfort
which many of the serious give themselves. ;

Silly, romantic Miss Crawley, far from being horrified at the
courage of her favorite, always used to pay his debts after his
duels; and would not listen to a word that was whispered
against his morality. “He will sow his wild-oats,” she would
say, “and is worth far more than that puling hypocrite of a

brother of his.”
94 VANITY FAIR.

CHAPTER XI.

ARCADIAN SIMPLICITY.

Besides these honest folks at the Hall (whose simplicity and
sweet rural purity surely show the advantage of a country life
over a town one), we must introduce the reader to their rela-
tives and neighbors at the Rectory, Bute Crawley and his
wife.

The Reverend Bute Crawley was a tall, stately, jolly, shovel-
hatted man, far more popular in his county than the Baronet
his brother. At college he pulled stroke-oar in the Christ-
church boat, and had thrashed all the best bruisers of the
“town.” He carried his taste for boxing and athletic exercises
into private life; there was not a fight within twenty miles at
wich he was not present, nor a race, nor a coursing match,
nor a regatta, nor a ball, nor an election, nor a visitation din-
ner, nor indeed a good dinner in the whole county, but he
found means to attend it. You might see his bay mare and
gig-lamps a score of miles away from his Rectory House, when-
ever there was any dinner-party at Fuddleston, or at Roxby,
or at Wapshot Hall, or at the great lords of the county, with
all of whom he was intimate. He had a fine voice; sang “A
southerly wind and a cloudy sky;” and gave the “whoop” in
chorus with general applause. He rode to hounds in a pep-.
per-and-salt frock, and was one of the best fishermen in the
county. va, th

Mrs. Crawley, the rector’s wife, was a smart little body, who
wrote this worthy divine’s sermons. Being of a domestic turn,
and keeping the house a great deal with her daughters, she
ruled absolutely within the rectory, wisely giving her husband
full liberty without. He was welcome to come and go, and dine
abroad as many days as his fancy dictated, for Mrs. Crawley
was a saving woman and knew the price of port wine. Ever
since Mrs. Bute carried off the young rector of Queen’s Craw-
ley (she was of a good family, daughter of the late Lieut.-
Colonel Hector MacTavish, and she and her mother played for
Bute and won him at Harrowgate), she had been a prudent
and thrifty wife to him. In spite of her care, however, he was
always in debt. It took him at least ten years to pay off his
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 95

college bills contracted during his father’s lifetime. In the
year 179—, when he was just clear of these encumbrances,
he gave the odds of 100 to 1 (in twenties) against Kangeroo,
who won the Derby. The rector was obliged to take up the
money at a ruinous interest, and had been struggling ever
since. His sister helped him with a hundred now and then,
but of course his great hope was in her death,—when “han
it” (as he would say), “Matilda must leave me half her money.

So that the Baronet and his brother had every reason which
two brothers possibly can have for being by the ears. Sir Pitt
had had the better of Bute in innumerable family transac-
tions. Young Pitt not only did not hunt, but set up a meet-
ing-house under his uncle’s very nose. Rawdon, it was known,
was to come in for the bulk of Miss Crawley’s property. These
money transactions—these speculations in life and death,—
these silent battles for reversionary spoil,—make brothers very
loving towards each other in Vanity Fair. I, for my part,
have known a five-pound note to interpose and knock up a alf-
century’s attachment between two brethren; and can’t but
admire, as I think what a fine and durable thing Love is among
worldly people. ;

It cannot be supposed that the arrival of such a ersonage
as Rebecca at Queen’s Crawley, and her gradual establishment
in the good graces of all people there, could be unremarked
by Mrs. Bute Crawley. Mrs. Bute, who knew how many days
the sirloin of beef lasted at the Hall; how much linen was got
ready at the great wash; how many peaches were on the south
wall; how many doses her ladyship took when she was ill,—
for such points are matters of intense interest to certain per-
sons in the country,—Mrs. Bute, I say, could not pass over
the Hall governess without making every inquiry respecting
her history and character. There was always the best ts
standing between the servants at the Rectory and the “ ;
There was always a good glass of ale in the kitchen of the
former place for the Hall people, whose ordinary drink —
very small,—and, indeed, the Rector’s lady knew exactly how
much malt went to every barrel of Hall beer,~—ties of goed
ship existed between the Hall and Rectory domestics, - te
tween their masters; and through these channels each om y
was perfectly well acquainted with the doings of the other.
That, by the way, may be set down as a general remark. When
you and your prother are friends, his doings are indifferent

y
96 VANITY FAIR.

to you. When you have quarreled, all his outgoings and in-
comings you know, as if you were his spy.

Very soon then after her arrival, Rebecca began to take a
regular place in Mrs. Crawley’s bulletin from the Hall. It
was to this effect: “The black porker’s killed,—weighed x
stone,—salted the sides,—pig’s pudding and leg of pork for
dinner. Mr. Cramp from Mudbury, over with Sir Pitt about
putting John Blackmore in jail,—Mr. Pitt at meeting (with all
the names of the people who attended),—my lady as usual,—
the young ladies with the governess.”

Then the report would come,—the new governess be a rare
manager,—Sir Pitt is very sweet on her,—Mr. Crawley too—
He be reading tracts to her—“What an abondoned wretch!”
said little, eager, active, black-faced Mrs. Bute Crawley.

Finally, the reports were that the governess had “come
round” everybody, wrote Sir Pitt’s letters, did his business,
managed his accounts,—had the upper hand of the whole
house, my lady, Mr. Crawley, the girls, and all,—at which
Mrs. Crawley declared she was an artful hussy, and had some
dreadful designs in view. Thus the doings at the Hall were
the great food for conversation at the Rectory, and Mrs. Bute’s
bright eyes spied out everything that took place in the enemy’s
camp,—everything and a great deal besides.

“MRS. BUTE CRAWLEY TO MISS PINKERTON, THE MALL,
CHISWICK.

“Rectory, Queen’s Crawley, December, ——.

“My Dear Madam,—Although it is so many years since I
profited by your delightful and invaluable instructions, yet I
have ever retained the fondest and most reverential regard for
Miss Pinkerton, and dear Chiswick. I hope your health is
‘good. The world and the cause of education cannot afford to
lose Miss Pinkerton for many, many years. When my friend,
Lady Fuddleston, mentioned that her dear girls required an
instructress (I am too poor to engage a governess for mine,
but was I not educated at Chiswick?)—‘Who,’ I exclaimed,
‘san we consult but the excellent, the incomparable Miss Pink-
erton? In a word, have you, dear madam, any ladies on your
list, whose services might be made available to my kind friend
and neighbor? I assure you she will take no governess but
of your choosing.

“My dear husband is pleased to say that he likes everything
A NOVEL WITHOUT A, HERO. 97

which comes from Miss Pinkerton’s school. How I wish I
could present him and my beloved girls to the friend of my
youth, and the admired of the great lexicographer of our coun-
try! If you ever travel into Hampshire, Mr. Crawley begs me
to say, he hopes you will adorn our rural rectory with your
presence. *T' is the humble but happy home of
“Your affectionate
“Martha Crawley.

“P. 8. Mr. Crawley’s brother, the baronet, with whom we
are not, alas! upon those terms of unity in which it becomes
brethren to dwell, has a governess for his little girls, who, I
am told, had the good fortune to be educated at Chiswick. I
hear various reports of her; and as I have the tenderest inter-
est in my dearest little nieces, whom I wish, in spite of family
differences, to see among my own children,—and as I long to
be attentive to any pupil of yours,—do, my dear Miss Pinker-
ton, tell me the history of this young lady, whom, for
your sake, I am most anxious to befriend.—M. C.”

“MISS PINKERTON TO MRS. BUTE CRAWLEY.

“Johnson House, Chiswick, December, 18—.

“Dear Madam,—lI have the honor to acknowledge your po-
lite communication, to which I promptly reply. ’T is most
gratifying to one in my most arduous position to find that my
maternal cares have elicited a responsive affection; and to rec-
ognize in the amiable Mrs. Bute Crawley my excellent pupil
of former years, the sprightly and accomplished Miss Martha
MacTavish. I am happy to have under my charge now the
daughters of many of those who were your contemporaries at
my establishment. What pleasure it would give me if your own
beloved young ladies had need of my instructive superin-
tendence!

“Presenting my respectful compliments to Lady Fuddle-
ston, I have the honor (epistolarily) to introduce to her lady-
ship my two friends, Miss Tuffin and Miss Hawky. ;

“Hither of these young ladies is perfectly qualified to in-
struct in Greek, Latin, and the rudiments of Hebrew; in math-
ematics and history; in Spanish, French, Italian, and geogra-
phy; in music, vocal and instrumental; in dancing, without
the aid of a master; and in the elements of natural sciences. In
the use of the globes both are proficients. In addition to these,

aq es
98 VANITY FAIR.

Miss Tuffin, who is the daughter of the late Reverend Thomas
Tuffin (Fellow of Corpus College, Cambridge), can instruct in
the Syriac language, and the elements of Constitutional law.
But as she is only eighteen years of age, and of exceedingly
pleasing personal appearance, perhaps this young lady may be
objectionable in Sir Huddleston Fuddleston’s family.

“Miss Letitia Hawky, on the other hand, is not personally
well-favored.. She is twenty-nine; her face is much pitted
with the small-pox. She has a halt in her gait, red hair, and
a trifling obliquity of vision. Both ladies are endowed with
every moral and religious virtue. Their terms, of course, are
such as their accomplishments merit. With my most grateful
respects to the Reverend Bute Crawley, I have the honor to
be,

“Dear madam,
“Your most faithful and obedient servant,
“Barbara Pinkerton.

“P, 8. The Miss Sharp, whom you mention as governess
to Sir Pitt Crawley, Bart., M. P., was a pupil of mine, and I
have nothing to say in her disfavor. Though her appearance
is disagreeable, we cannot control the operations of nature;
and though her parents were disreputable (her father being a
painter, several times bankrupt, and her mother, as I have
since learned with horror, a dancer at the opera), yet her talents
are considerable, and I cannot regret that I received her out
of charity. My dread is lest the principles of the mother,
who was represented to me as a French Countess forced to
emigrate in the late revolutionary horrors, but who, as I have
since found, was a person of the very lowest order and morals,
should at any time prove to be hereditary in the unhappy
young woman whom I took as an outcast. But her principles
have hitherto been correct (I believe), and I am sure nothing
will occur to injure them in the elegant and refined circle ot
the eminent Sir Pitt Crawley.”

“MISS REBECCA SHARP TO MISS AMELIA SEDLEY.

“T have not written to my beloved Amelia for these many
weeks past, for what news was there to tell of the sayings and
doings at Humdrum Hall, as I have christened it; and. what
do you care whether the turnip crop is good or bad; whether
the fat pig weighed thirteen stone or fourteen; and whether
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 99

the beasts thrive well upon mangelwurzel? Every day since I
last wrote has been like its neighbor. Before breakfast, a
walk with Sir Pitt and his spud; after breakfast, studies (such
as they are) in the school-room; after school-room, reading
and writing about lawyers, leases, coal-mines, canals, with
Sir Pitt (whose secretary I am become); after dinner, Mr.
Crawley’s discourses or the baronet’s backgammon; during
both of which amusements my ladv looks on with equal placi-
dity. She has become rather more interesting by being ail-
ing of late, which has brought a new visitor to the Hall in
the person of a young doctor. Well, my dear, young women
need never despair. The young doctor gave a certain friend
of yours to understand, that, if she chose to be Mrs. Glauber,
she was welcome to ornament the surgery! I told his impu-
dence that the gilt pestle and mortar was quite ornament
enough; as if I was born, indeed, to be a country surgeon’s
wife! Mr. Glauber went home seriously indisposed at his re-
buff, took a cooling draught, and is now quite cured. Sir
Pitt applauded my resolution highly; he would be sorry to
lose his little secretary, I think; and I believe the old wretch
likes me as much as it is in his nature to like any one. Marry,
indeed! and with a country apothecary, after—No, no, one
cannot so soon forget old associations, about which I will talk
no more. Let us return to Humdrum Hall.

“For some time past it is Humdrum Hall no longer. My
dear, Miss Crawley has arrived with her fat horses, fat ser-
vants, fat spaniel,—the great rich Miss Crawley, with seventy
thousand pounds in the five per cents, whom, or I had better
say which, her two brothers adore. She looks very apoplectic,
the dear soul; no wonder her brothers are anxious about her.
You should see them struggling to settle her cushions, or to
hand her coffee! ‘When I come into the country, she says
(for she has a great deal of humor), ‘I leave my toady, Miss
Briggs, at home. My brothers are my toadies here, my dear,
and a pretty pair they are!’

“When she comes into the country, our hall is thrown open,
and for a month, at least, you would fancy old Sir Walpole was
come to life again. We have dinner-parties, and drive out
in the coach-and-four,—the footmen put on their newest
canary-colored liveries; we drink claret and champagne as if
we were accustomed to it every day. We have wax candles
in the school-room, and fires to warm ourselves with. Lady
Crawley is made to put on the brightest pea-green 1n her ward-
10C VANITY FAIR.

robe, and my pupils leave off their thick shoes and tight old
tartan pelisses, and wear silk stockings and muslin frocks, as
fashionable baronets’ daughters should. Rose came in yes-
terday in a sad plight; the Wiltshire sow (an enormous pet
of hers) ran her down, and destroyed a most lovely flowered
lilac silk dress by dancing over it; had this happened a week
ago, Sir Pitt would have sworn frightfully, have boxed the
poor wretch’s ears, and put her upon bread and water for a
month. All he said was, ‘I’ll serve you out, miss, when your
aunt’s gone,’ and laughed off the accident as quite trivial. Let
us hope his wrath will have passed away before Miss Crawley’s
departure. I hope so, for Miss Rose’s sake, I am sure. What a
charming reconciler and peacemaker money is!

“Another admirable effect of Miss Crawley and her seventy
thousand pounds is to be seen in the conduct of the two
brothers Crawley. I mean the baronet and the rector, not
our brothers,—but the former, who hate each other, all the
year round, become quite loving at Christmas. I wrote to
you last year how the abominable horse-racing rector was in
the habit of preaching clumsy sermons at us at church, and
how Sir Pitt snored in answer. When Miss Crawley arrives,
there is no such thing as quarreling heard of,—the Hall visits
the Rectory, and vice versa,—the parson and the baronet talk
about the pigs and the poachers and the county business, in
the most affable manner, and without quarreling in their
cups, I believe,—indeed, Miss Crawley won’t hear of their
quarreling, and vows that she will leave her money to the
Shropshire Crawleys if they offend her. If they were clever
people, those Shropshire Crawleys, they might have it all, I
think; but the Shropshire Crawley is a clergyman like his
Hampshire cousin, and mortally offended Miss Crawley (who
had fled thither in a fit of rage against her impracticable breth-
ren) by some strait-laced notions of morality. He would have
prayers in the house, I believe.

“Our sermon-books are shut up when Miss Crawley arrives,
and Mr. Pitt, whom she abominates, finds it convenient to
go to town. On the other hand, the young dandy— blood,’
I believe, is the term—Captain Crawley makes his appearance,
ane I suppose you would like to know what sort of a person

e is.

“Well, he is a very large young dandy. He is six feet high,
and speaks with a great voice; and swears a great deal; and
orders about the servants, who all adore him nevertheless; for
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 101

he is very generous of his money, and the domestics will do
anything for him. Last week the keepers almost killed a
bailiff and his man who came down from London to arrest
the Captain, and who were found lurking about the Park
wall; they beat them, ducked them, and were going to shoot
them for poachers, but the baronet interfered.

“The Captain has a hearty contempt for his father, I can
see, and calls him an old put, an old snob, an old chaw-bacon,
and numberless other pretty names. He has a dreadful reputa-
tion among the ladies. He brings his hunters home with him,
lives with the Squires of the country, asks whom he pleases
to dinner, and Sir Pitt dares not say no, for fear of offending
Miss Crawley, and missing his legacy when she dies of her
apoplexy. Shall I tell you a compliment the Captain paid
me? I must, it is so pretty. One evening we actually had a
dance; there was Sir Huddleston Fuddleston and his family,
Sir Giles Wapshot and his young ladies, and I don’t know how
many more. Well, I heard him say, ‘By Jove, she’s a neat lit-
tle filly? meaning your humble servant; and he did me the
honor to dance two country-dances with me. He gets on
pretty gayly with the young Squires, with whom he drinks,
bets, rides, and talks about hunting and shooting; but he
says the country girls are bores; indeed, I don’t think he is
far wrong. You should see the contempt with which they look
down on poor me. When they dance, I sit and play the piano
very demurely; but the other night, coming in rather flushed
from the dining-room, and seeing me employed in this way,
he swore out loud that I was the best dancer in the room,
and took a great oath that he would have the fiddlers from
Mudbury.

“Pll go and play a country-dance,’ said Mrs. Bute Crawley,
very readily (she is a little black-faced old woman in a turban,
rather crooked, and with very twinkling eyes); and after the
Captain and your poor little Rebecca had performed a dance
together, do you know she actually did me the honor to com-
pliment me upon my steps! Such a thing was never heard of
before; the proud Mrs. Bute Crawley, first cousin to the Earl
of Tiptoff, who won’t condescend to visit Lady Crawley, ex-
cept when her sister is in the country. Poor Lady Crawley!
during most part of these gayeties, she is up stairs taking

ills.
“Mrs. Bute has all of a sudden taken a great fancy to me.
‘My dear Miss Sharp,’ she says, ‘why not bring over your
102 VANITY FAIR.

girls to the Rectory? their cousins will be so happy to see
them’ I know what she means. Signor Clementi did not
teach us the piano for nothing; at which price Mrs. Bute
hopes to get a professor for her children. I can see through
her schemes, as though she told them to me; but I shall go,
as I am determined to make myself agreeable,—is it not a poor
governess’s duty, who has not a friend or protector in the
world? The Rector’s wife paid me a score of compliments
about the progress my pupils made, and thought, no doubt,
to touch my heart,—poor, simple, country soul!—as if I cared
a fig about my pupils!

“Your India muslin and your pink silk, dearest Amelia, are
said to become me very well. They are a good deal worn now;
but, you know, we poor girls can’t afford des fraiches totlettes.
Happy, happy you! who have but to drive to St. James’s
Street, and a dear mother who will give you anything you
ask. Farewell, dearest girl,

“Your affectionate
“Rebecca.

“P, §.—I wish you could have seen the faces of the Miss
Blackbrooks (Admiral Blackbrook’s daughters, my dear), fine
young ladies, with dresses from London, when Captain Raw-
don selected poor me for a partner!”

When Mrs. Bute Crawley (whose artifices our ingenious
‘Rebecca had so soon discovered) had procured from Miss
‘Sharp the promise of a visit, she induced the all-powerful
Miss Crawley to make the necessary application to Sir Pitt,
aud the good-natured old lady, who loved to be gay herself,
and to see every one gay and happy round about her, was quite
charmed, and ready to establish a reconciliation and intimacy
between her two brothers. It was therefore agreed that the
young people of both families should visit each other fre-
quently for the future, and the friendship of course lasted as
long as the jovial old mediatrix was there to keep the peace.

“Why did you ask that scoundrel, Rawdon Crawley, to
dine?” said the Rector to his Jady, as they were walking home
through the park. “I don’t want the fellow. He looks down
upon us country people as so many blackamoors. He’s never
content unless he gets my yellow-sealed wine, which costs
me ten shillings a bottle, hang him! Besides, he’s such an
infernal character,—he’s a gambler,—he’s a drunkard,—he’s
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 103

a profligate in every way. He shot a man in a duel,—he’s over
head and ears in debt, and he’s robbed me and mine of the
best part of Miss Crawley’s fortune. Waxy says she has him”
—here the Rector shook his fist at the moon, with something
very like an oath, and added, in a melancholious tone—“ :
down in her will for fifty thousand; and there won’t be above
thirty to divide.”

“I think she’s going,” said the Rector’s wife. “She was
very red in the face when we left dinner. I was obliged to
unlace her.”

“She drank seven glasses of champagne,” said the reverend
gentleman, in a low voice; “and filthy champagne it is, too,
that my brother poisons us with,—but you women never know
what’s what.”

“We know nothing,” said Mrs. Bute Crawley.

“She drank cherry-brandy after dinner,” continued his
Reverence, “and took curagao with her coffee. I wouldn’t
take a glass for a five-pound note: it kills me with heart-
burn. She can’t stand it, Mrs. Crawley,—she must go,—flesh
and blood won’t bear it! and I lay five to two, Matilda drops
in a year.”

Indulging in these solemn speculations, and thinking about
his debts, and his son Jim at college, and Frank at Woolwich,
and the four girls, who were no beauties, poor things, and
would not have a penny but what they got from the aunt’s
expected legacy, the Rector and his lady walked on for a
while.

“Pitt can’t be such an infernal villain as to sell the re-
version of the living. And that Methodist milksop of an
eldest son looks to Parliament,” continued Mr. Crawley, after
a pause.

“Sir Pitt Crawley will do anything,” said the Rector’s
wife. “We must get Miss Crawley to make him promise it to
James.”

“Pitt will promise anything,” replied the brother. “He
promised he’d pay my college bills, when my father died; he
promised he’d build the new wing to the Rectory; he prom-
jsed he’d let me have Jibb’s field and the Six-acre Meadow,—
and much he executed his promises! And it’s to this man’s
son,—this scoundrel, gambler, swindler, murderer, of a Raw-
don Crawley, that Matilda leaves the bulk of her money. I say
it’s unchristian. By Jove, it is. The infamous dog has got
every vice except hypocrisy, and that belongs to his brother.”

 
104 VANITY FAIR.

“Hush, my dearest love! we’re in Sir Pitt’s grounds,” in-
terposed his wife.

“T say he has got every vice, Mrs. Crawley. Don’t, ma’am,
bully me. Didn’t he shoot Captain Marker? Didn’t he rob
young Lord Dovedale at the Cocoa-Tree? Didn’t he cross
the fight between Bill Soames and the Cheshire Trump, by
which I lost forty pound? You know he did; and as for the
women, why, you heard that before me, in my own magis-
trate’s room—”

“For Heaven’s sake, Mr. Crawley,” said the lady, “spare me
the details.”

“And you ask this villain into your house!” continued the
exasperated Rector. “You, the mother of a young family,—
the wife of a clergyman of the Church of England. By
Jove!”

“Bute Crawley, you are a fool,” said the Rector’s wife, scorn-
fully.

“Well, ma’am, fool or not,—and I den’t say, Martha, ’m
so clever as you are, I never did. But I won’t meet Rawdon
Crawley, that’s flat. Tl go over to Huddleston, that I will,
and see his black greyhound, Mrs. Crawley; and Ill run
Lancelot against him for fifty. By Jove, I will; or against
any dog in England. But I won’t meet that beast Rawdon
Crawley.”

“Mr. Crawley, you are intoxicated, as usual,” replied his
wife. And the next morning, when the Rector woke, and
called for small beer, she put him in mind of his promise to
visit Sir Huddleston Fuddleston, on Saturday, and, as he knew
he should have a wet night, it was agreed that he might gal-
lop back again in time for church on Sunday morning. Thus
it will be seen that the parishioners of Crawley were equally
happy in their squire and in their rector.

Miss Crawley had not long been established at the Hall,
before Rebecca’s fascinations had won the heart of that good-
natured London rake, as they had of the country innocents
whom we have been describing. Taking her accustomed drive,
one day, she thought fit to order that “that little governess”
should accompany her to Mudbury. Before they had re-
turned Rebecca had made a conquest of her; having made her
laugh four times, and amused her during the whole of the
little journey.

“Not let Miss Sharp dine at table!” said she to Sir Pitt,
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 105

who had arranged a dinner of ceremony, and asked all the
neighboring baronets. “My dear creature, do you suppose I
can talk about nursery with Lady Fuddleston, or discuss jus-
tices’ business with that goose, old Sir Giles Wapshot? I
insist upon Miss Sharp appearing. Let Lady Crawley re-
main up Stairs, if there is no room. But little Miss Sharp!
Why, she’s the only person fit to talk to in the county!”

Of course after such a peremptory order as this, Miss Sharp,
the governess, received commands to dine with the illustrious
company below stairs. And when Sir Huddleston had, with
great pomp and ceremony, handed Miss Crawley in to dinner,
and was preparing to take his place by her side, the old lady
cried out, in a shrill voice: “Becky Sharp! Miss Sharp! Come
you and sit by me and amuse me; and let Sir Huddleston sit
by Lady Wapshot.”

When the parties were over, and the carriages had rolled
away, the insatiable Miss Crawley would say: “Come to my
dressing-room, Becky, and let us abuse the company;” which,
between them, this pair of friends did perfectly. Old Sir
Huddleston wheezed a great deal at dinner; Sir Giles Wapshot
had a particularly noisy manner of imbibing his soup, and
her ladyship a wink of the left eye; all of which Becky cari-
catured to admiration; as well as the particulars of the night’s
conversation, the politics, the war, the quarter-session, the
famous run with the H. H., and those heavy and dreary
themes, about which country gentlemen converse. As for
the Misses Wapshots’ toilets and Lady Fuddleston’s famous
yellow hat, Miss Sharp tore them to tatters, to the infinite
amusement of her audience.

“My dear, you are a perfect trouvaille,” Miss Crawley would
say. “I wish you could come to me in London, but I couldn’t
make a butt of you as I do of poor Briggs,—no, no, you little
sly creature; you are too clever. Isn’t she, Firkin?”

Mrs. Firkin (who was dressing the very small remnart of
hair which remained on MissCrawley’s pate) flung up her head
and said, “I think miss is very clever,” with the most kill-
ing sarcastic air. In fact, Mrs. Firkin had that natural jeal-
ousy which is one of the main principles of every honest
woman.

After rebuffing Sir Huddleston Fuddleston, Miss Crawley
ordered that Rawdon Crawley should lead her in to dinner
every day, and that Becky should follow with her cushion,—or
else she would have Becky’s arm and Rawdon with the pillow.
106 VANITY FAIR.

“We must sit together,’ she said. ‘“We’re the only three
Christians in the county, my love,’—in which case, it must
be confessed, that religion was at a very low ebb.in the county
of Hants.

Besides being such a fine religionist, Miss Crawley was, as
we have said, an Ultra-liberal in opinions, and always took
occasion to express these in the most candid manner.

“What is birth, my dear?” she would say to Rebecca; “look
at my brother Pitt; look at the Huddlestons, who have been
here since Henry II; look at poor Bute at the parsonage;—
are any one of them equal to you in intelligence or breed-
ing? Equal to you,—they are not even equal to poor dear
Briggs, my companion, or Bowls, my butler. You, my love,
are a little paragon,—positively a little jewel. You have more
brains than half the shire; if merit had its reward, you ought
to be a Duchess,—no, there ought to be no duchesses at all,—
but you ought to have no superior, and I consider you, my
love, as my equal in every respect; and—will you put some
coals on the fire, my dear; and will you pick this dress of
mine, and alter it, you who can do it so well?” So this old
philanthropist used to make her equal run of her errands,
execute her millinery, and read her to sleep with French
novels, every night.

At this time, as some old readers may recollect, the gen-
teel world had been thrown into a considerable state of ex-
citement by two events, which, as the papers say, might give
employment to the gentlemen of the long robe. Ensign Shaf-
ton had run away with Lady Barbara Fitzurse, the Earl of
Bruin’s daughter and heiress; and poor Vere Vane, a gentle-
man who, up to forty, had maintained a most respectable
character and reared a numerous family, suddenly and out-
rageously left his home for the sake of Mrs. Rougemont, the
actress, who was sixty-five years of age.

“That was the most beautiful part of dear Lord Nelson’s
character,” Miss Crawley said. “He went to the deuce for a
woman. There must be good in a man who will do that.
I adore all imprudent matches. What I like best is for a
nobleman to marry a miller’s daughter, as Lord Flowerdale
did,—it makes all the women so angry. I wish some great
man would run away with you, my dear; I’m sure you’re
pretty enough.”

“Two post-boys!—O, it would be delightful!’ Rebecca
owned.
‘A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 107

“And what T like next best is for a poor fellow to run away
with a rich girl. I have set my heart on Rawdon running
away with some one.”

“A rich some one, or a poor some one?”

“Why, you goose! Rawdon has not a shilling but
what I give him. He is ertblé de dettes,—he must repair his
fortunes, and succeed in the world.”

“Is he very clever?” Rebecca asked.

“Clever, my love?—not an idea in the world beyond his
horses, and his regiment, and his hunting, and his play; but
he must succeed,—he’s so delightfully wicked. Don’t you
know he has hit a man, and shot an injured father through
the hat only? He’s adored in his regiment; and all the
young men at Wattier’s and the Cocoa-Tree swear by him.”

When Miss Rebecca Sharp wrote to her beloved friend the
account of the little ball at Queen’s Crawley, and the man-
ner in which, for the first time, Captain Crawley had dis-
tinguished her, she did not, strange to relate, give an alto-
gether accurate account of the transaction. The Captain had
distinguished her a great number of times before. The Cap-
tain had met her in a half-score of walks. The Captain had
lighted upon her in a half-hundred of corridors and passages.
The Captain had hung over her piano twenty times of an
evening (my Lady was now up stairs, being ill, and nobody
heeded her) as Miss Sharp sang. The Captain had written
her notes (the best that the great blundering dragoon could
devise and spell; but dullness gets on as well as any other
quality with women). But when he put the first of the notes
into the leaves of the song she was singing, the little governess,
rising and looking him steadily in the face, took up the
triangular missive daintily, and waved it about as if it were
a cocked hat, and she, advancing to the enemy, popped the
note into the fire, and made him a very low courtesy, and
went back to her place, and began to sing away again more
merrily than ever.

“What's that?” said Miss Crawley, interrupted in her after-
dinner doze by the stoppage of the music.

“It’s a false note,’ Miss Sharp said, with a laugh; and
Rawdon Crawley fumed with rage and mortification.

Seeing the evident partiality of Miss Crawley for the new
governess, how good it was of Mrs. Bute Crawley not to be
jealous, and to welcome the young lady to the Rectory, and
not only her, but Rawdon Crawley, her husband’s rival in
108 VANITY FAIR.

the Old Maid’s five per cents! They became very fond of
each other’s society, Mrs. Crawley and her nephew. He gave
up hunting; he declined entertainments at Fuddleston; he
would not dine with the mess of the depot at Mudbury; his
great pleasure was to stroll over to Crawley parsonage,—
whither Miss Crawley came too; and, as their mamma was
ill, why not the children with Miss Sharp? So the children
(little dears!) came with Miss Sharp; and of an evening some
of the party would walk back together. Not Miss Crawley,—
she preferred her carriage,—but the walk over the Rectory
fields, and in at the little park wicket, and through the dark
plantation, and up the checkered avenue to Queen’s Crawley,
was charming in the moonlight to two such lovers of the
picturesque as the Captain and Miss Rebecca.

“O those stars, those stars!” Miss Rebecca would say, turn-
ing her twinkling green eyes up towards them. “I feel my-
self almost a spirit when I gaze upon them.”

“O—ah—Gad—yes, so do I exactly, Miss Sharp,” the other
enthusiast replied. “You don’t mind my cigar, do you, Miss
Sharp?” Miss Sharp loved the smell of a cigar out of doors
beyond everything in the world,—and she just tasted one
too, in the prettiest way possible, and gave a little puff, and a
little scream, and a little giggle, and restored the delicacy to
the Captain, who twirled his mustache, and straightway puffed
it into a blaze that glowed quite red in the dark plantation,
and swore, “Jove—aw—Gad—aw—it’s the finest segaw I ever
smoked in the world aw;” for his intellect and conversa-
tion were alike brilliant and becoming to a heavy young
dragoon.

Old Sir Pitt, who was taking his pipe and beer, and talking
to John Horrocks about a “ship” that was to be killed, espied
the pair so occupied from his study window, and with dread-
ful oaths swore that if it wasn’t for Miss Crawley he’d take
Rawdon and bundle un out of doors, like a rogue as he
was.

“He be a bad’n, sure enough,’ Mr. Horrocks remarked;
“and his man Flethers is wuss, and have made such a row
in the housekeeper’s room about the dinners and hale as no
lord would make; but I think Miss Sharp’s a match for’n,
Sir Pitt,” he added, after a pause.

And go, in truth, she was,—for father and son too.
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO, 109

CHAPTER XII.

QUITE A SENTIMENTAL CHAPTER.

We must now take leave of Arcadia, and those amiable peo-
ple practicing the rural virtues there, and travel back to Lon-
don, to inquire what has become of Miss Amelia. “We don’t
care a fig for her,” writes some unknown correspondent with
a pretty little handwriting and a pink seal to her note. “She
is fade and insipid,’ and adds some more kind remarks in
this strain, which I should never have repeated at all, but
that they are in truth prodigiously complimentary to the
young lady whom they concern.

Has the beloved reader, in his experience of society, never
heard similar remarks by good-natured female friends; who
always wonder what you can see in Miss Smith that is so
fascinating; or what could induce Major Jones to propose
for that silly, insignificant, simpering Miss Thompson, who
has nothing but her wax-doll face to recommend her? What
is there in a pair of pink cheeks and blue eyes forsooth?
these dear Moralists ask, and hint wisely that the gifts of
genius, the accomplishments of the mind, the mastery of
Mangnall’s questions, and a ladylike knowledge of botany
and geology, the knack of making poetry, the power of rattling
sonatas in the Herz-manner, and so forth, are far more valu-
able endowments for a female than those fugitive charms
which a few years will inevitably tarnish. It is quite edifying
to hear women speculate upon the worthlessness and the dura-
tion of beauty.

But though virtue is a much finer thing, and those hapless
creatures who suffer under the misfortune of good looks ought
to be continually put in mind of the fate which awaits them;
and though, very likely, the heroic female character which
ladies admire is a more glorious and beautiful object than
the kind, fresh, smiling, artless, tender little domestic goddess,
whom men are inclined to worship,—yet the latter and in-
ferior sort of women must have this consolation,—that the
men do admire them after all; and that, in spite of all our
kind friends’ warnings and protests, we go on in our desperate
error and folly, and shall to the end of the chapter. Indeed,
110 VANITY FAIR,

for my own part, though I have been repeatedly told by per-
sons for whom I have the greatest respect, that Miss Brown
is an insignificant chit, and Mrs. White has nothing but her
petit minots chiffonné, and Mrs, Black has not a word to say
for herself; yet I know that I have had the most delightful
conversations with Mrs. Black (of course, my dear madam,
they are inviolable): I see all the men in a cluster round Mrs.
White’s chair: all the young fellows battling to dance with
Miss Brown; and so I am tempted to think that to be
despised by her sex is a very great compliment to a woman.

The young ladies in Amelia’s society did this for her very
satisfactorily. For instance, there was scarcely any point upon
which the Miss Osbornes, George’s sisters, and the Mesdemoi-
selles Dobbin agreed so well as in their estimate of her very
trifling merits, and their wonder that their brothers could
find any charms in her. “We are kind to her,” the Misses
Osborne said, a pair of fine black-browed young ladies, who
had had the best of governesses, masters, and milliners; and
they treated her with such extreme kindness and condescen-
sion, and patronized her so insufferably, that the poor little
thing was in fact perfectly dumb in their presence, and to all
outward appearance as stupid as they thought her. She made
efforts to like them, as in duty bound, and as sisters of her
future husband. She passed “long mornings” with them,—
the most dreary and serious of forenoons. She drove out
solemnly in their great family coach with them, and Miss
Wirt their governess, that raw-boned Vestal. They took her
to the ancient concerts by way of a treat, and to the oratorio,
and to St. Paul’s to see the charity children, where in such
terror was she of her friends, she almost did not dare be
affected by the hymn the children sang. Their house was
comfortable; their papa’s table rich and handsome; their
society solemn and genteel; their self-respect prodigious; they
had the best pew at the Foundling; all their habits were
pompous and orderly, and all their amusements intolerably
dull and decorous. After every one of her visits (and O, how
glad she was when they were over!) Miss Osborne and Miss
Maria Osborne, and Miss Wirt, the vestal governess, asked
each other with increased wonder, “What could George find in
that creature?”

How is this? some carping reader exclaims. How is it that
Amelia, who had such a number of friends at school, and was
so beloved there, comes out into the world and is spurned by
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 111

her discriminating sex? My dear sir, there were no men at
Miss Pinkerton’s establishment except the old dancing-mas-
ter; and you would not have had the girls fall out about
him! When George, their handsome brother, ran off directly
after breakfast, and dined from home half a dozen times a
week, no wonder the neglected sisters felt a little vexation.
When young Bullock (of the firm of Hulker, Bullock, &
Co., Bankers, Lombard Street), who had been making up to
Miss Maria the last two seasons, actually asked Amelia to
dance the cotillon, could you expect that the former young
lady should be pleased? And yet she said she was, like an
artless, forgiving creature. “I’m so delighted you like dear
Amelia,” she said, quite eagerly, to Mr. Bullock after the
dance. “She’s engaged to my brother George; there’s not
much in her, but she’s the best-natured and most unaffected
young creature; at home we're all so fond of her.” Dear
girl! who can calculate the depth of affection expressed in that
enthusiastic so?

Miss Wirt and these two affectionate young women s0 ear-
nestly and frequently imposed uvon George Osborne’s mind the
enormity of the sacrifice he was making, and his romantic
generosity in throwing himself away upon Amelia, that Pm
not sure but that he really thought he was one of the most
deserving characters in. the British army, and gave himself
up to be loved with a good deal of easy resignation.

Somehow, although he left home every morning, as was
stated, and dined abroad six days in the week, when his sis-
ters believed the infatuated youth to be at Miss Sedley’s apron-
strings, he was not always with Amelia, whilst the world sup-
posed him at her feet. Certain it is that on more occasions
than one, when Captain Dobbin called to look for his friend,
Miss Osborne (who was very attentive to the Captain, and
anxious to hear his military stories, and to know about the
health of his dear mamma), Miss Osborne would laughingly
point to the opposite side of the square, and say, “O, you must
go to the Sedleys to ask for George; we never see him from
morning till night.” At which kind of speech the Captain
would laugh in rather an absurd, constrained manner, and
turn off the conversation, like a consummate man of the
world, to some topic of general interest, such as the opera,
the Prince’s last ball at Carlton House, or the weather,—that
blessing to society.

“What an innocent it is, that pet of yours!” Miss Maria
112 VANITY FAIR.

would then say to Miss Jane, upon the Captain’s departure,
“Did you see how he blushed at the mention of poor George
on duty?”

“It’s a pity Frederic Bullock hadn’t some of hig modesty,
Maria,” replies the elder sister, with a toss of her head.

“Modesty! Awkwardness, you mean, Jane. I don’t want
Frederic to trample a hole in my muslin frock, as Captain
Dobbin did in yours at Mrs. Perkins’s.”

“In your frock, he, he! How could he? Wasn’t he danc-
ing with Amelia?”

The fact is, when Captain Dobbin blushed so, and looked so
awkward, he remembered a circumstance of which he did not
think it was necessary to inform the young ladies, viz., that
he had been calling at Mr. Sedley’s house already, on the
pretense of seeing George, of course, and George wasn’t there,
only poor little Amelia, with rather a sad, wistful face, seated
near the drawing-room window, who, after some very trifling,
stupid talk, ventured to ask, was there any truth in the re-
port that the regiment was soon to be ordered abroad; and
had Captain Dobbin seen Mr. Osborne that day?

The regiment was not ordered abroad as yet; and Captain
Dobbin had not seen George. “He was with his sister, most
likely,” the Captain said. “Should he go and fetch the tru-
ant?” So she gave him her hand kindly and gratefully:
and he crossed the square; and she waited and waited, but
George never came.

Poor little tender heart! and so it goes on hoping and beat-
ing, and longing and trusting. You see it is not much of a
life to describe. There is not much of what you call incident
init. Only one feeling all day,—when will he come? only one
thought to sleep and wake upon. I believe George was play-
ing billiards with Captain Cannon in Swallow Street at the
time when Amelia was asking Captain Dobbin about him; for
George was a jolly, sociable fellow, and excellent in all games
of skill.

Once, after three days of absence, Miss Amelia put on her
bonnet, and actually invaded the Osborne house. “What! leave
our brother to come to us?” said the young ladies. “Have
you had a quarrel, Amelia? Do tell us!” No, indeed, there
had been no quarrel. “Who could quarrel with him?” says
she, with her eyes filled with tears. She only came over to
—to see her dear friends; they had not met for so long. And
this day she was so perfectly stupid and awkward, that the
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 113

Miss Osbornes and their governess, who stared after her as
she went sadly away, wondered more than ever what George
could see in poor little Amelia.

Of course they did. How was she to bare that timid little
heart for the inspection of those young ladies with their bold
black eyes? It was best that it should shrink and hide it-
self. I know the Miss Osbornes were excellent critics of a
Cashmere shawl, or a pink satin slip: and when Miss Turner
had hers dyed purple, and made into a spencer; and when Miss
Pickford had her ermine tippet twisted into a muff and
trimmings, I warrant you the changes did not escape the two
intelligent young women before mentioned. But there are
things, look you, of a finer texture than fur or satin, and all
Solomon’s glories, and all the wardrobe of the Queen of Sheba,
—things whereof the beauty escapes the eyes of many con-
noisseurs. And there are sweet, modest little souls on which
you light, fragrant and blooming tenderly in quiet, shady
places; and there are garden-ornaments, as big as brass warm-
ing-pans, that are fit to stare the sun itself out of counten-
ance. Miss Sedley was not of the sunflower sort; and I say
it is out of the rules of all proportion to draw a violet of the
size of a double dahlia.

No, indeed; the life of a good young girl who is in the
paternal nest as yet can’t have many of those thrilling in-
cidents to which the heroine of romance commonly lays claim.
Snares or shot may take off the old birds foraging without,
—hawks may be abroad, from which they escape or by whom
they suffer; but the young ones in the nest have a pretty
comfortable unromantic sort of existence in the down and
the straw, till it comes to their turn, too, to get on the
wing. While Becky Sharp was on her own wing in the
country, hopping on all sorts of twigs, and amid a multi-
plicity of traps, and pecking up her food quite harmless
and successful, Amelia lay snug in her home of Russell Square;
if she went into the world, it was under the guidance of the
elders; nor did it seem that any evil could befall her or that
opulent, cheery comfortable home in which she was affection-
ately sheltered. Mamma had her morning duties, and her
daily drive, and the delightful round of visits and shopping
which forms the amusement, or the profession as you may
call it, of the rich London lady. Papa conducted his mys-
terious operations in the city,—a stirring place in those days,
when war was raging all over Europe, and empires were being

3
114 VANITY FAIR,

staked; when the “Courier” newspaper had tens of thousands
of subscribers; when one day brought you a battle of Vittoria,
another a burning of Moscow, or a newsman’s horn, blowing
down Russell Square about dinner-time, announced such a
fact as—“Battle of Leipsic—six hundred thousand men en-
gaged—total defeat of the French—two hundred thousand
killed.” Old Sedley once or twice came home with a very
grave face; and no wonder, when such news as this was agita-
ting all the hearts and all the Stocks of Europe.

Meanwhile matters went on in Russell Square, Bloomsbury,
just as if matters in Europe were not in the least disorganized.
The retreat from Leipsic made no difference in the number of
meals Mr. Sambo took in the servants’ hall; the allies poured
into France, and the dinner-bell rang at five o’clock just
as usual. I don’t think poor Amelia cared anything about
Brienne and Montmirail, or was fairly interested in the war
until the abdication of the Empire; when she clapped her
hands and said prayers;—O, how grateful! and flung her-
self into George Osborne’s arms with all her soul, to the
astonishment of everybody who witnessed that ebullition of
sentiment. The fact is, peace was declared, Europe was go-
ing to be at rest; the Corsican was overthrown, and Lieuten-
ant Osborne’s regiment would not be ordered on service. That
was the way in which Miss Amelia reasoned. The fate of
Europe was Lieutenant George Osborne to her. His dangers
being over, she sang Te Deum. He was her Europe, her
emperor, her allied monarchs and august prince regent. He
was her sun and moon; and I believe she thought the grand
illumination and ball at the Mansion House, given to the
sovereigns, were especially in honor of George Osborne.

We talked of shift, self, and poverty, as those dismal
instructors under whom poor Miss Becky Sharp got her educa-
tion. Now, love was Miss Amelia Sedley’s last tutoress, and
it was amazing what progress our young lady made under
that popular teacher. In the course of fifteen or eighteen
months’ daily and constant attention to this eminent finish-
ing governess, what a deal of secrets Amelia learned, which
Miss Wirt and the black-eyed young ladies over the way,
which old Miss Pinkerton of Chiswick herself, had no cogniz-
ance of! As, indeed, how should any of those prim and
reputable virgins? With Misses P. and W. the tender passion
is out of the question; I would not dare to breathe such an
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO, 115

idea regarding them. Miss Maria Osborne, it is true, was
“attached” to Mr. Frederic Augustus Bullock, of the firm
of Hulker, Bullock & Bullock; but hers was a most respect-
able attachment, and she would have taken Bullock Senior,
just the same, her mind being fixed—as that of a well-bred
young woman should be—upon a house in Park Lane, a
country house at Wimbledon, a handsome chariot, and two
prodigious tall horses and footmen, and a fourth of the an-
nual profits of the eminent firm of Hulker & Bullock, all of
which advantages were represented in the person of Frederic
Augustus. Had orange blossoms been invented then (those
touching emblems of female purity imported by us from
France, where people’s daughters are universally sold in mar-
riage), Miss Maria, I say, would have assumed the spotless
wreath, and stepped into the traveling-carriage by the side of
gouty, old, bald-headed, bottle nosed Bullock Senior; and
devoted her beautiful existence to his happiness with per-
fect modesty,—only the old gentleman was married already;
so she bestowed her young affections on the junior partner.
Sweet, blooming, orange flowers! The other day I saw Miss
Trotter (that was), arrayed in them, trip into the traveling-
carriage at St. George’s, Hanover Square, and Lord Methu-
selah hobbled in after. With what an engaging modesty
she pulled down the blinds of the chariot,—the dear innocent!
There were half the carriages of Vanity Fair at the wed-
ding.

This was not the sort of love that finished Amelia’s educa-
tion; and in the course of a year turned a good young girl
into a good young woman,—to be a good wife presently, when
the happy time should come. This young person (perhaps
it was very imprudent in her parents to encourage her and
abet her in such idolatry and silly romantic ideas) loved, with
all her heart, the young officer in his Majesty’s service with
whom we have made a brief acquaintance. She thought about
him the very first moment on waking; and his was the very
last name mentioned in her prayers. She never had seen a
man so beautiful or so clever; such a figure on horseback:
such a dancer; such a hero in general. Talk of the Prince’s
bow! what was it to George’s? She had seen Mr. Brummell,
whom everybody praised so. Compare such a person as
that to her George! Not amongst all the beaux at the opera
(and there were beaux in those days with actual opera hats)
was there any one to equal him. He was only good enough
11€ VANITY FAIR.

to be a fairy prince; and O, what magnanimity to stoop to
such a humble Cinderella! Miss Pinkerton would have tried
to check this blind devotion very likely, had she been Ame-
lia’s confidante; but not with much success, depend upon it.
It is in the nature and instinct of some women. Some are
made to scheme, and some to love; and I wish any respecte
bachelor that reads this may take the sort that best likes
him.

While under this overpowering impression, Miss Amelia
neglected her twelve dear friends at Chiswick most cruelly, as
such selfish people commonly will do. She had but this sub-
ject, of course, to think about; and Miss Saltire was too cold
for a confidante, and she couldn’t bring her mind to tell Miss
Swartz, the woolly-haired young heiress from St. Kitt’s. She
had little Laura Martin home for the holidays; and my be-
lief is, she made a confidante of her, and promised that Laura
should come and live with her when she was married, and gave
Laura a great deal of information regarding the passion of
love, which must have been singularly useful and novel to that
little person. Alas, alas! I fear poor Emmy had not a well-
regulated mind.

What were her parents doing, not to keep this little heart
from beating so fast? Old Sedley did not seem much to no-
tice matters. He was graver of late, and his City affairs ab-
sorbed him. Mrs. Sedley was of so easy and uninquisitive a
nature, that she wasn’t even jealous. Mr. Jos was away, being
besieged by an Irish widow at Cheltenham. Amelia had the
house to herself,—ah! too much to herself sometimes,—not
that she ever doubted; for, to be sure, George must be at the
Horse Guards; and he can’t always get leave from Chatham;
and he must see his friends and sisters, and mingle in society
when in town (he, such an ornament to every society!); and
when he is with the regiment he is too tired to write long let-
ters. I know where she kept that packet she had,—and can
steal in and out of the chamber like Iachimo,—like Iachimo?
No—that is a bad part. I will only act Moonshine, and peep
harmless into the bed where faith, and beauty, and innocence
lie dreaming.

But if Osborne’s were short and soldier-like letters, it must
be confessed, that, were Miss Sedley’s letters to Mr. Osborne
to be published, we should have to extend this novel to such
a multiplicity of volumes as not the most sentimental reader
could support; that she not only filled sheets of large paper,
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 117

but crossed them with the most astonishing perverseness; that
she wrote whole pages out of poetry books without the least
pity; that she underlined words and passages with quite a
frantic emphasis; and, in fine, gave the usual tokens of her
condition. She wasn’t a heroine. Her letters were full of
repetition. She wrote rather doubtful grammar sometimes,
and in her verses took all sorts of liberties with the meter. But
O, mesdames, if you are not allowed to touch the heart some-
times in spite of syntax, and are not te be loved until you
all know the difference between trimeter and tetrameter, may
all Poetry go to the deuce, and every schoolmaster perish mis:
erably!

CHAPTER XIII.

SENTIMENTAL AND OTHERWISE.

I fear the gentleman to whom Miss Amelia’s letters were ad-
dressed was rather an obdurate critic. Such a number of notes
followed Lieutenant Osborne about the country, that he be-
came almost ashamed of the jokes of his mess-room compan-
ions regarding them, and ordered his servant never to deliver
them, except at his private apartment. He was seen lighting
his cigar with one, to the horror of Captain Dobbin, who, it
is my belief, would have given a banknote for the document.

For some time George strove to keep the liaison a secret.
There was a woman in the case, that he admitted. “And not
the first either,” said Ensign Spooney to Ensign Stubbles.
“That Osborne’s a devil of a fellow. There was a judge’s daugh-
ter at Demerara went almost mad about him; then there was
that beautiful quadroon girl, Miss Pye, at St. Vincent’s, you
know; and since he’s been home, they say he’s a regular Don
Giovanni, by Jove.”

Stubbles and Spooney thought that to be a “regular Don
Giovanni, by Jove,” was one of the finest qualities a man
could possess; and Osborae’s reputation was prodigious
amongst the young men of the regiment. He was famous in
field-sports, famous at a song, famous on parade; free with his
mcney, which was bcuntifully supplied by his father. His coats
were better made than any man’s in the regiment, and he had
more of them. He was adored by the men. He could drink
more than any officer of the whole mess, including old Heavy-
118 VANITY FAIR.

top, the colonel. He could spar better than Knuckles, the
private (who would have been a corporal but for his drunken-
ness, and who had been in the prize-ring); and was the best
batter and bowler, out and out, of the regimental club. He
rode his own horse, Greased Lightning, and won the Garrison
cup at Quebec races. There were other people besides Amelia
who worshiped him. Stubbles and Spooney thought him a
sort of Apollo; Dobbin took him to be an Admirable Crichton;
and Mrs. Major O’Dowd acknowledged he was an elegant young
fellow, and put her in mind of Fitzjurld Fogarty, Lord Castle-
fogarty’s second son.

Well, Stubbles and Spooney and the rest indulged in most
romantic conjectures regarding this female correspondent of
Osborne’s,—opining that it was a Duchess in London who
was in love with him,—or that it was a General’s daughter,
who was engaged to somebody else, and madly attached to
him,—or that it was a Member of Parliament’s lady, who
proposed four horses and an elopement,—or that it was some
other victim of a passion delightfully exciting, romantic, and
disgraceful to all parties, on none of which conjectures would
Osborne throw the least light, leaving his young admirers and
friends to invent and arrange their whole history.

And the real state of the case would never have been known
at all in the regiment but for Captain Dobbin’s indiscretion.
The Captain was eating his breakfast one day in the mess-
room, while Cackle, the assistant-surgeon, and the two above-
named worthies were speculating upon Osborne’s intrigue,—
Stubbles holding out that the lady was a Duchess about Queen
Charlotte’s court, and Cackle vowing she was an opera-singer
of the worst reputation. At this idea Dobbin became so moved,
that though his mouth was full of eggs and bread and butter
at the time, and though he ought not to have spoken at all,
yet he couldn't help blurting out, “Cackle, yow’re a stupid fool!
Youw’re always talking nonsense and scandal. Osborne is not go-
ing to run off with a Duchess or ruin a milliner. Miss Sedley
is one of the most charming young women that ever lived. He’s
been engaged to her ever so long; and the man who calls her
names had better not do so in my hearing!’ With which,
turning exceedingly red, Dobbin ceased speaking, and almost
choked himself with a cup of tea. The story was over the regi-
ment in half an hour; and that very evening Mrs. Major
O’Dowd wrote off to her sister Glorvina at O’Dowdstown not
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 119

to hurry from Dublin,—young Osborne being prematurely en-
gaged already.

She complimented the Lieutenant in an appropriate speech
over a glass of whisky-toddy that evening, and he went home
perfectly furious to quarrel with Dobbin (who had declined
Mrs. Major O’Dowd’s party, and sat in his own room playing
the flute, and, I believe, writing poetry in a very melancholy
manner),—to quarrel with Dobbin for betraying his secret.

“Who the deuce asked you to talk about my affairs?” Os-
borne shouted, indignantly. “Why the devil is all the regi-
ment to know that I am going to be married? Why is that
tattling old harridan, Peggy O’Dowd, to make free with my
name at her d—d supper-table, and advertise my engagement
over the three kingdoms? After all, what right have you to
ie Zz am engaged, or to meddle in my business at all, Dob-

in?”

“It seems to me—” Captain Dobbin began.

“Seems be hanged, Dobbin,” his junior interrupted him.
“I am under obligations to you, I know it a d—d deal too
well, too; but I won’t be always sermonized by you because
you’re five years my senior. I’m hanged if V’ll stand your airs
of superiority and infernal pity and patronage. Pity and pat-
ronage! I should like to know in what I’m your inferior?”

“Are you engaged?” Captain Dobbin interposed.

“What the devil’s that to you or any one here, if I am?”

“Are you ashamed of it?” Dobbin resumed.

“What right have you to ask me that question, sir? I should
like to know,” George said.

“Good God, you don’t mean to say you want to break off?”
asked Dobbin, starting up.

“In other words, you ask me if I’m a man of honor,” said
Osborne, fiercely; “is that what you mean? You’ve adopted
such a tone regarding me lately, that ’'m if Pll bear it
any more.”

“What have I done? I’ve told you you were neglecting a
sweet girl, George. I’ve told you that when you go to town
you ought to go to her, and not to the gambling-houses about
St. James’s.” ;

“You want your money back, I suppose,” said George, with
a sneer.

“Of course, I do,—I always did, didn’t I?” says Dobbin.
“You speak like a generous fellow.”

“No, hang it, William, I beg your pardon,’—here George

 
120 VANITY FAIR.

interposed in a fit of remorse; “you have been my friend in a
hundred ways, Heaven knows. You’ve got me out of a score
of scrapes. When Crawley of the Guards won that sum of
money of me, I should have been done but for you; I know
I should. But you shouldn’t deal so hardly with me; you
shouldn’t be always catechising me. Iam very fond of Amelia;
IT adore her, and that sort of thing. Don’t look angry. She’s
faultless; I know she is. But you see there’s no fun in win-
ning a thing unless you play for it. Hang it! the regiment’s
just back from the West Indies; I must have a little fling, and
then, when I’m married, I’ll reform; I will upon my honor,
now. And—I say—Dob—don’t be angry with me, and [ll
give you a hundred next month, when I know my father will
stand something handsome; and I’ll ask Heavytop for leave,
and I’ll go to town, and see Amelia to-morrow. There now,
will that satisfy you?”

“Tt is impossible to be long angry with you, George,” said
the good-natured Captain; “and as for the money, old boy,
you know, if I wanted it, you'd share your last shilling with
me.”

“That I would, by Jove, Dobbin!” George said, with the
greatest. generosity, though, by the way, he never had any
money to spare.

“Only I wish you had sown those wild-oats of yours, George.
If you could have seen poor little Miss Emmy’s face when she
asked me about you the other day, you would have pitched
those billiard-balls to the deuce. Go and comfort her, you ras-
cal. Go and write her a long letter. Do something to make
her happy; a very little will.”

“T believe she’s d—d fond of me,” the Lieutenant said, with
a self-satisfied air; and went off to finish the evening with
some jolly fellows in the mess-room.

Amelia meanwhile, in Russell Square, was looking at the
moon, which was shining upon that peaceful spot, as well as
upon the square of the Chatham barracks, where Lieutenant
Osborne was quartered, and thinking to herself how her hero
was employed. Perhaps he is visiting the sentries, thought
she; perhaps he is bivouacking; perhaps he is attending the
couch of a wounded comrade, or studying the art of war up
in his own desolate chamber. And her kind thoughts sped
away as if they were angels and had wings, and, flying down
the river to Chatham and Rochester, strove to peep into the
barracks where George was...... All things considered, I
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO, 121

think it was as well the gates were shut, and the sentry al-
lowed no one to pass; so that the poor little white-robed angel
could not hear the songs those young fellows were roaring over
the whiskey-punch.

The day after the little conversation at Chatham barracks,
young Osborne, to show that he would be as good as his word,
prepared to go to town, thereby incurring Captain Dobbin’s
applause. “I should have liked to make her a little present,”
Osborne said to his friend in confidence, “only I am quite out
of cash until my father tips up’ But Dobbin would not al-
low this good-nature and generosity to be balked, and so ac-
commodated Mr. Osborne with a few pound notes, which the
latter took after a little faint scruple.

And I dare say he would have bought something very hand-
some for Amelia; only, getting off the coach in Fleet Street,
he was attracted by a handsome shirt-pin in a jeweler’s win-
dow, which he could not resist; and having paid for that, had
very little money to spare for indulging in any further ex-
ercise of kindness. Never mind; you may be sure it was not
his presents Amelia wanted. When he came to Russell Square,
her face lighted up as if he had been sunshine. The little
cares, fears, tears, timid misgivings, sleepless fancies of I don’t
know how many days and nights, were forgotten, under one
moment’s influence of that familiar, irresistible smile. He
beamed on her from the drawing-room door,—magnificent,
with ambrosial whiskers, like a god. Sambo, whose face as he
announced Captain Osbin (having conferred a brevet rank on
that young officer) blazed with a sympathetic grin, saw the lit-
tle girl start, and flush, and jump up from her watching-place
in the window; and Sambo retreated: and as soon as the
door was shut, she went fluttering to Lieutenant George Os-
borne’s heart as if it was the only natural home for her to
nestle in. O thou poor panting little soul! The very finest
tree in the whole forest, with the straightest stem, and the
strongest arms, and the thickest foliage, wherein you choose
to build and coo, may be marked, for what you know, and may
be down with a crash erelong. What an old, old simile that is,
between man and timber!

In the mean while, George kissed her very kindly on her
forehead and glistening eyes, and was very gracious and good;
and she thought his diamond shirt-pin (which she had not
known him to wear before) the prettiest ornament ever seen.

The observant reader, who has marked our young Lieu-
122 VANITY FAIR,

tenant’s previous behavior, and has preserved our report of the
brief conversation which he has just had with Captain Dob-
bin, has possibly come to certain conclusions regarding the
character of Mr. Osborne. Some cynical Frenchman has said
that there are two parties to a love-transaction,—the one who
loves and the other who condescends to be so treated. Per-
haps the love is occasionally on the man’s side, perhaps on the
lady’s. Perhaps some infatuated swain has ere this mistaken
insensibility for modesty, dullness for maiden. reserve, mere
vacuity for sweet bashfulness, and a goose, in a word, for a
swan. Perhaps some beloved female subscriber has arrayed an
ass in the splendor and glory of her imagination; admired his
dullness as manly simplicity; worshiped his selfishness as
manly superiority; treated his stupidity as majestic gravity,
and used him as the brilliant fairy Titania did a certain weaver
at Athens. I think I have seen such comedies of errors going
on in the world. But this is certain, that Amelia believed her
lover to be one of the most gallant and brilliant men in the
empire: and it is possible Lieutenant Osborne thought so too.
He was a little wild,—how many young men are!—and don’t
girls like a rake better than a milksop? He hadn’t sown his
wild-oats as yet, but he would soon, and quit the army now
that peace was proclaimed, the Corsican monster locked up
at Elba, promotion by consequence over, and no chance left
for the display of his undoubted military talents and valor;
and his allowance, with Amelia’s settlement, would enable
them to take a snug place in the country somewhere, in a good
sporting neighborhood; and he would hunt a little, and farm
a little; and they would be very happy. As for remaining
in the army as a married man, that was impossible. Fancy
Mrs. George Osborne in lodgings in a county town; or, worse
still, in the Hast or West Indies, with a society of officers,
and patronized by Mrs. Major O’Dowd! Amelia died with
laughing at Osborne’s stories about Mrs. Major O’Dowd. He
loved her much too fondly to subject her to that horrid woman
and her vulgarities, and the rough treatment of a soldier’s
wife. He didn’t care for himself,—not he; but his dear little
girl should take the place in society to which, as his wife, she
was entitled; and to these proposals you may be sure she ac-
ceded, as she would to any other from the same author.
Holding this kind of conversation, and building numberless
castles in the air (which Amelia adorned with all sorts of
flower-gardens, rustic walks, country churches, Sunday schools,
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 123

and the like; while George had his mind’s eye directed to the
stables, the kennel, and the cellar), this young pair passed
away a couple of hours very pleasantly; and as the Lieuten-
ant had only that single day in town, and a great deal of most
important business to transact, it was proposed that Miss Em-
my should dine with her future sister-in-law. This invitation
was accepted joyfully. He conducted her to his sisters; where
he left her talking and prattling in a way that astonished those
ladies, who thought that George might make something of
her; and he then went off to transact his business.

In a word, he went out and ate ices at a pastry-cook’s shop
in Charing Cross; tried a new coat in Pall Mall; dropped in
at the Old Slaughter’s, and called for Captain Cannon; played
eleven games at billiards with the Captain, of which he won
eight, and returned to Russell Square half an hour late for
dinner, but in very good humor.

It was not so with old Mr. Osborne. When that gentleman
came from the city, and was welcomed in the drawing-room
by his daughters and the elegant Miss Wirt, they saw at once
by his face,—which was puffy, solemn, and yellow at the best
of times,—and by the scowl and twitching of his black eye-
brows, that the heart within his large waistcoat was disturbed
and uneasy. When Amelia stepped forward to salute him,
which she always did with great trembling and timidity, he
gave a surly grunt of recognition, and dropped the little hand
out of his great hirsute paw without any attempt to hold it
there. He looked round gloomily at his eldest daughter, who,
comprehending the meaning of his look, which asked unmis-
takably, “Why the devil is she here?” said at once:—

“George is in town, papa, and has gone to the Horse Guards,
and will be back to dinner.”

“QO, he is, is he? I won’t have the dinner kept waiting for
him, Jane;” with which this worthy man lapsed into his par-
ticular chair, and then the utter silence in his genteel, well-
furnished drawing-room was only interrupted by the alarmed
ticking of the great French clock.

When that chronometer, which was surmounted by a cheer-
ful brass group of the sacrifice of Iphigenia, tolled five in a
heavy cathedral tone, Mr. Osborne pulled the bell at his right
hand violently, and the butler rushed up.

‘Dinner!’ roared Mr. Osborne.

“Mr. George isn’t come in, sir,” interposed the man.

“Damn Mr. George, sir! Am I master of the house? Din-
124 VANITY FAIR.

ner!” Mr. Osborne scowled. Amelia trembled. A telegraphic
communication of eyes passed between the other three ladies.
The obedient bell in the lower regions began ringing the an-
nouncement of the meal. The tolling over, the head of the
family thrust his hands into the great tail-pockets of his great
blue coat and brass buttons, and, without waiting for a further
announcement, strode down stairs alone, scowling over his
shoulder at the four females.

“What’s the matter now, my dear?” asked one of the other,
as they rose and tripped gingerly behind the sire.

“T suppcese the funds are falling,’ whispered Miss Wirt;
and so, trembling and in silence, this hushed female com-
pany followed their dark leader. They took their places in
silence. He growled out a blessing, which sounded as gruffly
asacurse. The great silver dish-covers were removed. Amelia
trembled in her place, for she was next to the awful Osborne,
and alone on her side of the table,—the gap being occasioned
by the absence of George.

“Soup?” says Mr. Osborne, clutching the ladle, fixing his
eyes on her, in a sepulchral tone; and having helped her and
the rest, did not speak for a while.

“Take Miss Sedley’s plate away,” at last he said. “She can’t
eat the soup,—no more can I. It’s beastly. Take away the
soup, Hicks; and to-morrow turn the cook out of the house,
Jane.”

Having concluded his observations upon the soup, Mr. Os-
borne made a few curt remarks respecting the fish, also of a
savage and satirical tendency, and cursed Billingsgate with
an emphasis quite worthy of the place. Then he lapsed into
silence, and swallowed sundry glasses of wine, looking more
and more terrible, till a brisk knock at the door told of
George’s arrival, when everybody began to rally.

“He could not come before. General Daguilet had kept
him waiting at the Horse Guards. Never mind soup or fish.
Give him anything,—he didn’t care what. Capital mutton,—
capital everything.” His good-humor contrasted with his fath-
er’s severity; and he rattled on unceasingly during dinner,
to oe delight of all,—of one especially, who need not be men-
tioned.

As soon as the young ladies had discussed the orange and
the glass of wine which formed the ordinary conclusion of the
dismal banquets at Mr. Oshorne’s house, the signal to make
sail for the drawing-room was given, and they all arose and
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 125

departed. Amelia hoped George would soon join them there.
She began playing some of his favorite waltzes (then newly
imported), at the great carved-legged, leather-cased grand
piano in the drawing-room overhead. This little artifice did
not bring him. He was deaf to the waltzes; they grew fainter
and fainter; the discomfited performer left the huge instru-
ment presently; and though her three friends performed some
of the loudest and most brilliant new pieces of their répertoire,
she did not hear a single note, but sat thinking and boding
evil. Old Osborne’s scowl, terrific always, had never before
looked so deadly to her. His eyes followed her out of the
room, as if she had been guilty of something. When they
brought her coffee, she started as though it were a cup of
poison which Mr. Hicks, the butler, wished to propose to her.
What mystery was there lurking? O those women! They
nurse and cuddle their presentiments, and make darlings of
their ugliest thoughts, as they do of their deformed children.

The gloom on the paternal countenance had also impressed
George Osborne with anxiety. With such eyebrows, and a look
so decidedly bilious, how was he to extract that money from the
governor, of which George was consumedly in want? He
began praising his father’s wine. That was generally a suc-
cessful means of cajoling the old gentleman.

“We never got such Madeira in the West Indies, sir, as
yours. Colonel Heavytop took off three bottles of that you
sent me down, under his belt, the other day.”

“Did he?” said the old gentleman. “It stands me in eight
shillings a bottle.”

“Will you take six guineas a dozen for it, sir?” said George,
with a laugh. “There’s one of the greatest men in the king-
dom wants some.”

“Does he?” growled the senior. “Wish he may get it.”

“When General Daguilet was at Chatham, sir, Heavytop
gave him a breakfast, and asked me for some of the wine. The
General liked it just as well,—wanted a pipe for the Com-
mander-in-chief. He’s his Royal Highness’s right-hand man.”

“Tt is devilish fine wine,” said the Eyebrows, and they looked
more good-humored; and George was going to take advantage
of this complacency, and bring the supply question on the ma-
hogany; when the father, relapsing into solemnity, though
rather cordial in manner, bade him ring the bell for claret.
“And we'll see if that’s as good as the Madeira, George, to
which his Royal Highness is welcome, I’m sure. And as we
126 VANITY FAIR.
are drinking it I’ll talk to you about a matter of importance.”

Amelia heard the claret bell ringing as she sat nervously up
stairs. She thought, somehow, it was a mysterious and pre-
sentimental bell. Of the presentiments which some people
are always having, some surely must come right.

“What I want to know, George,” the old gentleman said,
after slowly smacking his first bumper,—‘“what I want to know
is, how you and—ah—that little thing up stairs are carrying
on?”

“T think, sir, it’s not hard to see,” George said, with a self-
satisfied grin. “Pretty clear, sir—What capital wine!”

“What d’ you mean, pretty clear, sir?”

“Why, hang it, sir, don’t push me too hard. P’m a modest
man. I—ah, I don’t set up to be a lady-killer; but I do own
that she’s as devilish fond of me as she can be. Anybody can
see that with half an eye.”

“And you yourself?”

“Why, sir, didn’t you order me to marry her, and ain’t I a
good boy? Haven’t our papas settled it ever so long?”

“A pretty boy, indeed. Haven’t I heard of your doings,
sir, with Lord Tarquin, Captain Crawley of the Guards, the
Honorable Mr. Deuceace and that set? Have a care, sir, have
a care.”

The old gentleman pronounced these aristocratic names
with the greatest gusto. Whenever he met a great man, he
grovelled before him, and my-lorded him as only a free-born
Briton can do. He came home and looked out his history in
the Peerage; he introduced his name into his daily conversa-
tion; he bragged about his Lordship to his daughters. He
fell down prostrate and basked in him as a Neapolitan beggar
does in the sun. George was alarmed when he heard the
names. He feared his father might have been informed of
certain transactions at play. But the old moralist eased him
by saying serenely :—

“Well, well, young men will be young men. . And the com-
fort to me is, George, that living in the best society inEngland,
as I hope you do, as I think you do, as my means will allow
you to do—”

“Thank you, sir,” says George, making his point at once.
“One can’t live with these great folks for nothing; and my
purse, sir, look at it;” and he held up a little token which had
been netted by Amelia, and contained the very last of Dobbin’s
pound notes.
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 127

; “You sha’ n’t want, sir. The British merchant’s son sha?
n't want, sir. My guineas are as good as theirs, George, my boy;
and I don’t grudge ’em. Call on Mr. Chopper as you go
through the city to-morrow; he’ll have something for you.
I don’t grudge money when I know yow’re in good society,
because I know that good society can never go wrong. There’s
no pride in me. I was an humbly born man,—but you have
had advantages. Make a good use of ’em. Mix with the young
nobility. There’s many of *em who can’t spend a dollar to your
guinea, my boy. And as for the pink bonnets,”—here from
under the heavy eyebrows there came a knowing and not very
pleasing leer,—‘“why, boys will be boys. Only there’s one
thing I order you to avoid, which, if you do not, I'll cut you
off with a shilling, by Jove; and that’s gambling, sir.”

“O, of course, sir,” said George.

“But to return to the other business about Amelia: why
shouldn’t you marry higher than a stockbroker’s daughter,
George,—that’s what I want to know?r”

“It’s a family business, sir,” says George, cracking filberts.
“You and Mr. Sedley made the match a hundred years ago.”

“T dowt deny it; but people’s positions alter, sir. I don’t
deny that Sedley made my fortune, or rather put me in the
way of acquiring, by my own talents and genius, that proud
position, which, I may say, I occupy in the tallow trade, and
the city of London. I’ve shown my gratitude to Sedley; and
he’s tried it of late, sir, as my check-book can show. George!
I tell you in confidence I don’t like the looks of Mr. Sedley’s
affairs. My chief clerk, Mr. Chopper, does not like the looks
of *em, and he’s an old file, and knows ’Change as well as any
yan in London. Hulker & Bullock are looking shy at him.
He’s been dabbling on his own account, I fear. They say the
Jeune Amélie was his, which was taken by the Yankee Priva-
teer Molasses. And that’s flat,—unless I see Amelia’s ten thou-
sand down, you don’t marry her. Tl have no lame duck’s
daughter in my family. Pass the wine, sir,—or ring for
coffee.”

With which Mr. Osborne spread out the evening paper, and
George knew, from this signal, that the colloquy was ended,
and that his papa was about to take a nap.

He hurried up stairs to Amelia in the highest spirits. What
was it that made him more attentive to her on that night than
he had been for a long time,—more eager to amuse her, more
tender, more brilliant in talk? Was it that his generous heart
128 VANITY FAIR,

warmed to her at the prospect of misfortune; or that the idea
of losing the dear little prize made him value it more?

She lived upon the recollections of that happy evening for
many days afterwards, remembering his words, his looks, the
song he sang, his attitude, as he leant over her or looked at her
from a distance. As it seemed to her, no night ever passed so
quickly at Mr. Osborne’s house before; and for once this young
person was almost provoked to be angry by the premature ar-
rival of Mr. Sambo with her shawl.

George came and took a tender leave of her the next morn-
ing, and then hurried off to the city, where he visited Mr.
Chopper, his father’s head man, and received from that gen-
tleman a document which he exchanged at Hulker & Bul-
lock’s for a whole pocketful of money. As George entered
the house, old John Sedley was passing out of the banker’s
parlor, looking very.dismal. But his godson was much too
elated to mark the worthy stockbroker’s depression, or the
dreary eyes which the kind old gentleman cast upon him.
Young Bullock did not come grinning out of the parlor with
him as had been his wont in former years.

And as the swinging doors of Hulker, Bullock & Co. closed
upon Mr. Sedley, Mr. Quill, the cashier (whose benevolent
occupation it is to hand out crisp bank-notes from a drawer
and dispense sovereigns out of a copper shovel), winked at
Mr. Driver, the clerk at the desk on his right. Mr. Driver
winked again.

“No go,” Mr. D. whispered.

“Not at no price,” Mr. Q. said. “Mr. George Osborne, sir,
how will you take it?” George crammed eagerly a quantity
of notes into his pockets, and paid Dobbin fifty pounds that
very evening at mess.

That very evening Amelia wrote him the tenderest of long
letters. Her heart was overflowing with tenderness, but it
still foreboded evil. What was the cause of Mr. Osborne’s
dark looks? she asked. Had any difference arisen between him
and her papa? Her poor papa returned so melancholy from
the city, that all were alarmed about him at home,—in fine,
there were four pages of loves, and fears, and hopes, and fore-
bodings.

“Poor little Emmy,—dear little Emmy. How fond she is
of me,” George said, as he perused the missive,—“and Gad,
what a headache that mixed punch has given me!” Poor lit-
tle Emmy, indeed.
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. i28

CHAPTER XIV.
MISS CRAWLEY AT HOME.

About this time there drove up to an exceedingly snug and
well-appointed house in Park Lane a traveling chariot with a
lozenge on the panels, a discontented female in a green veil
and crimped curls on the rumble, and a large and confidential
man on the box. It was the equipage of our friend Miss Craw-
ley, returning from Hants. The carriage windows were shut;
the fat spaniel, whose head and tongue erdinarily lolled out of
them, reposed on the lap of the discontented female. When
the vehicle stopped, a large round bundle of shawls was taken
out of the carriage by the aid of various domestics and a
young lady who accompanied the heap of cloaks. That bundle
contained Miss Crawley, who was conveyed up stairs forth-
with, and put into a bed and chamber warmed properly as
for the reception of an invalid. Messengers went off for her
physician and medical man. They came, consulted, pre-
scribed, vanished. The young companion of Miss Crawley,
at the conclusion of their interview, came in to receive their
instructions, and administered those antiphlogistic medicines
which the eminent men ordered.

Captain Crawley of the Life Guards rode up from Knights-
bridge Barracks the next day; his black charger pawed the
straw before his invalid aunt’s door. He was most affectionate
in his inquiries regarding that amiable relative. There seemed
to be much source of apprehension. He found Miss Craw-
ley’s maid (the discontented female) unusually sulky and de-
spondent; he found Miss Briggs, her dame de compagnie, in
tears alone in the drawing-room. She had hastened home,
hearing of her beloved friend’s illness. She wished to fly to
her couch, that couch which she, Briggs, had so often
smoothed in the hour of sickness. She was denied admission
to Miss Crawley’s apartment. A stranger was administering
her medicines,—a stranger from the country,—an odious
miss . . . —tears choked the utterance of the dame de com-
pagnie, and she buried her crushed affections and her poor old
red nose in her pocket-handkerchief.

Rawdon Crawley sent up his name by the sulky femme de

9
130 VANITY FAIR.

chambre, and Miss Crawley’s new companion, coming trip-
ping down from the sick-room, put a little hand into his as
he stepped forward eagerly to meet her, gave a glance of
great scorn at the bewildered Briggs, and, beckoning the young
Guardsman out of the back drawing-room, led him down stairs
into that now desolate dining-parlor, where so many a good
dinner had been celebrated.

Here these two talked for ten minutes, discussing, no doubt,
the symptoms of the old invalid above stairs; at the end of
which period, the parlor-bell was rung briskly, and answered
on that instant by Mr. Bowls, Miss Crawley’s large confiden-
tial butler (who, indeed, happened to be at the keyhole dur-
ing the most part of the interview); and the Captain com-
ing out, curling his mustachios, mounted the black charger
pawing among the straw, to the admiration of the little black-
guard boys collected in the street. He looked in at the din-
ing-room window, managing his horse, which curvetted and
capered beautifully—for one instant the young person might
be seen at the window, when her figure vanished, and, doubt-
less, she went up stairs again to resume the affecting duties of
benevolence.

Who could this young woman be, I wonder? That even-
ing a little dinner for two persons was laid in the dining-
room,—when Mrs. Firkin, the lady’s-maid, pushed into her
mistress’s apartment, and bustled about there during the va-
cancy occasioned by the departure of the new nurse,— and
the latter and Miss Briggs sat down to the neat little meal.

Briggs was so much choked by emotion that she could
hardly take a morsel of meat. The young person carved a
fowl with the utmost delicacy, and asked so distinctly for
egg-sauce, that poor Briggs, before whom that delicious con-
diment was placed, started, made a great clattering with the
ladle, and once more fell back in the most gushing hysterical
state.

“Had you not better give Miss Briggs a glass of wine?” said
the person to Mr. Bowls, the large confidential man. He did
so. Briggs seized it mechanically, gasped it down convul-
sively, moaned a little, and began to play with the chicken on
her plate.

“IT think we shall be able to help each other,” said the
person, with great suavity, “and shall have no need of Mr.
Bowls’ kind services. Mr. Bowls, if you please, we will ring
when we want you.” He went down stairs, where, by the
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 131

way, he vented the most horrid curses upon the unoffending
oe his subordinate.

“It is a pity you take on so, Miss Briggs,” the young lad
said, with a cool, slightly sarcastic air. oe eee

“My dearest friend is so ill, and wo—o—o—on’t see me,”
gurgled out Briggs, in an agony of renewed grief.

“She’s not very ill any more. Console yourself, dear Miss
Briggs. She has only overeaten herself,—that is all. She is
greatly better. She will soon be quite restored again. She
is weak from being cupped and from medical treatment, but
she will rally immediately. Pray console yourself, and take a
little more wine.”

“But why, why won’t she see me again?” Miss Briggs bleated
out. “O Matilda, Matilda, after three-and-twenty years’ ten-
derness! is this the return to your poor, poor Arabella?”

“Don’t cry too much, poor Arabella,” the other said (with
ever so little of a grin); “she only won’t see you, because she
says you don’t nurse her as well as I do. It’s no pleasure
- to sit up all night. I wish you might do it in-
stead.”

“Have I not tended that dear couch for years?” Arabella
said. “And now—”

“Now she prefers somebody else. Well, sick people have
these fancies, and must be humored. When she’s well, I shall
go.”

“Never, never,” Arabella exclaimed, madly inhaling her
salts-bottle.

“Never be well or never go, Miss Briggs?” the’ other said,
with the same provoking good-nature. “Pooh,—she will be
well in a fortnight, when I shall go back to my little pupils
at Queen’s Crawley, and to their mother, who is a great deal
more sick than our friend. You need not be jealous about me,
my dear Miss Briggs. I am a poor little girl without any
friends, or any harm in me. I don’t want to supplant you in
Miss Crawley’s good graces. She will forget me a week after
I am gone; and her affection for you has been the work of
years. Give me a little wine, if you please, my dear Miss
Briggs, and let us be friends. I’m sure I want friends.”

The placable and soft-hearted Briggs speechlessly pushed
out her hand at this appeal; but she felt the desertion most
keenly, for all that, and bitterly, bitterly moaned the fickleness
of her Matilda. At the end of half an hour, the meal over,
Miss Rebecca Sharp (for such, astonishing to state, is the
182 VANITY FAIR.

name of her who has been described ingeniously as “the per-
son” hitherto) went up stairs again to her patient’s rooms,
from which, with the most engaging politeness, she eliminated
poor Firkin. “Thank you, Mrs. Firkin, that will quite do;
how nicely you make it! I will ring when anything is want-
ed.”

“Thank you;” and Firkin came down stairs in a tempest of
jealousy, only the more dangerous because she was forced to
confine it in her own bosom.

Could it be the tempest which, as she passed the landing
of the first floor, blew open the drawing-room door? No; it
was stealthily opened by the hand of Briggs. Briggs had been
on the watch. Briggs too well heard the creaking Firkin
descend the stairs, and the clink of the spoon and gruel-basin.
the neglected female carried.

“Well, Firkin?” says she, as the other entered the apart-
ment. “Well, Jane?”

“Wuss and wuss, Miss B.,” Firkin said, wagging her
head.

“Is she not better, then?”

“She never spoke but once, and I asked her if she felt a
little more easy, and she told me to hold my stupid tongue.
O Miss L., I never thought to have seen this day!” And
the water-works again began to play.

“What sort of a person is this Miss Sharp, Firkin? I little
thought, while enjoying my Christmas revels in the elegant
home of my firm friends, the Reverend Lionel Delamere and
his amiable lady, to find a stranger had taken my place in
the affections of my dearest, my still dearest Matilda!” Miss
Briggs, it will be seen by her language, was of a literary and
sentimental turn, and had once pubtished a volume of poems,
—“Trills of the Nightingale’”—by subscription.

“Miss B., they are all infatyated about that young woman,”
Firkin replied. “Sir Pitt wouldn’t have let her go, but he
daredn’t refuse Miss Crawley anything. Mrs. Bute at the
Rectory jist as bad,—never happy out of her sight. The
Capting quite wild about her. Mr. Crawley mortial jealous.
Since Miss C. was took ill, she won’t have nobody near her
but Miss Sharp, I can’t tell for where nor for why; and I
think somethink has bewidged everybody.”

Rebecca passed that night in constant watching upon Miss
Crawley; the next night the old lady slept so comfortably,
that Rebecca had time for several hours’ comfortable re-
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO, 133

pose herself on the sofa, at the foot of her patroness’s bed;
very soon, Miss Crawley was so well that she sat up and
laughed heartily at a perfect imitation of Miss Briggs and
her grief, which Rebecca described to her. Briggs’s weepiny
snuffie, and her manner of using the handkerchief, were so
completely rendered, that Miss Crawley became quite cheer-
ful, to the admiration of the doctors when they visited her,
who usually found this worthy woman of the world, when
the least sickness attacked her, under the most abject de-
pression and terror of death.

Captain Crawley came every day, and received bulletins
from Miss Rebecca respecting his aunt’s health. This im-
proved so rapidly, that poor Briggs was allowed to see her
patroness; and persons with tender hearts may imagine the
smothered emotions of that sentimental female, and the af-
fecting nature of the interview.

Miss Crawley liked to have Briggs in a good deal soon.
Rebecca used to mimic her to her face with the most admir-
able gravity, thereby rendering the imitation doubly piquant
to her worthy patroness.

The causes which had led to the deplorable illness of Miss
Crawley, and her departure from her brother’s house in the
country, were of such an unromantic nature that they are
hardly fit to be explained in this genteel and sentimental
novel. For how is it possible to hint of a delicate female,
living in good society, that she ate and drank too much, and
that a hot supper of lobster profusely enjoyed at the Rectory
was the reason of an indisposition which Miss Crawley her-
self persisted was solely attributable to the dampness of the
weather? The attack was so sharp that Matilda—as his
Reverence expressed it—was very nearly “off the hooks;” all
the family was in a fever of expectation regarding the will,
and Rawdon Crawley was making sure of at least forty thou-
sand pounds before the commencement of the London sea-
son. Mr. Crawley sent over a choice parcel of tracts, to pre-
pare her for the change from Vanity Fair and Park Lane
for another world; but a good doctor from Southampton, be-
ing called in in time, vanquished the lobster which was so
nearly fatal to her, and gave her sufficient strength to enable
her to return to London. The Baronet did not disguise his
exceeding mortification at the turn which affairs took.

While everybody was attending on Miss Crawley, and mes-
sengers every hour from the Rectory were carrying news of her
134 VANITY FAIR.

health to the affectionate folks there, there was a lady in
another part of the house, being exceedingly ill, of whom no
one took any notice at all; and this was the Lady of Crawley
herself. The good doctor shook his head after seeing her;
to which visit Sir Pitt consented, as it could be paid without
a fee; and she was left fading away in her lonely chamber,
with no more heed paid to her than to a weed in the park.

The young ladies too, lost much of the inestimable benefit
of their governess’s instruction. So affectionate a nurse was
Miss Sharp, that Miss Crawley would take her medicines
from no other hand. Firkin had been deposed long before
her mistress’s departure from the country. That faithful
attendant found a gloomy consolation, on returning to Lon-
don, in seeing Miss Briggs suffer the same pangs of jealousy
and undergo the same faithless treatment to which she her-
self had been subject.

Captain Rawdon got an extension of leave on his aunt’s ill-
ness, and remained dutifully at home. He was always in her
antechamber. (She lay sick in the state bedroom, into which
you enter by the little blue saloon.) His father was always
meeting him there; or if he came down the corridor ever so
quietly, his father’s door was sure to open, and the hyena
face of the old gentleman to glare out. What was it set one
to watch the other so? A generous rivalry, no doubt, as to
which should be most attentive to the dear sufferer in the
state bedroom. Rebecca used to come cut and comfort both
of them; or one or the other of them, rather. Both of these
worthy gentlemen were most anxious to have news of the
invalid from her little confidential messenger.

At dinner,—to which meal she descended for half an hour,
—she kept the peace between them, after which she disap-
peared for the night, when Rawdon would ride over to the de-
pot of the Fifteenth at Mudbury, leaving his papa to the so-
ciety of Mr. Horrocks and his rum and water. She passed as
weary a fortnight as ever mortal spent in Miss Crawley’s sick-
room; but her little nerves seemed to be of iron, and she was
Ne unshaken by the duty and the tedium of the sick-cham-

er.

She never told until long afterwards how painful that duty
was,—how peevish a patient was the jovial old lady, how
angry, how sleepless, in what horrors of death, during what
long nights she lay moaning, and in almost delirious agonies
respecting that future world which she quite ignored when

SS pt

Sees
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO, 185

she was in good health. Picture to yourself, O fair young
reader, a worldly, selfish, graceless, thankless, religionless old
woman, writhing in pain and fear, and without her wig. Pic-
ture ae to yourself, and, ere you be old, learn to love and
pray!

Sharp watched this graceless bedside with indomitable pa-
tience. Nothing escaped her; and, like a prudent steward,
she found a use for everything. She told many a good story
about Miss Crawley’s illness in after days,—stories which made
the lady blush through her artificial carnations. During the
illness she was never out of temper; always alert; she slept
light, having a perfectly clear conscience, and could take that
refreshment at almost any minute’s warning. And so you
saw very few traces of fatigue in her appearance. Her face
might be a trifle paler, and the circles round her eyes a little
blacker than usual; but whenever she came out from the sick-
room she was always smiling, fresh, and neat, and looked as
trim in her little dressing-gown and cap as in her smartest
evening suit.

The Captain thought so, and raved about her in uncouth
convulsions. The barbed shaft of love had penetrated his dull
hide. Six weeks—appropinquity—opportunity—had vic-
timized him completely. He made a confidante of his aunt at
the Rectory, of all persons in the world. She rallied him about
it; she had perceived his folly; she warned him; she fin-
ished by owning that little Sharp was the most clever, droll,
odd, good-natured, simple, kindly creature in England. Raw-
don must not trifle with her affections, though,—dear Miss
Crawley would never pardon him for that,—for she, too, was
quite overcome by the little governess, and loved Sharp like
a daughter. Rawdon must go away,—go back to his regiment
and naughty London, and not play with a poor artless girl’s
feelings.

Many and many a time this good-natured lady, compas-
sionating the forlorn Life Guardsman’s condition, gave him
an opportunity of seeing Miss Sharp at the Rectory, and of
walking home with her, as we have seen. When men of a
certain sort, ladies, are in love, they see the hook and the
string, and the whole apparatus with which they are to be
taken, they gorge the bait nevertheless,—they must come to
it,—they must swallow it,—and are presently struck and
landed gasping. Rawdon saw there was a manifest intention
on Mrs. Bute’s part to captivate him with Rebecca. He was
136 VANITY FAIR.

not very wise; but he was a man about town, and had seen
several seasons. A light dawned upon his dusky soul, as he
thought, through a speech of Mrs. Bute’s.

“Mark my words, Rawdon,” she said. “You will have Miss
Sharp one day for your relation.”

“What relation,—imy cousin, hey, Mrs. Bute? Francis sweet
on her, hey?” inquired the waggish officer.

“More than that,’ Mrs. Bute said, with a flash from her
black eyes.

“Not Pitt?—He sha’n’t have her. The sneak ain’t worthy
of her. He’s booked to Lady Jane Sheepshanks.”

“You men perceive nothing. You silly, blind creature,—
if anything happens to Lady Crawley, Miss Sharp will be your
mother-in-law; and that’s what will happen.”

Rawdon Crawley, Esquire, gave vent to a prodigious whis-
tle, in token of astonishment at this announcement. He
couldn’t deny it. Hs father’s evident liking for Miss Sharp
had not escaped him. He knew the old gentleman’s charac-
ter well; and a more unscrupulous old—whyou—he did not
conclude the sentence, but walked home, curling his mus-
tachios, and convinced he had found a clew to Mrs. Bute’s
mystery.

“By Jove, it’s too bad,” thought Rawdon,—“too bad, by
Jove! I do believe the woman wants the poor girl to be ruined,
in order that she shouldn’t come into the family as Lady
Crawley.”

When he saw Rebecca alone, he rallied her about his father’s
attachment in his graceful way. She flung up her head scorn-
fully, looked him full in the face, and said:—

“Well, suppose he is fond of me. I know he is, and others
too. You don’t think I am afraid of him, Captain Crawley?
You don’t suppose I can’t defend my own honor?’ said the
little woman, looking as stately as a queen.

“OQ, ah, why,—give you fair warning,—look out, you know
—that’s all,” said the mustachio-twiddler.

“You hint at something not honorable, then?” said she,
flashing out.

“Q—Gad—teally—Miss Rebecca,” the heavy dragoon inter-
posed.

“Do you suppose I have no feeling of self-respect, because I
am poor and friendless, and because rich people have none?
Do you think, because I am a governess, I have not as much
sense, and feeling, and good-breeding as you gentlefolks in
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 137

Hampshire? I’m a Montmorency. Do you suppose a Mont-
morency is not as good as a Crawley?”

When Miss Sharp was agitated, and alluded to her maternal
relatives, she spoke with ever so slight a foreign accent, which
gave a great charm to her clear, ringing voice. “No,” she
continued, kindling as she spoke to the Captain; “I can
endure poverty, but not shame,—neglect, but not insult; and
insult from—tfrom you.”

Her feelings gave way, and she burst into tears.

“Hang it, Miss Sharp,—Rebecca,—by Jove,—upon my soul,
I wouldn’t for a thousand pounds. Stop, Rebecca!”

She was gone. She drove out with Miss Crawley that day.
It was before the latter’s illness. At dinner she wags unusually
brilliant and lively; but she would take no notice of the hints,
or the nods, or the clumsy expostulations of the humiliated,
infatuated Guardsman. Skirmishes of this sort passed per-
petually during the little campaign,—tedious to relate, and
similar in result. The Crawley heavy cavalry was maddened
by defeat, and routed every day.

If the Baronet of Queen’s Crawley had not had the fear of
losing his sister’s legacy before his eyes, he never would have
permitted his dear girls to lose the educational blessings which
their invaluable governess was conferring upon them. The
old house at home seemed a desert without her, so useful
and pleasant had Rebecca made herself there. Sir Pitt’s
letters were not copied and corrected; his books not made
up; his household business and manifold schemes neglected,
now that his little secretary was away. And it was easy to see
how necessary such an amanuensis was to him, by the tenor
and spelling of the numerous letters which he sent to her,
entreating her and commanding her to return. Almost every
day brought a frank from the Baronet, enclosing the most
urgent prayers to Becky for her return or conveying pathetic
statements to Miss Crawley, regarding the neglected state
of his daughters’ education; of which documents Miss Craw-
ley took very little heed.

Miss Briggs was not formally dismissed, but her place as
companion was a sinecure and a derision; and her company
was the fat spaniel in the drawing-room, or occasionally the
discontented Firkin in the housekeeper’s closet. Nor, though
the old lady would by no means hear of Rebecca's departure,
was the latter regularly installed in office in Park Lane. Like
138 YANITY FAIR.

many wealthy people, it was Miss Crawley’s habit to accept
as much service as she could get from her inferiors; and
good-naturedly to take leave of them when she no longer found
them useful. Gratitude among certain rich folks is scarcely
natural or to be thought of. They take needy people’s ser-
vices as their due. Nor have you, O poor parasite and hum-
ble hanger-on, much reason to complain! Your friendship for
Dives is about as sincere as the return which it usually gets.
It is money you love, and not the man; and were Croesus and
his footman to change places, you know, you poor rogue, who
would have the benefit of your allegiance.

And I am not sure, that, in spite of Rebecca’s simplicity,
and activity, and gentleness, and untiring good-humor, the
shrewd old London lady, upon whom these treasures of friend-
ship were lavished, had not a lurking suspicion all the while
of her affectionate nurse and friend. It must have often
crossed Miss Crawley’s mind that nobody does anything for
nothing. If she measured her own feeling towards the world,
she must have been pretty well able to gauge those of the
world towards herself; and perhaps she reflected that it is
the ordinary lot of people to have no friends if they them-
selves care for nobody. ~~ i ye te

“Well, meanwhile Becky was the greatest comfort and con-
venience to her, and she gave her a couple of new gowns, and
an old necklace and shawl, and showed her friendship by abus-
ing all her intimate acquaintances to her new confidante (than
which there can’t be a more touching proof of regard), and
meditated vaguely some great future benefit,—to marry her
perhaps to Clump, the apothecary, or to settle her in some
advantageous way of life; or, at any rate, to send her back
to Queen’s Crawley when she had done with her, and the full
London season had begun.

When Miss Crawley was convalescent, and descended to the
drawing-room, Becky sang to her, and otherwise amused her;
when she was well enough to drive out, Becky accompanied
her. And amongst the drives which they took, whither, of
all places in the world, did Miss Crawley’s admirable good-
nature and friendship actually induce her to penetrate, but
to Russell Square, Bloomsbury, and the house of John Sedley,
Esquire?

Ere that event, many notes had passed, as may be imagined,
between the two dear friends. During the months of Rebec-
ca’s stay in Hampshire, the eternal friendship had (must it be
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 139

owned ?) suffered considerable diminution, and grown so de-
crepit and feeble with old age as to threaten demise alto-
gether. The fact is, both girls had their own real affairs to
think of: Rebecca her advance with her employers,—Amelia
her own absorbing topic. When the two girls met, and flew
into each other’s arms with that impetuosity which distin-
guishes the behavior of young ladies towards each other,
Rebecca performed her part of the embrace with the most per-
fect briskness and energy. Poor little Amelia blushed as she
kissed her friend, and thought she had been guilty of some-
thing very like coldness towards her.

Their first interview was but a very short one. Amelia
was just ready to go out for a walk. Miss Crawley was waiting
in her carriage below, her people wondering at the locality
in which they found themselves, and gazing upon honest
Sambo, the black footman of Bloomsbury, as one of the queer
natives of the place. But when Amelia came down with her
kind smiling looks (Rebecca must introduce her to her friend,
Miss Crawley was longing to see her, and was too ill to leave
her carriage),—when, I say, Amelia came down, the Park
Lane shoulder-knot aristocracy wondered more and more that
such a thing could come out of Bloomsbury; and Miss Crawley
was fairly captivated by the sweet blushing face of the young
lady who came forward so timidly and so gracefully to pay
her respects to the protector of her friend.

“What a complexion, my dear! What a sweet voice!’ Miss
Crawley said, as they drove away westward after the little in-
terview. “My dear Sharp, your young friend is charming.
Send for her to Park Lane, do you hear?” Miss Crawley had
a good taste. She liked natural manners,—a little timidity
only set them off. She liked pretty faces near her, as she
liked pretty pictures and nice china. She talked of Amelia
with rapture half a dozen times that day. She mentioned
her to Rawdon Crawley, who came dutifully to partake of
his aunt’s chicken.

Of course, on this Rebecca instantly stated that Amelia was
engaged to be married,—to a Lieutenant Osborne,—a very
old flame.

“Ts he a man in a line-regiment?” Captain Crawley asked,
remembering after an effort, as became a Guardsman, the
* number of the regiment, the —th.

Rebecca thought that was the regiment. “The Captain’s
name,” she said, “was Captain Dobbin.”
140 VANITY FAIR.

“A lanky, gawky fellow,” said Crawley, “tumbles over every-
body. I know him; and Osborne’s a goodish-looking fellow,
with large black whiskers?”

“Enormous,” Miss Rebecca Sharp said, “and enormously
proud of them, I assure you.”

Captain Rawdon Crawley burst into a hoarse laugh by way
of reply; and, being pressed by the ladies to explain, did so
when the explosion of hilarity was over. “He fancies he can
play at billiards,” said he. “I won two hundred of him at
the Cocoa-Tree. He play, the young flat! He’d have played
for anything, that day, but his friend, Captain Dobbin, car-
ried him off, hang him!”

“Rawdon, Rawdon, don’t be so wicked,” Miss Crawley re-
marked, highly pleased.

“Why, ma’am, of all the young fellows I’ve seen out of the
line, I think this fellow’s the greenest. Tarquin and Deuce-
ace get what money they like out of him. He’d go to the deuce
to be seen with a lord. He pays their dinners at Greenwich,
and they invite the company.”

“And very pretty company too, I dare say.”

“Quite right, Miss Sharp. Right, as usual, Miss Sharp.
Uncommon pretty company,—haw, haw!” and the Captain
laughed more and more, thinking he had made a good joke.

“Rawdon, don’t be naughty!” his aunt exclaimed.

“Well, his father’s a city man,—immensely rich, they say.
Hang those city fellows, they must bleed; and I’ve not done
with him yet, I can tell you. Haw, haw!”

“Fie, Captain Crawley! I shall warn Amelia. A gambling
husband!”

“Horrid, ain’t he, hey?” the Captain said, with great so-
lemnity; and then added, a sudden thought having struck
him: “Gad, I say, ma’am, we’ll have him here.”

“Is he a presentable sort of a person?” the aunt inquired.

Presentable?—O, very well. You wouldn’t see any differ-
ence,” Captain Crawley answered. “Do let’s have him, when
you begin to see a few people, and his whatdyecallem—his
inamorata—eh, Miss Sharp; that’s what you call it—comes.
Gad, I'll write him a note, and have him; and I'll try if he can
play piquet as well as billiards. Where does he live, Miss
Sharp?”

Miss Sharp told Crawley the Lieutenant’s town address: and -
a few days after this conversation Lieutenant Osborne re-
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 141

ceived a letter in Captain Rawdon’s school-boy hand, and en-
closing a note of invitation from Miss Crawley.

Rebecca dispatched also an invitation to her darling Amelia,
who, you may be sure, was ready enough to accept it when she
heard that George was to be of the party. It was arranged
that Amelia was to spend the morning with the ladies of
Park Lane, where all were very kind to her. Rebecca patron-
ized her with calm superiority; she was so much the cleverer
of the two, and her friend so gentle and unassuming, that
she always yielded when anybody chose to command, and so
took Rebecea’s orders with perfect meekness and good-humor.
Miss Crawley’s graciousness was also remarkable. She con-
tinued her raptures about little Amelia, talked about her be-
‘ore her face as if she were a doll, or a servant, or a picture,
and admired her with the most benevolent wonder possible.
I admire that admiration which the genteel world sometimes
extends to the commonalty. There is no more agreeable ob-
ject in life than to see May Fair folks condescending. Miss
Crawley’s prodigious benevolence rather fatigued poor little
Amelia, and I am not sure that of the three ladies in Park
Lane she did not find honest Miss Briggs the most agreeable.
She sympathized with Briggs as with all neglected or gen-
tle people; she wasn’t what you call a woman of spirit.

George came to dinner,—a repast en garcon with Captain
Crawley.

The great family coach of the Osbornes transported him to
Park Lane from Russell Square; where the young ladies, who
were not themselves invited, and professed the greatest in-
difference at that slight, nevertheless looked at Sir Pitt Craw-
ley’s name in the baronetage, and learned everything which
that work had to teach about the Crawley family and their
pedigree, and the Binkies, their relatives, &., &c. Rawdon
Crawley received George Osborne with great frankness and
graciousness, praised his play at billiards, asked him when he
would have his revenge, was interested about Osborne’s regi-
ment, and would have proposed piquet to him that very even-
ing, but Miss Crawley absolutely forbade any gambling in her
house; so that the young Lieutenant’s purse was not lightened
by his gallant patron, for that day at least. However, they
made an engagement for the next, somewhere: to look at a
horse that Crawley had to sell, and to try him in the Park;
and to dine together, and to pass the evening with some jolly
fellows. “That is, if you’re not on duty to that pretty Miss
142 VANITY FAIR.

Sedley,” Crawley said, with a knowing wink. “Monstrous
nice girl, ~pon my honor, though, Osborne,” he was good
enough to add. “Lots of tin, I suppose, eh?”

Osborne wasn’t on duty; he would join Crawley with pleas-
ure: and the latter, when they met the next day praised his
new friend’s horsemanship—as he might with perfect honesty,
—and introduced him to three or four young men of the
first fashion, whose acquaintance immensely elated the simple

oung officer.

“How’s little Miss Sharp, by the by?” Osborne inquired of
his friend over their wine, with a dandified air. “(Good-
natured little girl that. Does she suit you well at Queen’s
Crawley? Miss Sedley liked her a good deal last year.”

Captain Crawley looked savagely at the Lieutenant out of
his little blue eyes, and watched him when he went up to
resume his acquaintance with the fair governess. Her con-
duct must have relieved Crawley if there was any jealousy in
the bosom of that Life-Guardsman.

When the young men went up stairs, and after Osborne’s
introduction to Miss Crawley, he walked up to Rebecca with a
patronizing, easy swagger. He was going to be kind to her
and protect her. He would even shake hands with her, as a
friend of Amelia’s; and saying, “Ah, Miss Sharp! how-dy-
doo?” held out his left hand towards her, expecting that she
would be quite confounded at the honor.

Miss Sharp put out her right fore-finger, and gave him a lit-
tle nod, so cool and killing, that Rawdon Crawley, watching
the operations from the other room, could hardly restrain
his laughter as he saw the Lieutenant’s entire discomfiture, the
start he gave, the pause, and the perfect clumsiness with
which he at length condescended to take the finger which was
offered for his embrace.

“She’d beat the Devil, by Jovel” the Captain said, in a
rapture; and the Lieutenant, by way of beginning the con-
rae agreeably asked Rebecca how she liked her new
place.

“My place?” said Miss Sharp, coolly, “how kind of you
to remind me of it! It’s a tolerably good place; the wages
are pretty good,—not so good as Miss Wirt’s, I believe, with
your sisters in Russell Square. How are those young ladies?—
not that I ought to ask.”

“Why not?” Mr. Osborne said, amazed.

“Why, they never condescended to speak to me, or to ask
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 143

me into their house, whilst I was staying with Amelia; but we
poor governesses, you know, are used to slights of this sort.”

“My dear Miss Sharp!” Osborne ejaculated.

“At least in some families,” Rebecca continued. “You can’t
think what a difference there is, though. We are not so
wealthy in Hampshire as you lucky folks of the city. But
then I am in a gentleman’s family,—good old English stock.
I suppose you know Sir Pitt’s father refused a peerage. And
you see how I am treated. I am pretty comfortable. In-
deed, it is rather a good place. But how very good of you to
inquire!”

Osborne was quite savage. The little governess patronized
him and persifiéd him until this young British Lion felt quite
uneasy; nor could he muster sufficient presence of mind to
find a pretext for backing out of this most delectable con-
versation.

“T thought you liked the city families pretty well,” he said,
haughtily.

“Last year, you mean, when I was fresh from that horrid,
vulgar school? Of course I did. Doesn’t every girl like to
come home for the holidays? And how was I to know any
better? But O Mr. Osborne, what a difference eighteen
months’ experience makes!—eighteen months spent, pardon
me for saying so, with gentlemen. As for dear Amelia, she, I
grant you, is a pearl, and would be charming anywhere. There
now, I see you are beginning to be in a good-humor; but
O these queer, odd city people! And Mr. Jos,—how is that
wonderful Mr. Joseph?”

“Tt seems to me you didn’t dislike that wonderful Mr. Jo-
seph last year,” Osborne said kindly.

“How severe of you! Well, entre nous, I didn’t break my
heart about him; yet if he had asked me to do what you
mean by your looks (and very expressive and kind they are,
too), I wouldn’t have said no.”

Mr. Osborne gave a look as much as to say, “Indeed, how
very obliging!”

“What an honor to have had you for a brother-in-law, you
are thinking? To be sister-in-law to George Osborne, Is-
quire, son of John Osborne, Esquire, son of—what was your
grandpapa, Mr. Osborne? Well, don’t be angry. You can’t
help your pedigree, and I quite agree with you that I would
have married Mr. Joe Sedley; for could a poor penniless girl
do better? Now you know the whole secret. I’m frank and
144 VANITY FAIR.

open; considering all things, it was very kind of you to allude
to the circumstance,—very kind and polite. Amelia dear, Mr.
Osborne and I were talking about your poor brother Joseph.
How is he?”

Thus was George utterly routed. Not that Rebecca was in
the right; but she had managed most successfully to put him
in the wrong. And he now shamefully fled, feeling, if he
stayed another minute, that he would have been made to look
foolish in the presence of Amelia.

Though Rebecca had had the better of him, George was
above the meanness of tale-bearing or revenge upon a lady,—
only he could not help cleverly confiding to Captain Crawley,
next day, some notions of his regarding Miss Rebecca,—that
she was a sharp one, a dangerous one, a desperate flirt, &c.;
in all of which opinions Crawley agreed laughingly, and with
every one of which Miss Rebecca was made acquainted before
twenty-four hours were over. They added to her original re-
gard for Mr. Osborne. Her women’s instinct had told her
that it was George who had interrupted the success of her
first love-passage, and she esteemed him accordingly.

“T only just warn you,” he said to Rawdon Crawley, with
a knowing look,—he had bought the horse, and lost some
score of guineas after dinner,—“I just warn you,—I know
women, and counsel you to be on the lookout.”

“Thank you, my boy,” said Crawley, with a look of peculiar
gratitude. “You’re wide awake, I see.” And George went
off, thinking Crawley was quite right.

He told Amelia of what he had done, and how he had
counseled Rawdon Crawley,—a devilish good, straightforward
fellow,—to be on his guard against that little, sly, scheming
Rebecca.

“Against whom?” Amelia cried.

“Your friend the governess.—Don’t look so astonished.”

“OQ George, what have you done?” Amelia said. For her
woman’s eyes, which Love had made sharp-sighted, had in
one instant discovered a secret which was invisible to Miss
Crawley, to poor virgin Briggs, and, above all, to the stupid
peepers of that young waiskered prig, Lieutenant Osborne.

For as Rebecca was shawling her in an upper apartment,
where these two friends had an opportunity for a little of that
secret talking and conspiring which forms the delight of fe-
male life, Amelia, coming up to Rebecca, and taking her two
little hands in hers, said, “Rebecca, I see it all.”
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO, 145

Rebecca kissed her.

And regarding this delightful secret, not one syllable more
was said by either of the young women. But it was destined
to come out before long.

Some short period after the above events, and Miss Rebec-
ca Sharp still remaining at her patroness’s house in Park Lane,
one more hatchment might have been seen in Great Gaunt
Street, figuring amongst the many which usually ornament
that dismal quarter. It was over Sir Pitt Crawley’s house;
but it did not indicate the worthy Baronet’s demise. It was
a feminine hatchment, and indecd a few years back had served
as a funeral compliment to Sir Pitt’s old mother, the late
dowager Lady Crawley. Its period of service over, the hatch-
ment had come down from the front of the house, and lived
in retirement somewhere in the back premises of Sir Pitt’s
mansion. It reappeared now for poor Rese Dawson. Sir Pitt
was a widower again. The arms quartered on the shield
along with his own were not, to be sure, poor Rose’s. She
had no arms. But the cherubs painted on the scutcheon
answered as well for her as for Sir Pitt’s mother, and
Resurgam was written under the coat, flanked. by the Craw-
ley Dove and Serpent. Arms and Hatchments, Resurgam.—
Here is an opportunity for moralizing.

Mr. Crawley had tended that otherwise friendless bedside.
She went out of the world strengthened by such words and
comfort as he could give her. For many years his was the
only kindness she ever knew, the only friendship that solaced
in any way that feeble, lonely soul. Her heart was dead long
before her body. She had sold it to become Sir Pitt Craw-
ley’s wife. Mothers and daughters are making the same bar-
gain every day in Vanity Fair.

When the demise took place, her husband was in London
attending to some of his innumerable schemes, and busy with
his endless lawyers. He had found time, nevertheless, to call
often in Park Lane, and to dispatch many notes to Rebecca,
entreating her, enjoining her, commanding her to return to
her young pupils in the country, who were now utterly with-
out companionship during their mother’s illness. But Miss
Crawley would not hear of her departure; for though there
was no lady of fashion in London who would desert her friends
more complacently as soon as she was tired of their society, and
though few tired of them sooner, yet as long as her engotiment

10
146 VANITY FAIR.

lasted her attachment was prodigious, and she clung still with
the greatest energy to Rebecca.

The news of Lady Crawley’s death provoked no more grief
or comment than might have been expected in Miss Craw-
ley’s family circle. “I suppose I must put off my party for
the 8d,” Miss Crawley said; and added, after a pause, “I
hope my brother will have the decency not to marry again.”
“What a confounded rage Pitt will be in if he does,” Rawdon
remarked, with his usual regard for his elder brother. Rebec-
ca said nothing. She seemed by far the gravest and most im-
pressed of the family. She left the room before Rawdon went
away that day; but they met by chance below, as he was
going away after taking leave, and had a parley together.

On the morrow, as Rebecca was gazing from the window,
she startled Miss Crawley, who was placidly occupied with a
French novel, by crying out in an alarmed tone, “Here’s
Sir Pitt, ma’am!” and the Baronet’s knock followed this an-
nouncement.

“My dear, I can’t see him. I won’t see him. Tell Bowls
not at home, or go down stairs and say I’m too ill to receive
any one. My nerves really won’t bear my brother at this
moment,” cried out Miss Crawley, and resumed the novel.

“She’s too ill to see you, sir,” Rebecca said, tripping down to
Sir Pitt, who was preparing to ascend.

“So much the better,’ Sir Pitt answered. “I want to see
you, Miss Becky. Come along a me into the parlor;” and
they entered that apartment together.

“IT wawnt you back at Queen’s Crawley, miss,” the Bar-
onet said, fixing his eyes upon her, and taking off his
black gloves and his hat with its great crape hat-band. His
eyes had such a strange look, and fixed upon her so steadfastly,
that Rebecca Sharp began almost to tremble.

“T hope to come soon,” she said, in a low voice, “as soon as
Miss Crawley is better—and return to—to the dear chil-
dren.”

“You've said so these three months, Becky,” replied Sir
Pitt, “and still you go hanging on to my sister, who’ll fling
you off like an old shoe, when she’s wore you out. I tell
you, I want you. [I’m going back to the Vuneral. Will you
come back? Yes or no.”

“T daren’t—I don’t think—it would be right—to be alone—
with you sir,” Becky said, seemingly in great agitation.

“T say agin, I want you,” Sir Pitt said, thumping the table.
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 147

“I can’t git on without you. I didn’t see what it was till
you went away. The house all goes wrong. It’s not the same
place. All my accounts has got muddled agin. You must
come back. Do come back. Dear Becky, do come.”

“Come—as what, sir?” Rebecca gasped out.

“Come as Lady Crawley, if you like,” the Baronet said,
grasping his crape hat. “There! will that zatusfy you? Come
back and be my wife. Your vit vor’t. Birth be hanged.
Yow’re as good a lady as ever I see. You’ve got more brains
in your little vinger than any baronet’s wife in the country.
Will you come? Yes or no?”

“O Sir Pitt!” Rebecca said, very much moved.

“Say yes, Becky,’ Sir Pitt continued. “I’m an old man,
but a good’n. Tm good for twenty years. I’ll make you
happy, zee if I don’t. You shall do what you like, spend
what you like, and ’av it all your own way. Ill make you
a zettlement. Tl do everything reg’lar. Look year!” and the
old man fell down on his knees and leered at her like a
satyr.

Rebecca started back, a picture of consternation. In the
course of this history we have never seen her lose her presence
of mind; but she did now, and wept some of the most genuine
tears that ever fell from her eyes.

“O Sir Pitt!” she said. “O sir,—I—I’m married already!”

CHAPTER XV.

IN WHICH REBECCA’S HUSBAND APPHARS FOR A SHORT
TIME.

Every reader of a sentimental turn (and we desire no
other) must have been pleased with the tableau with which
the last act of our little drama concluded; for what can be
prettier than an image of Love on his knees before Beauty?

But when Love heard that awful confession from Beauty
that she was married already, he bounced up from his attitude
of humility on the carpet, uttering exclamations which caused
poor little Beauty to be more frightened than she was when
she made her avowal. “Married! Yow’re joking,” the Baronet
cried, after the first explosion of rage and wonder. “You're
148 VANITY FAIR.

making vun of me, Becky. Who’d ever go to marry you without
a shilling to your vortune?”

“Married! married!” Rebecca said, in an agony of tears,—
her voice choking with emotion, her handkerchief up to her
ready eyes, fainting against the mantel-piece,—a figure of woe
fit to melt the most obdurate heart. “O Sir Pitt, dear Sir Pitt,
do not think me ungrateful for all your goodness to me. It
is only your generosity that has extorted my secret.”

“Generosity be hanged!” Sir Pitt roared out. “Who is it tu,
then, you're married? Where was it?”

“Let me come back with you to the country, sir! Let me
watch over you as faithfully as ever! Don’t, don’t separate
me from dear Queen’s Crawley!”

“The fellow has left you, has he?” the Baronet said, be-
ginning, as he fancied, to comprehend. “Well, Becky,—
come back if you like. You can’t eat your cake and have it.
Any ways I made you a vair offer. Coom back as governess,—
you shall have it all your own way.” She held out one hand.
She cried fit to break her heart; her ringlets fell over her face,
and over the marble mantel-piece where she laid it.

“So the rascal ran off, eh?” Sir Pitt said, with a hideous
attempt at consolation. “Never mind, Becky, I’ll take care of
ee.”

“O sir! it would be the pride of my life to go back to Queen’s
Crawley, and take care of the children, and of you as formerly,
when you said you were pleased with the services of your lit-
tle Rebecca. When I think of what you have just offered me,
my heart fills with gratitude,—indeed, it does. I can’t be your
wife, sir; let me—let me be your daughter!”

Saying which, Rebecca went down on her knees in a most
tragical way, and taking Sir Pitt’s horny black hand between
her own two (which were very pretty and white, and as soft as
satin), looked up in his face with an expression of exquisite
pathos and confidence, when—when the door opened, and
Miss Crawley sailed in.

Mrs. Firkin and Miss Briggs, who happened by chance to be
at the parlor door soon after the Baronet and Rebecca entered
the apartment, had also seen accidentally, through the key-
hole, the old gentleman prostrate before the governess, and
had heard the generous proposal which he made her. It was
scarcely out of his mouth, when Mrs. Firkin and Miss Briggs
had streamed up the stairs, had rushed into the drawing-
room where Miss Crawley was reading the French novel, and
A NOVHL WITHOUT A HERO, 149

had given that old lady the astounding intelligence that Sir
Pitt was on his knees, proposing to Miss Sharp. And if you
calculate the time for the above dialogue to take place,—the
time for Briggs and Firkin to fly to the drawing-room,—the
time for Miss Crawley to be astonished, and to drop her
volume of Pigault le Brun,—and the time for her to come
down stairs,—you will see how exactly accurate this history is,
and how Miss Crawley must have appeared at the very instant
when Rebecca had assumed the attitude of humility.

“It is the lady on the ground, and not the gentleman,” Miss
Crawley said, with a look and voice of great scorn. “They
told me that you were on your knees, Sir Pitt: do kneel once
more, and let me see this pretty couple!”

“T have thanked Sir Pitt Crawley, ma’am,” Rebecca said,
rising, “and have told him that—that I never can become
Lady Crawley.”

“Refused him!” Miss Crawley said, more bewildered than
ever. Briggs and Firkin at the door opened the eyes of as-
tonishment and the lips of wonder.

“Yes,—refused,” Rebecca continued, with a sad, tearful
voice.

“And am I to credit my ears that you absolutely proposed
to her, Sir Pitt?” the old lady asked.

“Kes,” said the Baronet, “I did.”

“And she refused you as she says?”

“Hes,” Sir Pitt said, his features on a broad grin.

“Tt does not seem to break your heart, at any rate,” Miss
Crawley remarked.

“Nawt a bit,” answered Sir Pitt, with a coolness and good-
humor which set Miss Crawley almost mad with bewilderment.
That an old gentleman of station should fall on his knees to
a penniless governess, and burst out laughing because she re-
fused to marry himj;—that a penniless governess should refuse
a baronet with four thousand a year,—these were mysteries
which Miss Crawley could never comprehend. It surpassed
any complications of intrigue in her favorite Pigault le Brun.

“T’m glad you think it good sport, brother,” she continued,
groping wildly through this amazement.

“Vamous,” said Sir Pitt. “Who'd ha’ thought it! what a
sly little devil! what a little fox it waws!” he muttered to him-
self, chuckling with pleasure.

“Who'd have thought what?” cried Miss Crawley, stamping
with her foot. “Pray, Miss Sharp, are you waiting for the
150 VANITY FAIR.

Prince Regent’s divorce, that you don’t think our family good
enough for you?”

“My attitude,” Rebecca said, “when you came in, ma’am,
did not look as if I despised such an honor as this good—this
noble man has deigned to offer me. Do you think I have no
heart? Have you all loved me, and been so kind to the poor
orphan—deserted—girl, and am I to feel nothing? O my
friends! O my benefactors! may not my love, my life, my duty,
try to repay the confidence you have shown me? Do you
grudge me even gratitude, Miss Crawley? It is too much,—
my heart is too full;’ and she sank down in a chair so
pathetically, that most of the audience present were perfectly
melted with her sadness.

“Whether you marry me or not, youre a good little girl,
Becky, and I’m your vriend, mind,” said Sir Pitt; and, putting
on his crape-bound hat, he walked away, greatly to Rebecca’s
relief; for it was evident that her secret was unrevealed to
Miss Crawley, and she had the advantage of a brief reprieve.

Putting her handkerchief to her eyes, and nodding away
honest Briggs, who would have followed her up stairs, she
went up to her apartment; while Briggs and Miss Crawley,
in a high state of excitement, remained to discuss the strange
event, and Firkin, not less moved, dived down into the kitchen
regions, and talked of it with all the male and female com-
pany there. And so impressed was Mrs. Firkin with the news,
that she thought proper to write off by that very night’s post,
“with her humble duty to Mrs. Bute Crawley and the family
at the Rectory, and Sir Pitt has been and proposed for to
marry Miss Sharp, wherein she has refused him, to the won-
der of all.”

The two ladies in the dining-room (where worthy Miss
Briggs was delighted to be admitted once more to a con-
fidential conversation with her patroness) wondered to their
hearts’ content at Sir Pitt’s offer, and Rebecca’s refusal,
Briggs very acutely suggesting that there must have been some
obstacle in the shape of a previous attachment, otherwise no
young woman in her senses would ever have refused so ad«
vantageous a proposal.

“You would have accepted it yourself, wouldn’t you,
Briggs?” Miss Crawley said, kindly.

“Would it not be a privilege to be Miss Crawley’s sister?”
Briggs replied, with meek evasion.

“Well, Becky would have made a good Lady Crawley, after
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 151

all,” Miss Crawley remarked (who was mollified by the girl's
refusal, and very liberal and generous now there was no call
for her sacrifices). “She has brains in plenty (much more wit
in her little finger than you have, my poor dear Briggs, in all
your head). Her manners are excellent, now I have formed
her. She is a Montmorency, Briggs, and blood is something,
though I despise it for my part; and she would have held her
own amongst those pompous stupid Hampshire people much
better than that unfortunate ironmonger’s daughter.”

Briggs coincided as usual, and the “previous attachment”
was then discussed in conjectures. “You poor friendless crea-
tures are always having some foolish ¢endre,” Miss Crawley
said. “You yourself, you know, were in love with a writing-
master (don’t cry, Briggs—youw’re always crying, and it won’t
bring him to life again), and I suppose this unfortunate Becky
has been silly and sentimental too,—some apothecary, or house-
steward, or painter, or young curate, or something of that
sort.”

“Poor thing, poor thing!” says Briggs (who was thinking of
twentv-four years back, and that hectic young writing-master
whose lock of yellow hair, and whose letters, beautiful in their
illegibility, she cherished in her old desk up stairs). “Poor
thing, poor thing!” says Briggs. Once more she was a fresh-
cheeked lass of eighteen; she was at evening chureh, and the
hectic writing-master and she were quavering out of the same
psalm-book.

“After such conduct on Rebecca’s part,” Miss Crawley said,
enthusiastically, “our family should do something. Find out
who is the od7et, Briggs. V1l set him up in a shop; or order
my portrait of him, you know; or speak to my cousin, the
Bishop—and I'll doter Becky, and we'll have a wedding,
Briggs, and you shall make the breakfast, and be a bride’s-
maid.”

Briggs declared that it would be delightful, and vowed that
her dear Miss Crawley was always kind and generous, and
went up to Rebecca’s bedroom to console her and prattle about
the offer, and the refusal, and the cause thereof; and to hint
at the generous intentions of Miss Crawley, and to find out
who was the gentleman that had the mastery of Miss Sharp’s
heart.

Rebecca was very kind, very affectionate, and affected,—
responded to Briggs’s offer of tenderness with grateful fervor,
—owned there was a secret attachment,—a delicious mystery,
152 VANITY FAIR.

—what a pity Miss Briggs had not remained half a minute
longer at the keyhole! Rebecca might, perhaps, have told
more: but five minutes after Miss Briggs’s arrival in Rebec-
ca’s apartment, Miss Crawley actually made her appearance
there,—an unheard-of honor;—her impatience had overcome
her; she could not wait for the tardy operations of her am-
bassadress; so she came in person, and ordered Briggs out of
the room. And expressing her approval of Rebecca’s conduct,
she asked particulars of the interview, and the previous trans-
actions which had brought about the astonishing offer of Sir
Pitt.

Rebecca said she had long had some notion of the partiality
with which Sir Pitt honored her (for he was in the habit of
making his feelings known in a very frank and unreserved
manner), but, not to mention private reasons with which she
would not for the present trouble Miss Crawley, Sir Pitt’s age,
station, and habits were such as to render a marriage quite im-
possible; and could a woman with any feeling of self-respect
and any decency listen to proposals at such a moment, when
the funeral of the lover’s deceased wife had not actually taken

lace?
“Nonsense, my dear, you would never have refused him had
there not been some one else in the case,” Miss Crawley said,
coming tother point at once. “Tell me the private reasons;
what are the private reasons? There is some one; who is it
that has touched your heart?”

Rebecca cast down her eyes, and owned there was. “You
have guessed right, dear lady,” she said, with a sweet, simple,
faltering voice. “You wonder at one so poor and friendless
having an attachment, don’t you? I have never heard that
poverty was any safeguard against it. J wish it were.”

“My poor dear child,” cried Miss Crawley, who was always
quite ready to be sentimental, “is our passion unrequited,
then? Are we pining in secret? Tell me all, and let me con-
sole you.”

“T wish you could, dear madam,” Rebecca said, in the same
tearful tone. “Indeed, indeed, I need it.” And she laid her
head upon Miss Crawley’s shoulder and wept there so natural-
ly that the old lady, surprised into sympathy, embraced her
with an almost maternal kindness, uttered many soothing pro-
tests of regard and affection for her, vowed that she loved her
as a daughter, and would do everything in her power to serve
her. “And now who is it, my dear? Is it that pretty Miss
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 153

Sedley’s brother? You said something about an affair with
him. Ill ask him here, my dear. And you shall have him,
indeed you shall.”

“Don’t ask me now,” Rebecca said. “You shall know all
soon,—indeed, you shall. Dear, kind Miss Crawley,—dear
friend, may I say so?”

. “That you may, my child,” the old lady replied, kissing
er.

“TI can’t tell you now,” sobbed out Rebecca ; “I am very mis-
erable. But O, love me always,—promise you will love me
always.” And in the midst of mutual tears,—for the emotions
of the younger woman had awakened the sympathies of the
elder,—this promise was solemnly given by Miss Crawley, who
left her little protégée, blessing and admiring her as a dear,
ages tender-hearted, affectionate, incomprehensible crea-
ure,

And now she was left alone to think over the sudden and
wonderful events of the day, and of what had been and what
might have been. What think you were the private feelings
of Miss, no (begging her pardon) of Mrs. Rebecca? If, a few
pages back, the present writer claimed the privilege of peep-
ing into Miss Amelia Sedley’s bedroom, and understanding
with the omniscience of the novelist all the gentle pains and
passions which were tossing upon that innocent pillow, why
should he not declare himself to be Rebecca’s confidante too,
master of her secrects, and sealkeeper of that young woman’s
conscience?

Well, then, in the first place, Rebecca gave way to some
very sincere and touching regrets that a piece of marvelous
good fortune should have been so near her, and she actually
obliged to decline it. In this natural emotion every properly
regulated mind will certainly share. What good mother is
there that would not commiserate a penniless spinster, who
might have been my lady, and have shared four thousand a
year? What well-bred young person is there in all Vanity
Fair, who will not feel for a hard-working, ingenious, meri-
torious girl, who gets such an honorable, advantageous, pro-
voking offer just at the very moment when it is out of her
power to accept it? I am sure our friend Becky’s disappoint-
ment deserves and will command every sympathy.

I remember one night being in the Fair myself, at an even-
ang party. I observed old Miss Toady, there also present, single
154 VANITY FAIR.

out for her special attentions and flattery little Mrs. Briefless,
the barrister’s wife, who is of a good family certainly, but, as
we all know, is as poor as poor can be.

What, I asked in my own mind, can cause this obsequious-
ness on the part of Miss Toady? Has Briefless got a county
court, or has his wife had a fortune left her? Miss Toady ex-
plained presently, with that simplicity which distinguishes all
her conduct. “You know,” she said, Mrs. Briefless is grand-
daughter of Sir John Redhand, who is so ill at Cheltenham
that he can’t last six months. Mrs. Briefless’s papa succeeds;
so you see she will be a baronet’s daughter.” And Toady
asked Briefless and his wife to dinner the very next week.

If.the mere chance of becoming a baronet’s daughter can
procure a lady such homage in the world, surely, surely we may
respect the agonies of a young woman who has lost the op-
portunity of becoming a baronet’s wife. Who would have
dreamed of Lady Crawley dying so soon? She was one of
those sickly women that might have lasted these ten years,—
Rebecca thought to herself in all the woes of repentance,—
“and I might have been my lady! I might have led that old
man whither I would. I might have thanked Mrs. Bute for
her patronage, and Mr. Pitt for his insufferable condescen-
sion. I would have had the town-house newly furnished and
decorated. I would have had the handsomest carriage in Lon-
don, and a box at the opera; and I would have been presented
next season.” All this might have been; and now—now all
was doubt and mystery.

But Rebecca was a young lady of too much resolution and
energy of character to permit herself much useless and un-
seemly sorrow for the irrevocable past; so, having devoted only
the proper portion of regret to it, she wisely turned her whole
attention towards the future, which was now vastly more im-
portant to her. And she surveyed her position, and its hopes,
doubts, and chances.

In the first place, she was married; —that was a great fact.
Sir Pitt knew it. She was not so much surprised into the avowal
as induced to make it by a sudden calculation. It must have
come some day: and why not now as at a later period? He
who would have married her himself must at least be silent
with regard to her marriage. How Miss Crawley would bear
the news, was the great question. Misgivings Rebecca had;
but she remembered all Miss Crawley had said; the old lady’s
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 185

avowed contempt for birth; her daring liberal opinions; her
general romantic propensities; her almost doting attachment
to her nephew, and her repeatedly expressed fondness for
Rebecca herself. “She is so fond of him,” Rebecca thought,
“that she will forgive him anything; she is so used to me
that I don’t think she could be comfortable without me: when
the éclaircissement comes, there will be a scene, and hysterics,
and a great quarrel, and then a great reconciliation.” At all
events, what use was there in delaying? The die was thrown,
and now or to-morrow the issue must be the same. And so,
resolved that Miss Crawley should have the news, the young
person debated in her mind as to the best means of conveying
it to her; and whether she should face the storm that must
come, or fly and avoid it until its first fury was blown over.
In this state of meditation she wrote the following letter:—

Dearest Friend,—The great crisis which we have debated
about so often is come. Half of my secret is known, and I
have thought and thought, until I am quite sure that now is
the time to reveal the whole of the mystery. Sir Pitt came to
me this morning, and made—what do you think?—a declara-
tion in form. Think of that! Poor little me. I might have
been Lady Crawley. How pleased Mrs. Bute would have been;
and ma tante if I had taken precedence of her! I might have
been somebody’s mamma, instead of—O, I tremble, I trem-
ble, when I think how soon we must tell all!—

Sir Pitt knows I am married, and, not knowing to whom, is
not very much displeased as yet. Ja ¢ante is actually angry
that I should have refused him. But she is all kindness and
graciousness. She condescends to say I would have made him
a good wife; and vows that she will be a mother to your lit-
tle Rebecca. She will be shaken when she first hears the
news. But need we fear anything beyond a momentary anger?
I think not: I am sure not. She dotes upon you so (you
naughty, good-for-nothing man), that she would pardon you
anything: and, indeed, I believe the next place in her heart is
mine, and that she would be miserable without me. Dearest!
something tells me we shall conquer. You shall leave that
odious regiment; quit gaming, racing, and be a good boy;
and we shall all live in Park Lane, and ma tante shall leave us

all her money. ;
I shall try and walk to-morrow at 3 in the usual place. If
156 VANITY FAIR.

Miss B. accompanics me, you must come to dinner, and bring
an answer, and put it in the third volume of Porteus’s Ser-
mons. But, at all events, come to your own.
To Miss Eliza Styles,
At Mr. Barnet’s, Saddler, Knightsbridge.

And I trust there is no reader of this little story who has not
discernment enough to perceive that the Miss Eliza Styles
(an old schoolfellow, Rebecca said, with whom she had re-
sumed an active correspondence of late, and who used to fetch
these letters from the saddler’s), wore brass spurs, and large
curling mustachios, and was indeed no other than Captain
Rawdon Crawley.

CHAPTER XVI.

THE LETTER ON THE PINCUSHION.

How they were married is not of the slightest consequence
to anybody. What is to hinder a Captain who is a major, and
a young lady who is of age, from purchasing a license,
and uniting themselves at any church in this town? Who
needs to be told, that if a woman has a will, she will assuredly
find a way? My belief is, that one day, when Miss Sharp had
gone to pass the forenoon with her dear friend Miss Amelia
Sedley, in Russell Square, a lady very like her might have
been seen entering a church in the city, in company with a
gentleman with dyed mustachios, who, after a quarter of an
hour’s interval, escorted her back to the hackney-coach in
waiting, and that this was a quiet bridal party.

And who on earth, after the daily experience we have, can
question the probability of a gentleman marrying anybody?
How many of the wise and learned have married their cooks?
Did not Lord Eldon himself, the most prudent of men, make
a runaway match? Were not Achilles and Ajax both in love
with their servant-maids? And are we to expect a heavy dra-
goon with strong desires and small brains, who had never con-
tuolled a passion in his life, to become prudent all of a sudden,
and to refuse to pay any price for an indulgence to which he
had a mind? If people only made prudent marriages, what a
stop to population there would be!
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 15%

It seems to me, for my part, that Mr. Rawdon’s inarriage
was one of the honestest actions which we shall have to record |
in any portion of that gentleman’s biography which has to do
with the present history. No one will say it is unmanly to be
captivated by a woman, or, being captivated, to marry her; |
and the admiration, the delight, the passion, the wonder, the -
unbounded confidence, and frantic adoration with which, by
degrees, this big warrior got to regard the little Rebecca, were
feelings which the ladies at least will pronounce were not al-
together discreditable to him. When she sang, every note
thrilled in his dull soul, and tingled through his huge frame.
When she spoke, he brought all the force of his brains to listen
and wonder. If she was jocular, he used to revolve her jokes
in his mind, and explode over them half an hour afterwards in
the street, to the surprise of the groom in the tilbury by his
side, or the comrade riding with him in Rotten Row. Her
words were oracles to him, her smallest actions marked by an
infallible grace and wisdom. “How she sings,—how she
paints!” thought he. “How she rode that kicking mare at
Queen’s Crawley!” And he would say to her in confidential
moments, “By Jove, Beck, you’re fit to be Commander-in-
Chief, or Archbishop of Canterbury, by Jove!” Is his case a
rare one? and don’t we see every day in the world many an
honest Hercules at the apron-strings of Omphale, and great
whiskered Samsons prostrate in Delilah’s lap?

When, then, Becky told him that the great crisis was near,
and the time for action had arrived, Rawdon expressed him-
self as ready to act under her orders, as he would be to charge
with his troop at the command of his colonel. There was no
need for him to put his letter into the third volume of Porteus.
Rebecca easily found a means to get rid of Briggs, her com-
panion, and met her faithful friend in “the usual place” on
the next day. She had thought over matters at night, and
communicated to Rawdon the result of her determinations.
He agreed, of course, to everything; was quite sure that it
was all right; that what she proposed was best; that Miss
Crawley would infallibly relent, or “come round,” as he said,
after a time. Had Rebecca’s resolutions been entirely differ-
ent, he would have followed them as implicitly. “You have
head enough for both of us, Beck,” said he. “You're sure to
pet us out of the scrape. I never saw your equal, and I’ve met
with some clippers in my time too.” And with this simple con-
158 VANITY FAIR.

fession of faith, the love-stricken dragoon left her to execute
his part of the project which she had formed for the pair.

It consisted simply in the hiring of quiet lodgings at Bromp-
ton, or in the neighborhood of the barracks, for Captain and
Mrs. Crawley. For Rebecca had determined, and very pru-
dently, we think, to fly. Rawdon was only too happy at her
resolve; he had been entreating her to take this measure any
time for weeks past. He pranced off to engage the lodgings
with all the impetuosity of love. He agreed to pay two guineas
a week so readily, that the landlady regretted she had asked
him so little. He ordered in a piano, and half a nursery-house
full of flowers, and a heap of good things. As for shawls, kid
gloves, silk stockings, gold French watches, bracelets, and per-
fumery, he sent them in with the profusion of blind love and
unbounded credit. And, having relieved his mind by_ this
outpouring of generosity, he went and dined nervously at the
club, waiting until the great moment of his life should come.

The occurrences of the previous day, the admirable conduct
of Rebecca in refusing an offer so advantageous to her, the
secret unhappiness preying upon her, the sweetness and silence
with which she bore her affliction, made Miss Crawley much
more tender than usual. An event of this nature, a mar-
riage, or a refusal, or a proposal, thrills through a whole house-
hold of women, and sets all their hysterical sympathies at
work. As an observer of human nature, I regularly frequent
St. George’s Hanover Square, during the genteel marriage
season; and though IJ have never seen the bridegroom’s male
friends give way to tears, or the beadles and officiating clergy
any way affected, yet it is not at all uncommon to see women
who are not in the least concerned in the operations going on,
—old ladies who are long past marrying, stout middle-aged
females with plenty of sons and daughters, let alone pretty
young creatures in pink bonnets, who are on their promotion,
and may naturally take an interest in the ceremony,—I say it
is quite common to see the women present piping, sobbing,
sniffling; hiding their little faces in their little useless pocket-
handkerchiefs; and heaving, old and young, with emotion.
When my friend, the fashionable John Pimlico, married the
lovely Lady Belgravia Green Parker, the excitement was so
general, that even the little snuffy old pew-opener who let me
into the seat was in tears. And wherefore? I inquired of my
own soul: she was not going to be married.
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 159

Miss Crawley and Briggs, in a word, after the affair of Sir
Pitt, indulged in the utmost luxury of sentiment, and Rebecca
became an object of the most tender interest to them. In her
absence Miss Crawley solaced herself with the most senti-
mental of the novels in her library. Little Sharp, with her
secret griefs, was the heroine of the day.

That night Rebecca sang more sweetly and talked more
pleasantly than she had ever been heard to do in Park Lane.
She twined herself round the heart of Miss Crawley. She
spoke lightly and laughingly of Sir Pitt’s proposal, ridiculed
it as the foolish fancy of an old man; and her eyes filled with
tears, and Briggs’s heart with unutterable pangs of defeat,
as she said she desired no other lot than to remain forever with
her dear benefactress. “My dear little creature,” the old lady
said, “I don’t intend to let you stir for years, that you may
depend upon. As for going back to that odious brother of
mine after what has passed, it is out of the question. Here
you stay with me and Briggs. Briggs wants to go to see her
relations very often. Briggs, you may go when you like. But
as for you, my dear, you must stay and take care of the old
woman.”

If Rawdon Crawley had been then and there present, in-
stead of being at the club nervously drinking claret, the pair
might have gone down on their knees before the old spinster,
avowed all, and been forgiven in a twinkling. But that good
chance was denied to the young couple, doubtless in order that
this story might be written, in which numbers of their wonder-
ful adventures are narrated,—adventures which could never
have occurred to them if they had been housed and sheltered
under the comfortable uninteresting forgiveness of Miss Craw-

ley.

Under Mrs. Firkin’s orders, in the Park Lane establishment,
was a young woman from Hampshire, whose business it was,
among other duties, to knock at Miss Sharp’s door with that
jug of hot water, which Firkin would rather have perished than
have presented to the intruder. This girl, bred on the family
estate, had a brother in Captain Crawley’s troop, and, if the
truth were known, I dare say it would come out that she was
aware of certain arrangements which have a great deal to do
with this history. At any rate she purchased a yellow shawl,
a pair of green boots, and a light blue hat with a red feather,
with three guineas which Rebecca gave her, and as little Sharp
160 VANITY FAIR.

was by no means too liberal with her money, no doubt it was
for services rendered that Betty Martin was so bribed.

On the second day after Sir Pitt Crawley’s offer to Miss
Sharp, the sun rose as usual, and at the usual hour Betiy
Martin, the upstairs maid, knocked at the door of the gover-
‘ness’s bedchamber.

No answer was returned, and she knocked again. Silence
was still uninterrupted; and Betty, with the hot water, opened
the door and entered the chamber.

The little white dimity bed was as smooth and trim as on
the day previous, when Betty’s own hands had helped to
make it. Two little trunks were corded in one end of the
room; and on the table before the window—on the pincushion
—the great fat pincushion lined with pink inside, and twilled
like a lady’s nightcap—tiay a letter. It had been reposing there
probably all night.

Betty avanced toward it on tiptoe, as if she were afraid to
awake it,—looked at it, and round the room, with an air of
great wonder and satisfaction, took up the letter, and grinned
intensely as she turned it round and over, and finally carried
it into Miss Briggs’s room below.

How could Betty tell that the letter was for Miss Briggs, I
should like to know? All the schooling Betty had was at Mrs.
Bute Crawley’s Sunday school, and she could no more read
writing than Hebrew.

“La, Miss Briggs,” the girl exclaimed, “O miss, something
must have happened,—there’s nobody in Miss Sharp’s room;
the bed ain’t been slept in, and she’ve run away, and left this
letter for you, miss.”

“What!” cries Briggs, dropping her comb, the thin wisp of
faded hair falling over her shoulders; “an elopement! Miss
Sharp a fugitive! What, what is this?” and she eagerly broke
the neat seal, and, as they say, “devoured the contents” of the
letter addresed to her.

“Dear Miss Briggs,” the refugee wrote, “the kindest heart
in the world, as yours is, will pity and sympathize with me
and excuse me. With tears, and prayers, and blessings, I leave
the home where the poor orphan has ever met with kindness
and affection. Claims even superior to those of my bene-
factress call me hence. I go to my duty,—to my husband.
Yes, I am married. My husband commands me to seek the
humble home which we call ours. Dearest Miss Briggs, break
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 161

the news—as your delicate sympathy will know how to do it—
to my dear, my beloved friend and benefactress. Tell her, ere
I went, I shed tears on her dear pillow,—that pillow that I
have so often soothed in sickness, that I long again to watch.
O, with what joy shall I return to dear Park Lane! How I
tremble for the answer which is to seal my fate! When Sir
Pitt deigned to offer me his hand, an honor of which my be-
loved Miss Crawley said I was deserving (my blessings go with
her for judging the poor orphan worthy to be her sister!) I
told Sir Pitt that I was already a wife. Even he forgave me.
But my courage failed me, when I should have told him all,—
that I could not be his wife, for I was his daughter! I am
wedded to the best and most generous of men,—Miss Crawley’s
Rawdon is my Rawdon. At his command I open my lips, and
follow him to our humble home, as I would through the world.
O, my excellent and kind friend, intercede with my Rawdon’s
beloved aunt for him and the poor girl to whom all his noble
race have shown such unparalleled affection. Ask Miss Craw-
ley to receive her children. I can say no more, but blessings,
blessings on all in the dear house I leave, prays
“Your affectionate and grateful
“Rebecca Crawley.
“Midnight.”

Just as Briggs had finished reading this affecting and inter-
esting document which reinstated her in her position as first
confidante of Miss Crawley, Mrs. Firkin entered the room.
“Here’s Mrs. Bute Crawley just arrived by the mail from
Hampshire, and wants some tea; will you come down and
make breakfast, miss?”

And to the surprise of Firkin, clasping her dressing-gown
around her, the wisp of hair floating disheveled behind her,
the little curl papers still sticking in bunches round her fore-
head, Briggs sailed down to Mrs. Bute with the letter in her
hand containing the wonderful news.

“OQ Mrs. Firkin,” gasped Betty, “such a business! Miss Sharp
have a gone and run away with the Capting, and they’re off
to Gretny Green!” We would devote a chapter to describe the
emotions of Mrs. Firkin, did not the passions of her mistress
occupy our genteeler muse. ; ao

When Mrs. Bute Crawley, numbed with midnight traveling,
and warming herself at the newly crackling parlor fire, heard
from Miss Briggs the intelligence of the clandestine marriage,

pb
162 VANITY FAIR.

she declared it was quite providential that she should have ar-
rived at such a time to assist poor dear Miss Crawley in sup-
porting the shock,—that Rebecca was an artful little hussy
of whom she had always had her suspicions; and that, as for
Rawdon Crawley, she never could account for his aunt’s in-
fatuation regarding him, and had long considered him a profli-
gate, lost, and abandoned being. And this awful conduct, Mrs.
Bute said, will have at least this good effect, it will open poor
dear Miss Crawley’s eyes to the real character of tLis wicked
man. Then Mrs. Bute had a comfortable hot toast and tea;
and as there was a vacant room in the house now, there was no
need for her to remain at the Gloster Coffee-House where the
Portsmouth mail had set her down, and whence she ordered
Mr. Bowls’s aide-de-camp, the footman, to bring away her
trunks.

Miss Crawley, be it known, did not leave her room until near
noon,—taking chocolate in bed in the morning, while Becky
Sharp read the “Morning Post” to her, or otherwise amusing
herself or dawdling. The conspirators below agreed that they
would spare the dear lady’s feelings until she appeared in her
drawing-room: meanwhile it was announced to her that Mrs
Bute Crawley had come up from Hampshire by the mail, was
staying at the Gloster, sent her love to Miss Crawley, and
asked for breakfast with Miss Briggs. The arrival of Mrs.
Bute, which would not have caused any extreme delight at an-
other period, was hailed with pleasure now; Miss Crawley be-
ing pleased at the notion of a gossip with her sister-in-law re-
garding the late Lady Crawley, the funeral arrangements pend-
ing, and Sir Pitt’s abrupt proposals to Rebecca.

Jt was not until the old lady was fairly ensconced in her
usual arm-chair in the drawing-room, and the preliminary
embraces and inquiries had taken place between the ladies,
that the conspirators thought it advisable to submit her to
the operation. Who has not admired the artifices and delicate
approaches with which women “prepare” their friends for bad
news? Miss Crawley’s two friends made such an apparatus
of mystery before they broke the intelligence to her, that they
worked her up to the necessary degree of doubt and alarm.

“And she refused Sir Pitt, my dear, dear Miss Crawley,—
prepare yourself for it,’ Mrs Bute said,—“because—because
she couldn’t help herself.”

“Of course there was a reason,” Miss Crawley answered.
“She liked somebody else. I told Briggs so yesterday.”
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 163

“Likes somebody else!” Briggs gasped. “O my dear friend,
she is married already.”

“Married already,” Mrs. Bute chimed in; and both sat with
clasped hands looking from each other at their victim.

“Send her to me, the instant she comes in. The little sly
He how dared she not tell me?” cried out Miss Craw-
ey.

“She won’t come in soon. Prepare yourself, dear friend,
—she’s gone out for a long time,—she’s—she’s gone alto-
gether.”

“Gracious goodness, and who’s to make my chocolate? Send
for her and have her back; I desire that she come back,”
the old lady said.

“She decamped last night, ma’am,” cried Mrs. Bute.

“She left a letter for me,” Briggs exclaimed. “She’s mar-
ried to—”

“Prepare her, for Heaven’s sake. Don’t torture her, my
dear Miss Briggs.”

“She’s married to whom?” cries the spinster, in a nervous
fury.

“To—to a relation of—”

“She refused Sir Pitt,” cried the victim. “Speak at once.
Don’t drive me mad.” ~

“OQ: ma’am,—prepare her, Miss Briggs,— she’s married to
Rawdon Crawley.”

“Rawdon married—Rebecca—governess—nobod—Get out
of my house, you fool, you idiot—you stupid old Briggs—how
dare you? Yovw’re in the plot—you made him marry, think-
ing that I'd leave my money from him—you did, Martha,”
the poor old lady screamed in hysteric sentences.

“J, ma’am, ask a member of this family to marry a draw-
ing-master’s daughter?”

“Her mother was a Montmorency,” cried out the old lady,
pulling at the bell with all her might.

“Her mother was an opera girl, and she has been on the
stage or worse herself,” said Mrs. Bute. ; :

Miss Crawley gave a final scream, and fell back in a faint.
They were forced to take her back to the room which she had
just quitted. One fit of hysterics succeeded another. The
doctor was sent for,—the apothecary arrived. Mrs, Bute took
up the post of nurse by her bedside. “Her relations ought
to be round about her,” that amiable woman said.

She had scarcely been caried up to her room, when a new
164 VANITY FAIR,

person arrived to whom it was also necessary to break the
news. This was Sir Pitt. “Where’s Becky?” he said, coming
in. “Where’s her traps? She’s coming with me to Queen’s
Crawley.”

“Have you not heard the astonishing intelligence regard-
ing her surreptitious union?” Briggs asked.

“What's that to me?” Sir Pitt asked. “I know she’s mar-
ried. That makes no odds. Tell her to come down at once,
and not keep me.”

“Are you not aware, sir,” Miss Briggs asked, “that she has
left our roof, to the dismay of Miss Crawley, who is nearly
killed by the intelligence of Captain Rawdon’s union with
her?”

When Sir Pitt Crawley heard that Rebecca was married to
his son, he broke out into a fury of language, which it would
do no good to repeat in this place, as indeed it sent poor Briggs
shuddering out of the room; and with her we will shut the
door upon the figure of the frenzied old man, wild with hatred
and insane with baffled desire.

One day after he went to Queen’s Crawley, he burst like a
madman into the room she had used when there,—dashed open
her boxes with his foot, and flung about her papers, clothes,
and other relics. Miss Horrocks, the butler’s daughter, took
some of them. The children dressed themselves and acted
plays in the others. It was but a few days after the poor
mother had gone to her lonely burying-place; and was laid,
unwept and disregarded, in a vault full of strangers.

“Suppose the old lady doesn’t come to,” Rawdon said to his
little wife, as they sat together in the snug little Brompton
lodgings. She had been trying the new piano all the morn-
ing. The new gloves fitted her to a nicety; the new shawls
became her wonderfully; the new rings glittered on her little
hands, and the new watch ticked at her waist,—“suppose she
don’t come round, eh, Becky?”

“T’ll make your fortune,” she said: and Delilah patted Sam-
son’s cheek.

“You can do anything,” he said, kissing the little hand. “By
Jove, you can; and we'll drive down to the Star and Garter,
and dine, by Jove.”
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO, 165

CHAPTER XVII.

HOW CAPTAIN DOBBIN BOUGHT A PIANO.

If there is any exhibition in all Vanity Fair which Satire

and Sentiment can visit arm in arm together; where you light
on the strangest contrasts laughable and tearful; where you
may be gentle and pathetic, or savage and cynical, with per-
fect propriety; it is at one of those public assemblies, a crowd
of which are advertised every day in the last page of the
Times newspaper, and over which the late Mr. George Robins
used to preside with so much dignity. There are very few
London people, as I fancy, who have not attended at these
meetings, and all with a taste for moralizing must have
thought, with a sensation and interest not a little startling
and queer, of the day when their turn shall come too, and
Mr. Hammerdown will sell by the orders of Diogenes’s as-
signees, or will be instructed by the executors to offer to
public competition, the library, furniture, plate, wardrobe,
and choice cellar of wines of Epicurus deceased.

Even with the most selfish disposition, the Vanity-fairian,
as he witnesses this sordid part of the obsequies of a departed
friend, can’t but feel some sympathies and regret. My Lord
Dives’s remains are in the family vault; the statuaries are
cutting an inscription veraciously commemorating his virtues,
and the sorrows of his heir, who is disposing of his goods.
What guest at Dives’s table can pass the familiar house with-
out a sigh?—the familiar house of which the lights used to
shine so cheerfully at seven o’clock, of which the hall doors
opened so readily, of which the obsequious servants, as you
passed up the comfortable stair, sounded your name from
landing to landing, until it reached the apartment where jolly
old Dives welcomed his friends! What a number of them he
had; and what a noble way of entertaining them! How witty
people used to be here who were morose when they got out of
the door; and how courteous and friendly men who slandered
and hated each other everywhere else! He was pompous, but
with such a cook what would one not swallow? he was rather
dull, perhaps, but would not such wine make any conversation
pleasing? We must get some of his Burgundy at any price,
166 VANITY FAIR.

the mourners cry at his club. “I got this box at old Dives’s
sale,” Pincher says, handing it round, “one of Louis XV.’s
mistresses,—pretty thing, is it not?—sweet miniature,” and
they talk of the way in which young Dives is dissipating his
fortune.

How changed the house is, though! The front is patched
over with bills, setting forth the particulars of the furniture in
staring capitals. They have hung a shred of carpet out of an
up-stairs window,—a half-dozen of porters are lounging on
the dirty steps,—the hall swarms with dingy guests of Oriental
countenance, who thrust printed cards into your hand, and
offer to bid. Old women and amateurs have invaded the upper
apartments, pinching the bed-curtains, poking into the feath-
ers, shampooing the mattresses, and clapping the wardrobe
drawers to and fro. Enterprising young housekeepers are
measuring the looking-glasses and hangings to see if they will
suit the new :ménage,—(Snob will brag for years that he has
purchased this or that at Dives’s sale,\—and Mr. Hammer-
down is sitting. on the great mahogany dining-tables, in the
dining-room below, waving the ivory hammer, and employing
all the artifices of eloquence, enthusiasm, entreaty, reason,
despair; shouting to his people; satirizing Mr. Davids for his
sluggishness; inspiriting Mrs. Moss into action; imploring,
commanding, bellowing, until down comes the hammer like
fate, and we pass to the next lot. O Dives, who would ever
have thought, as we sat round the broad table sparkling with
plate and spotless linen, to have seen such a dish at the head of
it as that roaring auctioneer?

It was rather late in the sale. The excellent drawing-
room furniture by the best makers, the rare and famous wines,
selected regardless of cost, and with the well-known taste of
the purchaser, the rich and complete set of family plate, had
been sold on the previous days. Certain of the best wines
(which all had a great character among amateurs in the neigh-
borhood) had been purchased for his master, who knew them
very well, by the butler of our friend, John Osborne, Es-
quire, of Russell Square. A small portion of the most use-
ful articles of the plate had been bought by some young
stockbrokers from the city. And now, the public being invited
to the purchase of minor objects, it happened that the orator
on the table was expatiating on the merits of a picture, which
he sought to recommend to his audience: it was by no means
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 167

so select or numerous a company as had attended the previous
days of the auction.

“No. 369,” roared Mr. Hammerdown. “Portrait of a gen-
tleman on an elephant. Who'll bid for the gentleman on
the elephant? Lift up the picture, Blowman, and
let the company examine this lot.” A long, pale, military-
looking gentleman, seated demurely at the mahogany table,
could not help grinning as this valuable lot was shown by
Mr. Blowman. “Turn the elephant to the Captain, Blow-
man. What shall we say, sir, for the elephant?” but the
Captain, blushing in a very hurried and discomfited man-
ner, turned away his head, and the auctioneer repeated his
discomposure.

“Shall we say twenty guineas for this work of art?—fifteen,
five, name your own price. The gentleman without the
elephant is worth five pound.”

“T wonder it ain’t come down with him,” said a professional
wag, “he’s anyhow a precious big one;” at which (for the
elephant-rider was represented as of a very stout figure, there
was a general giggle in the room.

“Don’t be trying to depreciate the value of the lot, Mr.
Moss,” Mr. Hammerdown said; “let the company examine
it as a work of art,—the attitude of a gallant animal quite
according to natur’; the gentleman in a nankeen-jacket, his
gun in his hand, is going to the chase; in the distance a
banyhann-tree and a pagody, most likely resemblances of some
interesting spot in our famous Eastern possessions. How
much for this lot? Come, gentleman, don’t keep me here all
day.”

Some one bid five shillings, at which the military gentleman
looked towards the quarter from which this splendid offer had
come, and there saw another officer with a young lady on his
arm, who both appeared to be highly amused with the scene,
and to whom, finally, this lot was knocked down for half a
guinea. He at the table looked more surprised and discom-
posed than ever when he spied this pair, and his head sank into
his military collar, and he turned his back upon them, so as
to avoid them altogether.

Of all the other articles which Mr. Hammerdown had the
honor to offer for public competition that day, it is not our
purpose to make mention, save of one only, a little square
piano, which came down from the upper regions of the house
(the state grand piano having been disposed of previously);
168 VANITY FAIR.

this the young lady tried with a rapid and skillful hand (mak-
ing the officer blush and start again), and for it, when its turn
came, her agent began to bid.

But there was an opposition here. The Hebrew aide-de-
camp in the service of the officer at the table bid against the
Hebrew gentleman employed by the elephant purchasers, and
a brisk battle ensued over this little piano, the combatants be-
ing greatly encouraged by Mr. Hammerdown.

At last, when the competition had been prolonged for some
time, the elephant captain and lady desisted from the race;
and, the hammer coming down, the auctioneer said, “Mr.
Lewis, twenty-five;’ and Mr. Lewis’s chief thus became the
proprietor of the little square piano. Having effected the
purchase, he sat up as if he was greatly relieved, and the
unsuccessful competitors catching a glimpse of him at this
moment, the lady said to her friend:—

“Why, Rawdon, it’s Captain Dobbin.”

I suppose Becky was discontented with the new piano her
husband had hired for her, or perhaps the proprietors of that
instrument had fetched it away, declining further credit, or
perhaps she had a particular attachment for the one which she
had first tried to purchase, recollecting it in old days, when
she used to play upon it, in the little sitting-room of our dear
Amelia Sedley.

The sale was at the old house in Russell Square, where we
passed some evenings together at the beginning of this story.
Good old John Sedley was a ruined man. His name had been
proclaimed as a defaulter on the Stock Exchange, and his
bankruptcy and commercial extermination had followed. Mr.
Osborne’s butler came to buy some of the famous port wine to
transfer to the cellars over the way. As for one dozen well-
manufactured silver spoons and forks at per oz., and one dozen
dessert ditto ditto, there were three young stockbrokers
(Messrs. Dale, Spiggot, and Dale, of Threadneedle Street,
indeed), who having had dealings with the old man, and kind-
nesses from him in days when he was kind to everybody with
whom he dealt, sent this little spar out of the wreck with-
their love to good Mrs. Sedley; and with respect to the piano,
as it had been Amelia’s, and as she might miss it and want
one now, and as Captain William Dobbin could no more play
upon it than he could dance on the tight-rope, it is probable
that he did not purchase the instrument for his own use,
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 169

In a word, it arrived that evening at a wonderful small
cottage in a street leading from the Fulham Road,—one of
those streets which have the finest romantic names,—(this
was called St. Adelaide Villas, Anna Maria Road, West),—
where the houses look like baby-houses; where the people,
looking out of the first-floor windows, must infallibly, as you
think, sit with their feet in the parlors; where the shrubs in
the little gardens in front bloom with a perennial display of lit-
tle children’s pinafores, little red socks, eaps, &c. (polyan-
dria polygynia) 3 whence you hear the sound of jingling spinets
and women singing; where little porter pots hang on the
railings sunning themselves; whither of evenings you see
city clerks padding wearily; here it was that Mr. Clapp, the
clerk of Mr. Sedley, had his domicile, and in this asylum the
good old gentleman hid his head with his wife and daughter
when the crash came.

Jos Sedley had acted as a man of his disposition would, when
the announcement of the family misfortune reached him. He
did not come to London, but he wrote to his mother to draw
upon his agents for whatever money was wanted, so that his
kind, broken-spirited old parents had no present poverty to
fear. This done, Jos went on at the boarding-house at Chel-
tenham pretty much as before. He drove his curricle; he
drank his claret; he played his rubber; he told his Indian
stories, and the Irish widow consoled and flattered him as
usual. His present of money, needful as it was, made little
impression on his parents; and I have heard Amelia say,
that the first day on which she saw her father lift up
his head after the failure was on the receipt of the
packet of forks and spoons with the young stockbrokers’
love, over which he burst out crying like a child, being greatly
more affected than even his wife, to whom the present was ad~
dressed. Edward Dale, the junior of the house, who pur-
chased the spoons for the firm, was, in fact, very sweet upon
Amelia, and offered for her in spite of all. He married Miss
Lousia Cutts (daughter of Higham and Cutts, the eminent
corn-factors) with a handsome fortune in 1520; and is now
living in splendor, and with a numerous family, at his ele-
gant villa, Muswell Hill. But we must not let the recollections
of this good fellow cause us to diverge from the principal
history.

I hope the reader has much too good an opinion of Cap-
170 VANITY FAIR.

tain and Mrs. Crawley to suppose that they ever would have
dreamed of paying a visit to so remote a district as Blooms-
bury, if they thought the family whom they proposed to honor
with a visit were not merely out of fashion, but out of money,
and could be serviceable to them in no possible manner.
Rebecca was entirely surprised at the sight of the comfortable
old house where she had met with no small kindness, ransacked
by brokers and bargainers, and its quiet family treasures given
up to public desecration and plunder. A month after her
flight, she had bethought her of Amelia, and Rawdon, with
a horse laugh, had expressed a perfect willingness to see
young George Osborne again. “He’s a very agreeable ac-
quaintance, Beck,” the wag added. “I’d like to sell
him another horse, Beck. J’d like to play a few more
games at billiards with him. He’d be what I call use-
ful just now, Mrs. C.—ha, ha!” by which sort of speech it is
not to be supposed that Rawdon Crawley had a deliberate
desire to cheat Mr. Osborne at play, but only wished to take
that fair advantage of him which almost every sporting gentle-
man in Vanity Fair considers to be his due from his neigh-
bor.

The old aunt was long in “coming to.” A month had
elapsed. Rawdon was denied the door by Mr. Bowls; his ser-
vants could not get a lodgment in the house at Park Lane;
his letters were sent back unopened. Miss Crawley never
stirred out,—she was unwell,—and Mrs. Bute remained still
and never left her. Crawley and his. wife both of them
augured evil from the continued presence of Mrs. Bute.

“Gad, I begin to perceive now why she was always bring-
ing us together at Queen’s Crawley,” Rawdon said.

“What an artful little woman!” ejaculated Rebecca.

“Well, I don’t regret it, if you don’t,” the Captain cried,
still in an amorous rapture with his wife, who rewarded him
with a kiss by way of reply, and was indeed not a little
gratified by the generous confidence of her husband.

“Tf he had but a little more brains,” she thought to her-
self, “I might make something of him;’ but she never let
him perceive the opinion she had of him; listened with
indefatigable complacency to his stories of the stable and
the mess; laughed at all his jokes; felt the greatest interest, in
Jack Spatterdash, whose cab-horse had come down, and Bob
Martingale, who had been taken up in a gambling-house, and
Tom Cinqbars, who was going to ride the steeple-chase. When
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HmRO, 171

he came home, she was alert and happy; when he went out,
she pressed him to go; when he stayed at home, she played and
sang for him, made him good drinks, superintended his din-
ner, warmed his slippers, and steeped his soul in comfort.
The best of women (I have heard my grandmother say) are
hypocrites. We don’t know how much they hide from us;
how watchful they are when they seem most artless and con-
fidential; how often those frank smiles which they wear so
easily are traps to cajole, or elude, or disarm,—I don’t mean
mm your mere coquettes, but your domestic models, and para-
- gons of female virtue. Who has not seen a woman hide the
dullness of a stupid husband, or coax the fury of a savage one?
We accept this amiable slavishness, and praise a woman for it:
we call this pretty treachery truth. A good housewife is of
necessity a humbug; and Cornelia’s husband was hoodwinked,
as Potiphar was, only in a different way.

By these attentions, that veteran rake, Rawdon Crawley,
found himself converted into a very happy and submissive
married man. His former haunts knew him not. They asked
about him once or twice at his clubs, but did not miss him
much; in those booths of Vanity Fair people seldom do miss
each other. His secluded wife ever smiling and cheerful, his
little comfortable lodgings, snug meals, and homely evenings,
had all the charms of novelty and secrecy. The marriage
was not yet declared to the world, or published in the Morn-
ing Post. All his creditors would have came rushing on him
in a body, had they known that he was united to a woman
without fortune. “My relations won’t cry fie upon me,”
Becky said, with rather a bitter laugh; and she was quite
contented to wait until the old aunt should be reconciled, be-
fore she claimed her place in society. So she lived at Bromp-
ton, and meanwhile saw no one, or only those few of her
husband’s male companions who were admitted into her little
dining-room. These were all charmed with her. The little
dinners, the laughing and chatting, the music afterwards, de-
lighted all who participated in these enjoyments. Major Mar-
tingale never thought about asking to see the marriage license.
Captain Cinqgbars was perfectly enchanted with her skill in
making punch. And young Lieutenant Spatterdash (who was
fond of piquet, and whom Crawley would often invite) was
evidently and quickly smitten by Mrs. Crawley; but her own
circumspection and modesty never forsook her for a moment,
172 VANTTY PATE ~~

and Crawley’s reputation as a fire-eating and jealous warrior
was a further and complete defense to his little wife.

There are gentleman of very good blood and fashion in this
city, who never have entered a lady’s drawing-room; so that
though Rawdon Crawley’s marriage might be talked about in
his county, where, of course, Mrs. Bute had spread the news,
in London it was doubted, or not heeded, or not talked about
at all. He lived comfortably on credit. He had a large
capital of debts, which laid out judiciously will carry a man
along for many years, and on which certain men about town
contrive to live a hundred times better than even men with
ready money can do. Indeed, who is there that walks London
streets, but can point out a half-dozen of men riding by him
splendidly, while he is on foot, courted by fashion, bowed
into their carriages by tradesmen, denying themselves noth-
ing, and living on who knows what? We see Jack Thriftless
prancing in the park, or darting in his brougham down Pall
Mall: we eat his dinners served on his miraculous plate.
“How did this begin, we say, or where will it end?” “My
dear fellow,” I heard Jack once say, “I owe money in every
capital in Europe.” The end must come some day, but in
the mean time Jack thrives as much as ever; people are glad
enough to shake him by the hand, ignore the little dark
stories that are whispered every now and then against him, and
pronounce him a good-natured, jovial, reckless fellow.

Truth obliges us to confess that Rebecca had married a
gentleman of this order. Everything was plentiful in his
house but ready money, of which their ménage pretty early
felt the want; and reading the Gazette one day, and coming
upon the announcement of “Lieutenant G. Osborne to be
Captain by purchase, vice Smith, who exchanges,” Rawdon
uttéred that sentiment regarding Amelia’s lover, which ended
in the visit to Russell Square.

When Rawdon and his wife wished to communicate with
Captain Dobbin at the sale, and to know particulars of the
catastrophe which had befallen Rebecca’s old acquaintances,
the Captain had vanished; and such information as they got
was from a stray porter or broker at the auction.

“Look at them with their hooked beaks,” Becky said, get-
ting into the buggy, her picture under her arm, in great glee.
“They're like vultures after a battle.”

“Don’t know. Never was in action, my dear. Ask Martin-
gale; he was in Spain, aide-de-camp to General Blazes.”
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 173

“He was a very kind old man, Mr. Sedley,” Rebecca said;
“Tm really sorry he’s gone wrong.”

“O, stockbrokers—bankrupts—used to it, you know,” Raw-
don replied, cutting a fly off the horse’s ear.

“I wish we could have afforded some of the plate, Rawdon,”
the wife continued, sentimentally. “Five-and-twenty guineas
was monstrously dear for that little piano. We chose it at
Broadwood’s for Amelia, when she came from school. It only
cost five-and-thirty then.”

_ “What-d’ye-call’em—‘Osborne’—will cry off now, I suppose,
since the family is smashed. How cut up your pretty little
friend will be; hey, Becky?”

“I dare say she’ll recover it,” Becky said, with a smile,—
and they drove on and talked about something else.

CHAPTER XVIII.

WHO PLAYED ON THE PIANO CAPTAIN DOBBIN BOUGHT?

Our surprised story now finds itself for a moment among
very famous events and personages, and hanging on to the
skirts of history. When the eagles of Napoleon Bonaparte,
the Corsican upstart, were flying from Provence, where they
had perched after a brief sojourn in Elba, and from steeple
to steeple until they reached the towers of Notre Dame, I
wonder whether the Imperial birds had any eye for a little
corner of the parish of Bloomsbury, London, which you
might have thought so quiet, that even the whirring and
flapping of those mighty wings would pass unobserved there.

“Napoleon has landed at Cannes.” Such news might create
a panic at Vienna, and cause Russia to drop his cards, and
take Prussia into a corner, and Talleyrand and Metternich
to wag their heads together, while Prince Hardenburg, and
even the present Marquis of Londonderry, were puzzled; but
how was this intelligence to affect a young lady in Russell
Square, before whose door the watchman sang the hours when
she was asleep: who, if she strolled in the square, was guarded
there by the railings and the beadle: who, if she walked ever
so short a distance to buy a ribbon in Southampton Row, was
followed by black Sambo with an enormous cane: who was
174 VANITY FAIR,

always cared for, dressed, put to bed, and watched over by
ever so many guardian angels, with and without wages. Bon
Dieu, I say, is it not hard that the fateful rush of the great
Imperial struggle can’t take place without affecting a poor
little harmless girl of eighteen, who is occupied in billing and
cooing, or working muslin collars in Russell Square? You,
too, kindly, homely flower!—is the great roaring war tempest
coming to sweep you down, here, although cowering under
the shelter of Holborn? Yes; Napoleon is flinging his last
stake, and poor little Emmy Sedley’s happiness forms, some-
how, part of it.

In the first place, her father’s fortune was swept down with
that fatal news. All his speculations had of late gone wrong
with the luckless old gentleman. Ventures had failed; mer-
chants had broken; funds had risen when he calculated they
would fall. What need to particularize? If success is rare
and slow, everybody knows how quick and easy ruin is. Old
Sedley had kept his own sad counsel. Everything seemed to
go on as usual in the quiet, opulent house; the good-natured
mistress pursuing, quite unsuspiciously, her bustling idleness,
and daily easy avocations; the daughter absorbed still in one
selfish, tender thought, and quite regardless of all the world
besides, when that final crash came, under which the worthy
family fell.

One night Mrs. Sedley was writing cards for a party; the
Osbornes had given one, and she must not be behindhand;
John Sedley, who had come home very late from the city, sat
silent at the chimney-side, while his wife was prattling to
him; Emmy had gone up to her room ailing and low-spirited.
“She’s not happy,” the mother went on. “George Osborne
neglects her. I’ve no patience with the airs of those people.
‘ine girls have not been in the house these three weeks; and
George has been twice in town without coming. Edward
Dale saw him at the opera. Edward would marry her, ’m
sure: and there’s Captain Dobbin who, I think, would,—
only I hate all army men. Such a dandy as George has be-
come with his military airs, indeed! ‘We must show some
folks that we’re as good as they. Only give Edward Dale any
encouragement, and you'll see. We must have a party, Mr.
8. Why don’t you speak, John? Shall I say Tuesday fort-
night? Why don’t you answer? Good God, John, what has
happened ?”

John Sedley sprang un out of his chair to meet his wife,
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 175

who ran to him, He seized her in his arms, and said, with a
hasty voice: “We're ruined, Mary. We’ve got the world to
begin over again, dear. It’s best that you should know all,
and at once.” As he spoke, he trembled in every limb, and
almost fell. He thought the news would have overpowered
his wite,—his wife to whom he had neyer said a hard word.
But it was he that was the most moved, sudden as the shock
was to her. When he sank back into his seat, it was the wife
that took the office of consoler. She took his trembling hand,
and kissed it, and put it round her neck; she called him her
John,—her dear John,—her old man,—her kind old man;
she poured out a hundred words of incoherent loye and ten-
derness; her faithful voice and simple caresses wrought this
sad heart up to an inexpressible delight and anguish, and
cheered and solaced his overburdened soul.

Only once in the course of the long night as they sat to-
gether, and poor Sedley opened his pent-up soul, and told the
story of his losses and embarrassments,—the treason of some
of his oldest friends, the manly kindness of some, from whom
he never could have expected it,—in a general confession,—
only once did the faithful wife give way to emotion.

ao God, my God, it will break Emmy’s heart,” she
said.

The father had forgotten the poor girl, She was lying,
awake and unhappy, overhead. In the midst of friends, home,
and kind parents, she was alone. To how many people can
any one tell all? Who will be open where there is no sympathy,
or has call to speak to those who never can understand? Our
gentle Amelia was thus solitary. She had no confidante, so
to speak, ever since she had anything to confide. She could
not tell the old mother her doubts and cares; the would-be
sisters seemed every day more strange to her. And she had
misgivings and fears which she dared not acknowledge to her-
self, though she was always secretly brooding over them.

Her heart tried to persist in asserting that George Osborne
was worthy and faithful to her, though she knew otherwise.
How many a thing had she said, and got no echo from him!
How many suspicions of selfishness and indifference had she to
encounter and obstinately overcome! To whom could the poor
little martyr tell these daily struggles and tortures? Her
hero himself only half understood her. She did not dare to
own that the man she loved was her inferior, or to feel that
she had given her heart away too soon. Given once, the pure
176 VANITY FAIR.

bashful maiden was too modest, too tender, too trustful, too
weak, too much woman, to recall it. We are Turks with the
affections of our women; and have made them subscribe to
our doctrine too. We let their bodies go abroad liberally
enough, with smiles, and ringlets, and pink bonnets, to dis-
guise them, instead of veils and yakmaks. But their souls
must be seen by only one man, and they obey not unwillingly,
and consent to remain at home as our slaves,—ministering to
us and doing drudgery for us.

So imprisoned and tortured was this gentle little heart,
when in the month of March, Anno Domini 1815, Napoleon
landed at Cannes, and Louis XVIII. fled, and all Europe was
in alarm, and the funds fell, and old John Sedley was ruined.

We are not going to follow the worthy old stockbroker
through those last pangs and agonies of ruin through which
he passed before his commercial demise befell. ‘They de-
clared him at the Stock Exchange; he was absent from his
house of business; his bills were protested; his act of bank-
ruptey formal. The house and furniture of Russell Square
were seized and sold up, and he and his family were thrust
away, as we have seen, to hide their heads where they might.

John Sedley had not the heart to review the domestic es-
tablishment who have appeared now and anon in our pages,
and of whom he was now forced by poverty to take leave.
The wages of those worthy people were discharged with that
punctuality which men frequently show who only owe in
great sums,—they were sorry to leave good places,—but they
did not break their hearts at parting from their adored master
and mistress. Amelia’s maid was profuse in condolences, but
went off quite resigned to better herself in a genteeler quarter
of town. Black Sambo, with the infatuation of his profession,
determined on setting up a public-house. Honest old Mrs.
Blenkinsop indeed, who had seen the birth of Jos and Ame-
lia, and the wooing of John Sedley and his wife, was for
staying by them without wages, having amassed a considerable
sum in their service; and she accompanied the fallen people
into their new and humble place of refuge, where she tended
them and grumbled against them for a while.

Of all Sedley’s opponents in his debates with his creditors
which now ensued, and harassed the feelings of the humiliated
old gentleman so severely, that in six weeks he oldened more
than he had done for fifteen years before,—the most deter-
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 177

mined and obstinate seemed to be John Osborne, his old
friend and neighbor,—John Osborne, whom he had set up in
life,—who was under a hundred obligations to him,—and
whose son was to marry Sedley’s daughter. Any one of these
circumstances would account for the bitterness of Osborne’s
opposition.

When one man has been under very remarkable obligations
to another, with whom he subsequently quarrels, a common
sense of decency, as it were, makes of the former a much se-
verer enemy than a mere stranger would be. To account for
your own hard-heartedness and ingratitude in such a case,
you are bound to prove the other party’s crime. It is not
that you are selfish, brutal, and angry at the failure of a specu-
lation,—no, no,—it is that your partner has led you into it by
the basest treachery and with the most sinister motives. From
a mere sense of consistency, a persecutor is bound to show
that the fallen man is a4 villain,—otherwise he, the persecutor,
is a wretch himself.

And as a general rule, which may make all creditors who
are inclined to be severe pretty comfortable in their minds, no
men embarrassed are altogether honest, very likely. They
conceal something; they exaggerate chances of good luck; hide
away the real state of affairs; say that things are flourishing
when they are hopeless; keep a smiling face (a dreary smile it
is) upon the verge of bankruptey,—are ready to lay hold of
any pretext for delay or of any money, so as to stave off the
inevitable ruin a few days longer. “Down with such dis-
honesty,” says the creditor in triumph, and reviles his sink-
ing enemy. “You fool, why do you catch at a straw?” calm
good sense says to the man that is drowning. “You villain,
why do you shrink from plunging into the irretrievable Ga-
zette?” says prosperity to the poor devil battling in that black
gulf. Who. has not remarked the readiness with which the

nee

closest_of friends and honestest of men suspect and accuse ~
each other of cheating when they fall ott on money matters?
Everybody does it. Everybody is right, I suppose, and the
world is a rogue.

Then Osborne had the intolerable sense of former benefits
to goad and irritate him; these are always a cause of hostility
aggravated. Finally, he had to break off the match between
Sedley’s daughter and his son; and as it had gone very far
indeed, and as the poor girl’s happiness and perhaps char-
acter were compromised, it was necessary to show the strong-

12
178 VANITY FAIR,

est reasons for the rupture, and for John Osborne to prove
John Sedley to be a very bad character indeed.

At the meetings of creditors, then, he comported himself
with a savageness and scorn towards Sedley, which almost sue-
ceeded in breaking the heart of that ruined bankrupt man.
On George’s intercourse with Amelia he put an instant veto,
—menacing the youth with maledictions if he broke his com-
mands, and vilipending the poor innocent girl as the basest
and most artful of vixens, One of the great conditions of
anger and hatred is, that you must tell and believe lies against”
the hated object, in order, as we said, to be consistent. cs
' When the great crash came,—the announcement of ruin,
and the departure from Russell Square, and the declaration
that all was over between her and George,—all over between
her and love, her and happiness, her and faith in the world,—
a brutal letter from John Osborne told her in a few curt lines
that her father’s conduct had been of such a nature that all
engagements between the families were at an end,—when the
final award came, it did not shock her so much as her parents,
as her mother, rather, expected (for John Sedley himself was
entirely prostrate in the ruins of his own affairs and shat-
tered honor). Amelia took the news yery palely and calmly.
It was only the confirmation of the dark presages which had
long gone before. It was the mere reading of the sentence,—
of, the erime she had long ago been guilty,—the crime of lov-
ing wrongly, too violently, against reason. She told no more
of her thoughts now than she had before. She seemed
piles’ more unhappy now, when convinced all hope was
over, than before, when she felt, but dared not confess, that
it was gone. So she changed from the large house to the
small one without any mark or difference; remained in her
little room for the most part; pined silently; and died away
day by day. J do not mean to say that.all females are so,
My dear Miss Bullock, I do not think your heart would break:
in this way, You are a strong-minded young woman with
proper principles, I do not venture to say that mine would;
it has suffered, and, it must be confessed, survived. But there
are some souls thus gently constituted, thus frail, and deli-
cate, and tender,

Whenever old John Sedley thought of the affair between
George and Amelia, or alluded to it, it was with bitterness
almost as great as Mr, Osborne himself had shown. He cursed
Osborne and his family as heartless, wicked, and ungrateful.
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 179

No power on earth, he swore, would induce him to marry his
daughter to the son of such a villain, and he ordered Emmy
to banish George from her mind and to return all the presents
and letters which she had ever had from him. :

She promised acquiescence, and tried to obey. She put up
the two or three trinkets; and, as for the letters, she drew
them out of the place where she kept them, and read them
over,—as if she did not know them by heart already; but she
could not part with them. That effort was too much for her;
she placed them back in her bosom again,—as you have seen
a woman nurse a child that is dead. Young Amelia felt that
she would die or lose her senses outright, if torn away from
this last consolation. How she used to blush and lighten up
when those letters came! How she used to trip away with
a beating heart, so that she might read unseen! If they were
cold, yet how perversely this fond little soul interpreted them
into warmth! If they were short or selfish, what excuses she
found for the writer!

It was over these few worthless papers that she brooded and
brooded. She lived in her past life,—every letter seemed to
recall some circumstance of it. How well she remembered
them all! His looks and tones, his dress, what he said and
how,—these relics and remembrances of dead affection were
all that were left her in the world. And the business of her
life, was—-to watch the corpse of Love, 7

To death she looked with inexpressible longing. Then,
she thought, I shall always be able to follow him. TI am not
praising her conduct, or setting her up as a model for Miss
Bullock to imitate. Miss B. knows how to regulate her feel-
ings better than this poor little creature. Miss B. would
never have committed herself as that imprudent Amelia had
done; pledged her love irretrievably; confessed her heart
away, and got back nothing,—only a brittle promise which
was snapped and worthless in a moment. A long engage-
ment is a partnership which one party is free to keep or break,
but which involves all the capital of the other.

Be cautious then, young ladies; be wary how you engage.
Be shy of loving frankly; never tell all you feel, or (a better
way still) feel very little. See the consequences of being pre-e
maturely honest and confiding, and mistrust yourselves and
everybody. Get yourselves married as they do in France.
where the lawyers are the bride’s-maids and confidantes. AL
any rate, never have any feelings which may make you un-
180 VANITY FAIR.

comfortable, or make any promises which you cannot at any
required moment command and withdraw. That is the way
to get on, and be respected, and have a virtuous character in
Vanity Fair.

If Amelia could have heard the comments regarding her
which were made in the circle from which her father’s ruin
had just driven her, she would have seen what her own crimes
were, and how entirely her character was jeoparded. Such
criminal imprudence Mrs. Smith never knew of; such horrid
familiarities Mrs. Brown had always condemned, and the end
might be a warning to her daughters. “Captain Osborne, of
course, could not marry a bankrupt’s daughter,” the Miss Dob-
bins said. “It was quite enough to have been swindled by the
father. As for that little Amelia, her folly had really passed
all—”

“All what?” Captain Dobbin roared out. “Haven’t they
been engaged ever since they were children? Wasn’t it as
good as a marriage? Dare any soul on earth breathe a word
against the sweetest, the purest, the tenderest, the most an-
gelical of young women?”

“La, William, don’t be so highty-tighty with us. We’re not
men. We can’t fight you,” Miss Jane said. “We’ve said
nothing against Miss Sedley, but that her conduct throughout
was most imprudent, not to call it by any worse name, and
that her parents are people who certainly merit their mis-
fortunes.”

“Hadn’t you better, now that Miss Sedley is free, propose
for her yourself, William?” Miss Ann asked, sarcastically.
«Tt would be a most eligible family connection. He! he!”

“T marry her!” Dobbin said, blushing very much, and talk-
ing quick. “If you are so ready, young ladies, to chop and
change, do you suppose that she is? Laugh and sneer at
that angel. She can’t hear it; and she’s miserable and unfor-
tunate, and deserves to be laughed at. Go on joking, Ann.
You're the wit of the family, and the others like to hear it.”

“T must tell you again we’re not in a barrack, William,”
Miss Ann remarked.

“In a barrack, by Jove,—I wish anybody in a barrack would
say what you do,” cried out this uproused British lion. “I
should like to hear a man breathe a word against her, by-
Jupiter! But men don’t talk in this way, Ann; it’s only wo-
men, who get together and hiss, and shriek, and cackle.
There, get away,—don’t begin to cry. I only said you were
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO, ist

a couple of geese,” Will Dobbin said, perceiving Miss Ann’s
pink eyes were beginning to moisten as usual. “Well, you’re
not geese, youw’re swans,—anything you like, only do, do leave
Miss Sedley alone.”

Anything like William’s infatuation about that silly little
flirting, ogling thing was never known, the mamma and sis-
ters agreed together in thinking; and they trembled lest, her
engagement being off with Osborne, she should take up im-
mediately her other admirer and Captain. In which fore-
bodings these worthy young women no doubt judged accord-
ing to the best of their experience, or rather (for as yet they
had had no opportunities of marrying or of jilting) accord-
ing to their own notions of right and wrong.

“It is a mercy, mamma, that the regiment is ordered
abroad,” the girls said. “This danger, at any rate, is spared
our brother.”

Such, indeed, was the fact; and so it is that the French
Emperor comes in to perform a part in this domestic comedy
of Vanity Fair which we are now playing, and which would
never have been enacted without the intervention of this au-
gust mute personage. It was he that ruined the Bourbons
and Mr. John Sedley. It was he whose arrival in his capital
called up all France in arms to defend him there, and all
Europe to oust him. While the French nation and army were
swearing fidelity round the eagles in the Champ de Mai, four
mighty European hosts were getting in motion for the great
chasse & Vaigle; and one of these was a British army, of which
two heroes of ours, Captain Dobbin and Captain Osborne,
formed a portion.

The news of Napoleon’s escape and landing was received by
the gallant —th with a fiery delight and enthusiasm which ev-
erybody can understand who knows that famous corps. From
the colonel to the smallest drummer in the regiment, all were
filled with hope and ambition and patriotic fury; and thanked
the French Emperor as for a personal kindness in coming to
disturb the peace of Europe. Now was the time the —th had
so long panted for, to show their comrades in arms that they
could fight as well as the Peninsular veterans, and that all the
pluck and valor of the —th had not been killed by the West
Indies and the yellow fever. Stubbles and Spooney looked
to get their companies without purchase. Before the end of
the campaign (which she resolved to share), Mrs. Major
O’Dowd hoped to write herself Mrs. Colonel O’Dowd, C. B.
182 VANITY FAIR.

Our two friends (Dobbin and Osborne) were quite as much ex-
cited as the rest, and each in his way—Mr. Dobbin very quiet-
ly, Mr. Osborne very loudly and energetically—was bent upon
doing his duty, and gaining his share of honor and distinc-
tion.

The agitation thrilling through the country and army in
consequence of this news was so great, that private matters
were little heeded: and hence probably George Osborne, just
gazetted to his company, busy with preparations for the march
which must come inevitably, and panting for further promo-
tion, was not so much affected by other incidents which
would have interested him ata more quiet period. He was
not, it must be confessed, very much cast down by good old
Mr. Sedley’s catastrophe. He tried his new uniform, which
became him very handsomely, on the day when the first
meeting of the creditors of the unfortunate gentleman took
place. His father told him of the wicked, rascally, shame-
ful conduct of the bankrupt, reminded him of what he had
said about Amelia, and that their connection was broken off
forever; and gave him that evening a good sum of money to
pay for the new clothes and epaulets in which he looked so
well. Money was always useful to this free-handed young
fellow, and he took it without many words. The bills were
up in the Sedley house, where he had passéd so many, many
happy hours. He could see them as he walked from home
that night (to the Old Slaughter’s, where he put up when in
town) shining white in the moon. That comfortable home
was shut, then, upon Amelia and her parents: where had they
taken refuge? The thought of their ruin affected him not a
little. He was very melancholy that night in the coffee-room
at the Slaughter’s, and drank a good deal, as his comrades
remarked there.

Dobbin came in presently, cautioned him about the drink,
which he only took, he said, because he was deuced low; but
when his friend began io put to him clumsy inquiries, and
asked him for news in a significant manner, Osborne declined
entering into conversation with him, avowing, however, that
he was devilish disturbed and unhappy.

Three days afterwards, Dobbin found Osborne in his room
at the barracks,—his head on the table, a number of papers
about, the young Captain evidently in a state of great despond-
ency. “She—she’s sent me back some things I gave her,—
some damned trinkets. Look here!” There was a little packet
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HBRQ. 183

directed in the well-known hand to Captain George Osborne,
and some things lying about,—a ring, a silver knife he had
bought, as a boy, for her at a fair; a gold chain, and a locket
with hair in it. “It’s all over,” said he, with a groan of sick-
ening remorse. “Look, Will, you may read it if you like.”

There was a, little letter of a few lines, to which he pointed,
which said—

“My papa has ordered me to return to you these presents,
which you made in happier days to me; and I am to write to
you for the last time. I think, I know, you feel as much as I
do the blow which has come upon us. It is I that absolve you
from an engagement which is impossible in our present misery.
I am sure you had no share in it, or in the cruel suspicions of
Mr. Osborne, which are the hardest of all our griefs to bear.
Farewell. Farewell. I pray God to strengthen me to bear
this and other calamities, and to bless you always. A.

“T shall often play upon the piano,—your piano. It was like
you to send it.”

Dobbin was very soft-hearted. The sight of women and
children in pain always used to melt him. The idea of Amelia,
boken-hearted and lonely, tore that good-natured soul with
anguish. And he broke out into an emotion which anybody
who likes may consider unmanly. He swore that Amelia was
an angel, to which Osborne said ay with all his heart. He,
too, had been reviewing the history of their lives,—and had
seen her from her childhood to her present age, so sweet, so
innocent, so charmingly simple, and artlessly fond and tender.

What a pang it was to lose all that: to have had it and not
prized it! A thousand homely scenes and recollections crowd-
ed on him,—in which he always saw her good and beautiful.
And for himself, he blushed with remorse and shame, as the
remembrance of his own selfishness and indifference contrasted
with that perfect purity. For a while, glory, war, everything
was forgotten, and the pair of friends talked about her only.

“Where are they?” Osborne asked, after a long talk, and a
long pause,—and, in truth, with no little shame at thinking
that he had taken no steps to follow her. “Where are they?
There’s no address to the note.”

Dobbin knew. He had not merely sent the piano, but had
written a note to Mrs. Sedley, and asked permission to come
and see her; and he had seen her, and Amelia too, yesterday,
before he came down to Chatham; and, what is more, he had
184 VANITY FAIR.

iene that farewell letter and packet which had so moved
them.

The good-natured fellow had found Mrs. Sedley only too
willing to receive him, and greatly agitated by the arrival of
the piano, which, as she conjectured, must have come from
George, and was a signal of amity on his part. Captain Dob-
bin did not correct this error of the worthy lady, but listened
to all her story of complaints and misfortunes with great sym-
pathy,—condoled with her losses and privations, and agrecd
in reprehending the cruel conduct of Mr. Osborne towards his
first benefactor. When she had eased her overflowing bosom
somewhat, and poured forth many of her sorrows, he had the
courage to ask actually to see Amelia, who was above in her
room as usual, and whom her mother led trembling down
stairs.

Her appearance was so ghastly, and her look of despair so
pathetic, that honest William Dobbin was frightened as he
beheld it, and read the most fatal forebodings in that pale,
fixed face. After sitting in his company a minute or two, she
put the packet into his hand, and said, “Take this to Captain
Osborne, if you please, and—and I hope he’s quite well,—and
it was very kind of you to come and see us,—and we like our
new house very much. And J—TI think I'll go up stairs,
mamma, for I’m not very strong.” And with this, and a cour-
tesy and a smile, the poor child went her way. The mother,
as she led her up, cast back looks of anguish towards Dobbin.
The good fellow wanted no such appeal. He loved her’ him-
self too fondly for that. Inexpressible grief, and pity, and
terror pursued him, and he came away as if he was a criminal
after seeing her.

When Osborne heard that his friend had found her, he made
hot and anxious inquiries regarding the poor child. How
was she? How did she look? What did she say? His com-
rade took his hand, and looked him in the face.

“George, she’s dying,’ William Dobbin said,—and could
speak no more.

There was a buxom Irish servant-girl, who performed all
the duties of the little house where the Sedley family had
found refuge; and this girl had in vain, on many previous
days, striven to give Amelia aid or consolation. Emmy was
much too sad to answer, or even to be aware of the attempts
the other was making in her favor.
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 185

Four hours after the talk between Dobbin and Osborne, thi::
servant-maid came into Amelia’s room, where she sat as usual
brooding silently over her letters,—her little treasures. The
girl smiling, and looking arch and happy, made many trials
ois poor Emmy’s attention, who, however, took no heed
of her.

“Miss Emmy,” said the girl.

“Pm coming,” Emmy said, not looking round.

“There’s a message,” the maid went on. “There’s some-
thing—somebody—sure here’s a new letter for you—don’t be
reading them old ones any more.” And she gave her a letter,
which Emmy took, and read.

“I must see you,” the letter said. “Dearest Emmy—dearest
love—dearest wife, come to me.”

George and her mother were outside, waiting until she had
read the letter.

CHAPTER XIX.

MISS CRAWLEY AT NURSE.

We have seen how Mrs. Firkin, the lady’s-maid, as soon as
any event of importance to the Crawley family came to her
knowledge, felt bound to communicate it to Mrs. Bute Craw-
ley, at the Rectory; and have before mentioned how particu-
larly kind and attentive that good-natured lady was to Miss
Crawley’s confidential servant. She had been a gracious friend
to Mrs. Briggs, the companion, also; and had secured the lat-
ter’s good-will by a number of those attentions and promises,
which cost so little in the making, and are yet so valuable and
agreeable to the recipient. Indeed, every good economist and
‘manager of a household must know how cheap and yet how
amiable these professions are, and what a flavor they give to
the most homely dish in life. Who was the blundering idiot
who said that “fine words butter no parsnips?” Half the pars-
nips of society are served and rendered palatable with no other
sauce. As the immortal Alexis Soyer can make more delicious
soun for a halfpenny than an ignorant cook can concoct with
pounds of vegetables and meat, so a skillful artist will make a
few simple and pleasing phrases go further than ever so much
substantial benefit-stock in the hands of a mere bungler. Nay,
we know that substantial benefits often sicken some stomachs;
186 VANITY FAIR.

whereas, most will digest any amount of fine words, and be
always eager for more of the same food. Mrs. Bute had told
Briggs and Firkin so often of the depth of her affection for
them; and what she would do, if she had Miss Crawley’s for-
tune, for friends so excellent and attached, that the ladies in
question had the deepest regard for her; and felt as much
gratitude and confidence as if Mrs. Bute had loaded them with
the most expensive favors.

Rawdon Crawley, on the other hand, like a. selfish heavy
dragoon as he was, never took the least trouble to conciliate
his aunt’s aides-de-camp, showed his contempt for the pair
with entire frankness,—made Firkin pull off his boots on one
occasion,—sent her out in the rain on ignominious messages,
—and if he gave her a guinea, flung it to her as if it were a
box on the ear. As his aunt, too, made a butt of Briggs, the
Captain followed the example, and leveled his jokes at her,—
jokes about as delicate as a kick from his charger. Whereas,
Mrs. Bute consulted her in matters of taste or difficulty, ad-
mired her poetry, and by a thousand acts of kindness and po-
liteness showed her appreciation of Briggs; and if she made
Firkin a twopenny-halfpenny present, accompanied it with
so many compliments, that the twopence halfpenny was trans-
muted into gold in the heart of the grateful waiting-maid,
who, besides, was looking forwards quite contentedly to some
prodigious benefit which must happen to her on the day when
Mrs. Bute came into her fortune.

The different conduct of these two people is pointed out re-
spectfully to the attention of persons commencing the world.
Praise everybody, I say to such: never be squeamish, but speak
out your compliment both point-blank in a man’s face, and be-
hind his back, when you know there is a reasonable chance of
his hearing it again. Never lose a chance of saying a kind
word. As Collingwood never saw a vacant place in his estate
but he took an acorn out of his pocket and popped it in, so
deal with your compliments through life. An acorn costs
nothing; but it may sprout into a prodigious bit of timber.

Ina word, during Rawdon Crawley’s prosperity, he was only
obeyed with sulky acquiescence; when his disgrace came, there
was nobody to help or pity him. Whereas, when Mrs. Bute
took the command at Miss Crawley’s house, the garrison there
were charmed to act under such a leader, expecting all sorts of
eno aen from her promises, her generosity, and her kind
words.
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO, 187

That he would consider himself beaten, after one defeat,
and make no attempt to regain the position he had lost, Mrs.
Bute Crawley never allowed herself to suppose. She knew Re-
becca to be too clever and spirited and desperate a woman
to submit without a struggle; and felt that she must prepare
for that combat, and be incessantly watchful against assault,
or mine, or surprise.

In the first place, though she held the town, was she sure
of the principal inhabitant? Would Miss Crawley herself hold
out; and had she not a secret longing to welcome back the
ousted adversary? The old lady liked Rawdon, and Rebecca,
who amused her. Mrs. Bute could not disguise from herself
the fact that none of her party could so contribute to the
pleasures of the town-bred lady. “My girls’ singing, after that
little odious governess’s, I know is unbearable,” the candid
rector’s wife owned to herself. “She always used to go to
sleep when Martha and Lousia played their duets. Jim’s stiff
college manners and poor dear Bute’s talk about his dogs and
horses always annoyed her. If I took her to the Rectory, she
would grow angry with us all, and fly, I know she would; and
might fall into that horrid Rawdon’s clutches again, and be the
victim of that little viper of a Sharp. Meanwhile, it is clear to
me that she is exceedingly unwell, and cannot move for some
weeks, at any rate; during which we must think of some plan
to protect her from the arts of those unprincipled people.”

In the very best of moments, if anybody told Miss Crawley
that she was, or looked ill, the trembling old lady sent off for
her doctor; and I dare say she was very unwell after the sud-
den family event, which might serve to shake stronger nerves
than hers. At least Mrs. Bute thought it was her duty to in-
form the physician, and the apothecary, and the dame de com-
pagnie, and the domestics, that Miss Crawley was in a most
critical state, and that they were to act accordingly. She had
the street laid knee-deep with straw; and the knocker put by
with Mr. Bowls’s plate. She insisted that the doctor should
call twice a day, and deluged her patient with draughts every
two hours. When anybody entered the room, she uttered a
shshshsh so sibilant and ominous, that it frightened the poor
old lady in her bed, from which she could not look without
seeing Mrs. Bute’s beady eyes eagerly fixed on her, as the lat-
ter sat steadfast in the arm-chair by the bedside. They seemed
to lighten in the dark (for she kept the curtains closed) as she
moved about the room on velvet paws like a cat. There Miss
188 VANITY FAIR.

Crawley lay for days,—ever so many days,—Mrs. Bute read-
ing books of devotion to her: for nights, long nights, during
which she had to hear the watchman sing, the night-light
sputter; visited at midnight, the last thing, by the stealthy
apothecary; and then left to look at Mrs. Bute’s twinkling
eyes, or the flicks of yellow that the rushlight threw on the
dreary darkened ceiling. Hygeia herself would have fallen
sick under such a regimen; and how much more this poor old
nervous victim? It has been said that, when she was in health
and good spirits, this venerable inhabitant of Vanity Fair had
as free notions about religion and morals as Monsieur de
Voltaire himself could desire; but when illness overtook her,
it was aggravated by the most dreadful terrors of death, and
an utter cowardice took possession of the prostrate old sin-
ner.

Sick-bed homilies and pious reflections are, to be sure, out
of place in mere story-books, and we are not going (after the
fashion of some novelists of the present day) to cajole the pub-
lic into a sermon, when it is only a comedy that the reader
pays his money to witness. But, without preaching, the truth
may surely be borne in mind, that the bustle, and triumph,
and laughter, and gayety which Vanity Fair exhibits in pub-
lic do not always pursue the performer into private life, and
that the most dreary depression of spirits and dismal repent-
ances sometimes overcome him. Recollection of the best or-
dained banquets will scarcely cheer sick epicures. Reminis-
cences of the most becoming dresses and brilliant ball
triumphs will go very little way to console faded beauties.
Perhaps statesmen, at a particular period of existence, are not
much gratified at thinking over the most triumphant divisions;
and the success or the pleasure of yesterday becomes of very
small account when a certain (albeit uncertain) morrow is in
view, about which all of us must some day or other be specu-
lating. O brother wearers of motley! Are there not moments
when one grows sick of grinning and tumbling, and the jing-
ling of cap and bells? ‘This, dear friends and companions, is
my amiable object,—to walk with you through the Fair, to ex-
amine the shops and the shows there; and that we should all
come home after the flare, and the noise, and the gayety, and
be perfectly miserable in private.

“Tf that poor man of mine had a head on his shoulders,”
Mrs. Bute Crawley thought to herself, “how useful he might
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 189

be, under present circumstances, to this unhappy old lady!
He might make her repent of her shocking free-thinking ways;
he might urge her to do her duty, and cast off that odious rep-
robate who has disgraced himself and his family; and he might
induce her to do justice to my dear girls and the two boys, who
require and deserve, I am sure, every assistance which their
relatives can give them.”

_And, as the hatred of vice is always a progress towards
virtue, Mrs. Bute Crawley endeavored to instill into her sister-
in-law a proper abhorrence for all Rawdon Crawley’s mani-
fold sins: of which his uncle’s wife brought forward such a
catalogue as indeed would have served to condemn a whole
regiment of young officers. If aman has committed wrong in
life, I don’t know any moralist more anxious to point his errors
out to the world than his own relations; so Mrs. Bute showed
a perfect family interest and knowledge of Rawdon’s history.
She had all the particulars of that ugly quarrel with Captain
Marker, in which Rawdon, wrong from the beginning, ended
in shooting the Captain. She knew how the unhappy Lord
Dovedale, whose mamma had taken a house at Oxford, so that
he might be educated there, and who had never touched a
card in his life till he came to London, was perverted by Raw-
don at the Cocoa-Tree, made helplessly tipsy by this abomi-
nable seducer and perverter of youth, and fleeced of four
thousand pounds. She described with the most vivid minute-
ness the agonies of the country families whom he had ruined,
—the sons whom he had plunged into dishonor and poverty,—
the daughters whom he had inveigled into perdition. She
knew the poor tradesmen who were bankrupt by his extrava-
gance,—the mean shifts and rogueries with which he had
ministered to it,—the astounding falsehoods by which he had
imposed upon the most generous of aunts, and the ingratitude
and ridicule by which he had repaid her sacrifices. She im-
parted these stories gradually to Miss Crawley; gave her the
whole benefit of them; felt it to be her bounden duty as a
Christian woman and mother of a family to do so; had not
the smallest remorse or compunction for the victim whom
her tongue was immolating; nay, very likely thought her act
was quite meritorious and plumed herself upon her resolute
manner of performing it. Yes, if a man’s character is to be
abused, say what you will, there’s nobody like a relation to do
the business. And one is bound to own, regarding this unfort-

unate wretch of a Rawdon Crawley, that the mere truth was
190 VANITY FAIR.

enough to condemn him, and that all inventions of scandal
were quite superfluous pains on his friends’ parts.

Rebecca, too, being now a relative, came in for the fullest
share of Mrs. Bute’s kind inquiries. This indefatigable pur-
suer of truth (having given strict orders that the door was to
be denied to all emissaries or letters from Rawdon) took Miss
Crawley’s carriage, and drove to her old friend Miss Pinkerton,
at Minerva House, Chiswick Mall, to whom she announced
the dreadful intelligence of Captain Rawdon’s seduction by
Miss Sharp, and from whom she got sundry strange particu-
lars regarding the ex-governess’s birth and early history. The
friend of the Lexicographer had plenty of information to give.
Miss Jemima was made to fetch the drawing-master’s receipts
and letters. This one was from a sponging-house: that en-
treated an advance: another was full of gratitude for Rebecca’s
reception by the ladies of Chiswick: and the last document
from the unlucky artist’s pen was that in which, from his dy-
ing bed, he recommended his orphan child to Miss Pinker-
ton’s protection. There were juvenile letters and petitions
from Rebecca, too, in the collection, imploring aid for her fath-
er, or declaring her own gratitude. Perhaps in Vanity Fair
there are no better satires than letters. Take a bundle of your
‘dear friend’s of ten years back,—your dear friend whom you
hate now. Look at a file of your sister’s! how you clung to
each other till you quarreled about the twenty-pound legacy!
Get down the round-hand scrawls of your son who has half
broken your heart with selfish undutifulness since; or a par-
cel of your own, breathing endless ardor and love eternal,
which were sent back by your mistress when she married the
Nabob,—your mistress for whom you now care no more than
for Queen Elizabeth. Vows, love, promises, confidences, grat-
itude, how queerly they read after a while! There ought to be
a law in Vanity Fair ordering the destruction of every written
document (except receipted tradesmen’s bills) after a certain
brief and proper interval. Those quacks and misanthropes
who advertise indelible Japan ink should be made to perish
along with their wicked discoveries. The best ink for Vanity
Fair use would be one that faded utterly in a couple of days,
and left the paper clean and blank, so that you might write
on it to somebody else.

From Miss Pinkerton’s the indefatigable Mrs. Bute followed
the track of Sharp and his daughter back to the lodgings in
Greek Street, which the defunct painter had occupied; and
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 191

where portraits of the landlady in white satin, and of the
hasband in brass buttons, done by Sharp in lieu of a quarter’s
rent, still decorated the parlor walls. Mrs. Stokes was a com-
municative person, and quickly told all she knew about Mr.
Sharp; how dissolute and poor he was; how good-natured
and amusing; how he was always hunted by bailiffs and duns;
how, to the landlady’s horror, though she never could abide
the woman, he did not marry his wife till a short time before
her death; and what a queer little wild vixen his daughter
was; how she kept them all laughing with her fun and mim-
icry; how she used to fetch the gin from the public house,
and was known in all the studios in the quarter,—in brief,
Mrs. Bute got such a full account of her new niece’s parentage,
education, and behavior as would scarcely have pleased Rebec-
ca, had the latter known that such inquiries were being made
concerning her.

Of all these industrious researches Miss Crawley had the
full benefit. Mrs. Rawdon Crawley was the daughter of an
opera-girl. She had danced herself. She had been a model
to the painters. She was brought up as became her mother’s
daughter. She drank gin with her father, &., &c. It was a
lost woman who was married to a lost man; and the moral to
be inferred from Mrs. Bute’s tale was, that the knavery of the
pair was irremediable, and that no properly conducted person
should ever notice them again.

There were the materials which prudent Mrs. Bute gath-
ered together in Park Lane, the provisions and ammunitions,
as it were, with which she fortified the house against the siege
which she knew that Rawdon and his wife would lay to Miss
Crawley. -

But if a fault may be found with her arrangements, it is
this, that she was too eager: she managed rather too well; un-
doubtedly she made Miss Crawley more ill than was necessary;
and though the old invalid succumbed to her authority, it was
so harassing and severe, that the victim would be inclined to
escape at the very first chance which fell in her way. Manag-
ing women, the ornaments of their sex,—women who order
everything for everybody, and know so much better than any
person concerned what is good for their neighbors, don’t
sometimes speculate upon the possibility of a domestic revolt,
or upon other extreme consequences resulting from their over-
strained authority.
192 VANITY FAIR.

Thus, for instance, Mrs. Bute, with the best intentions no
doubt in the world, and wearing herself to death as she did
by foregoing sleep, dinner, fresh air, for the sake of her invalid
sister-in-law, carried her conviction of the old lady’s illness
so far that she almost managed her into her coffin. She pointed
out her sacrifices and their results one day to the constant
apothecary, Mr. Clump.

“T am sure, my dear Mr. Clump,” she said, “no efforts of
mine have been wanting to restore our dear invalid, whom the
ingratitude of her nephew has laid on the bed of sickness. I
never shrink from personal discomfort: I never refuse to sacri-
fice myself.”

“You devotion, it must be confessed, is admirable,’ Mr.
Clump says, with a low bow; “but—”

“T have scarcely closed my eyes since my arrival: I give up
sleep, health, every comfort, to my sense of duty. When my
poor James was in the small-pox, did I allow any hireling to
nurse him? No.”

“You did what became an excellent mother, my dear
madam,—the best of mothers; but—”

“As the mother of a family and the wife of an English
clergyman, I humbly trust that my principles are good,” Mrs.
Bute said, with a happy solemnity of conviction; “and, as
long as Nature supports me, never, never, Mr. Clump, will I
desert the post of duty. Others may bring that gray head with
sorrow to the bed of sickness” (here Mrs. Bute, waving her
hand, pointed to one of old Miss Crawley’s coffee-colored
fronts, which was perched on a stand in the dressing-room),
“but I will never quit it. Ah, Mr. Clump! I fear, I know,
that that couch needs spiritual as well as medical consolation.”

“What I was going to observe, my dear madam,”—here the
resolute Clump once more interposed with a bland air,—
“what I was going to observe when you gave utterance to senti-
ments which do you so much honor, was that I think you
alarm yourself needlessly about our kind friend, and sacrifice
your own health too prodigally in her favor.”

“T would lay down my life for my duty, or for any mem-
ber of my husband’s family,” Mrs. Bute interposed.

“Yes, madam, if need were; but we don’t want Mrs. Bute
Crawley to be a martyr,” Clump said, gallantly. “Dr. Squills
and myself have both considered Miss Crawley’s case with
every anxiety and care, as you may suppose. We see her low-
spirited and nervous; family events have agitated her.”
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO, 193

“Her nephew will come to perdition,’ Mrs. Crawley cried.

“Have agitated her: and you arrived like a guardian angel,
my dear madam, a positive guardian angel, I assure you, t«
soothe her under the pressure of calamity. But Dr. Squills
and I were thinking that our amiable friend is not in such
a state as renders confinement to her bed necessary. She is
depressed, but this confinement perhaps adds to her depres-
sion. She should have change, fresh air, gayety, the most
delightful remedies in the pharmacopoeia,” Mr. Clump said,
grinning and showing his handsome teeth. “Persuade her
to rise, dear madam; drag her from her couch and her low
spirits; insist upon her taking little drives. They will restore
the roses too to your cheeks, if I may so speak to Mrs. Bute
Crawley.”

“The sight of her horrid nephew casually in the Park,
where I am told the wretch drives with the brazen partner
of his crimes,” Mrs. Bute said (letting the cat of selfishness
out of the bag of secrecy), “would cause her such a shock that
we should have to bring her back to bed again. She must
not go out, Mr. Clump. She shall not go out as long as I
remain to watch over her. And as for my health, what mat-
ters it? I give it cheerfully, sir. I sacrifice it at the altar of
my duty.”

“Upon my word, madam,” Mr. Clump now said, bluntly,
“JT won't answer for her life if she remains locked up in that
dark room. She is so nervous that we may lose her any day;
and if you wish Captain Crawley to be her heir, I warn you
frankly, madam, that you are doing your very best to serve
him.”

“Gracious mercy! is her life in danger?” Mrs. Bute cried.
“Why, why, Mr. Clump, did you not inform me sooner?”

The night before, Mr. Clump and Dr. Squills had had a
consultation (over a bottle of wine at the house of Sir Lapin
Warren, whose lady was about to present him with a thir-
teenth blessing), regarding Mrs. Crawley and her case.

‘What a little harpy that woman from Hampshire is,
Clump,” Squills remarked, “that has seized upon old Tilly
Crawley. Devilish good Maderia.”

“What a fool Rawdon Crawley has been,” Clump replied,
“to go and marry a governess! There was something about
the girl, too.”

“Green eyes, fair skin, pretty figure, famous frontal de-

18
194 VANITY FAIR.

velopment,” Squills remarked. “There is something about
her; and Crawley was a fool, Squills.”

“A d fool,—always was,” the apothecary replied.

“Of course the old girl will fling him over,” said the phy-
sician; and after a pause added, “she’ll cut up well, I sup-
pose.”

“Cut up,” says Clump with a grin; “I wouldn’t have her
cut up for two hundred a year.”

“That Hampshire woman will kill her in two months,
Clump, my boy, if she stops about her,” Dr. Squills said.
“Qld woman; full feeder; nervous subject; palpitation of the
heart; pressure on the brain; apoplexy; off she goes. Get
her up, Squills; get her out: or I wouldn’t give many weeks’
purchase for your two hundred a year.” And it was acting
upon this hint that the worthy apothecary spoke with so
much candor to Mrs. Bute Crawley.

Having the old lady under her hand, in bed, with nobody
near, Mrs. Bute had made more than one assault upon her,
to induce her to alter her will. But Miss Crawley’s usual
terrors regarding death increased greatly when such dismal
propositions were made to her, and Mrs. Bute saw that she
must get her patient into cheerful spirits and health before
she could hope to attain the pious object which she had in
view. Whither to take her was the next puzzle. The only
place where she is not likely to meet those odious Rawdons
is at church, and that won’t amuse her, Mrs. Bute justly
felt. “We must go and visit our beautiful suburbs of Lon-
don,” she next thought. “I hear they are the most pictur-
esque in the world;” and so she had a sudden interest for
Hampstead, and Hornsey, and found that Dulwich had great
charms for her, and, getting her victim into her carriage,
drove her to those rustic spots, beguiling the little journeys
with conversations about Rawdon and his wife, and telling
every story to the old lady which could add to her indignation
against this pair of reprobates.

Perhaps Mrs. Bute pulled the string unnecessarily tight.
For, though she worked up Mrs. Crawley to a proper dislike
of her disobedient nephew, the invalid had a great hatred and
secret terror of her victimizer, and panted to escape from her.
After a brief space, she rebelled against Highgate and Hornsey
utterly. She would go into the Park. Mrs. Bute knew they
would meet the abominable Rawdon there, and she was right.
One day in the ring, Rawdon’s stanhope came in sight; Re-

 
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 195

becca was seated by him. In the enemy’s equipage Mrs. Craw-
ley occupied her usual place, with Mrs. Bute on her left, the
poodle and Miss Briggs on the back seat. It was a nervous
moment, and Rebecca’s heart beat quick as she recognized
the carriage; and as the two vehicles crossed each other in
a line, she clasped her hands, and looked towards the spinster
with a face of agonized attachment and devotion. Rawdon
himself trembled, and his face grew purple behind his dyed
mustachios. Only old Briggs was moved in the other car-
riage, and cast her great eyes nervously towards her old
friends. Mrs. Crawley’s bonnet was resolutely turned towards
the Serpentine. Mrs. Bute happened to be in ecstacies with
the poodle, and was calling him a little darling, and a sweet
little zoggy, and a pretty pet. The carriages moved on, each
in his line.

“Done, by Jove,” Rawdon said to his wife.

“Try once more, Rawdon,” Rebecca answered. “Could not
you lock your wheels into theirs, dearest?”

Rawdon had not the heart for that manoeuvre. When the
carriages met again, he stood up in his stanhope; he raised his
hand ready to duff his hat; he looked with all his eyes. But
this time Miss Crawley’s face was not turned away; she and
Mrs. Bute looked him full in the face, and cut their nephew
pitilessly. He sank back in his seat with an oath, and, strik-
ing out of the ring, dashed away desperately homewards.

It was a gallant and decided triumph for Mrs. Bute. But
she felt the danger of many such meetings, as she saw the evi-
dent nervousness of Miss Crawley; and she determined that
it was most necessary for her dear friend’s health that they
should leave town for a while, and recommended Brighton

very strongly.

CHAPTER XX.

IN WHICH CAPTAIN DOBBIN ACTS AS THE MESSENGER
OF HYMEN.

Without knowing how, Captain William Dobbin found
himself the great promoter, arranger, and manager of the
match between George Osborne and Amelia. But for him it
never would have taken place; he could not but confess as
196 VANITY FAIR.

much to himself, and smiled rather bitterly as he thought
that he of all men in the world should be the person upon
whom the care of this marriage had fallen. But though in-
deed the conducting of this negotiation was about as painful
a task as could be set to him, yet, when he had a duty to per-
form, Captain Dobbin was accustomed to go through it with-
out many words or much hesitation; and, having made up
his mind completely, that if Miss Sedley was balked of her
husband she would die of the disappointment, he was de-
termined to use all his best endeavors to keep her alive.

I forbear to enter into minute particulars of the interview
between George and Amelia, when the former was brought
back to the feet (or should we venture to say the arms?) of his
young mistress by the intervention of his friend honest Wil-
liam. A much harder heart than George’s would have melted
at the sight of that sweet face, so sadly ravaged by grief and
despair, and at the simple tender accents in which she told
her little broken-hearted story; but as she did not faint when
her mother, trembling, brought Osborne to her; and as she
only gave relief to her overcharged grief by laying her head
on her lover’s shoulder and there weeping for a while the
most tender, copious, and refreshing tears,—old Mrs. Sedley,
too greatly relieved, thought it was best to leave the young
persons to themselves; and so quitted Emmy crying over
George’s hand, and kissing it humbly, as if he were her su-
preme chief and master, and as if she were quite a guilty
and unworthy person needing every favor and grace from him.

This prostration and sweet unrepining obedience exquisitely
touched and flattered George Osborne. He saw a slave before
him in that simple, yielding, faithful creature, and his soul
within him thrilled secretly somehow at the knowledge of his
power. He would be generous-minded, Sultan as he was, and
raise up this kneeling Esther and make a queen of her: be-
sides, her sadness and beauty touched him as much as her
submission, and so he cheered her, and raised her up and
forgave her, so to speak. All her hopes and feelings, which
were dying and withering, this her sun having been removed
from her, bloomed again and at once, its light being restored.
You would scarcely have recognized the beaming little face
upon Amelia’s pillow that night as the one that was laid there
the night before, so wan. so lifeless, so careless of all round
about. The honest Irish maid-servant, delighted with the
change, asked leave to kiss the face that had grown all of «
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 197

sudden so rosy. Amelia put her arms round the girl’s neck
and kissed her with all her heart, like a child. She was little
more. She had that night a sweet refreshing sleep, like
one,—and what a spring of inexpressible happiness as she
woke in the morning sunshine!

“He will be here again to-day!” Amelia thought. “He is
the greatest and best of men.” And the fact is, that George
thought he was one of the generousest creatures alive: and
that he was making a tremendous sacrifice in marrying this
young creature.

While she and Osborne were having their delightful téte-a-
téte above stairs, old Mrs. Sedley and Captain Dobbin were
conversing below upon the state of the affairs, and the chances
and future arrangements of the young people. Mrs. Sedley
having brought the two lovers together and left them embrac-
ing each other with all their might, like a true woman, was of
opinion that no power on earth would induce Mr. Sedley to
consent to the match between his daughter and the son of a
man who had so shamefully, wickedly, and monstrously treated
him. And she told a long story about happier days and their
earlier splendors, when Osborne lived in a very humble way in
the New Road, and his wife was “too glad” to receive some
of Jos’s little baby things, with which Mrs. Sedley accom-
modated her at the birth of one of Osborne’s own children.
The fiendish ingratitude of that man, she was sure, had broken
Mr. 8.’s heart: and as for a marriage, he would never, never,
never, zever consent.

“They must run away together, ma’am,” Dobbin said,
laughing, “and follow the example of Captain Rawdon Craw-
ley and Miss Emmy’s friend the little governess.” Was it pos-
sible? Well she never! Mrs. Sedley was all excitement about
this news. She wished that Blenkinsop were here to hear it:
Blenkinsop always mistrusted that Miss Sharp.—What an
escape Jos had had! and she described the already well-known
love-passages between Rebecca and the Collector of Boggley
Wollah.

It was not, however, Mr. Sedley’s wrath which Dobbin
feared, so much as that of the other parent concerned, and
he owned that he had a very considerable doubt and anxiety
respecting the behavior of the black-browed old tyrant of a
Russian merchant in Russell Square. He has forbidden the
match peremptorily, Dobbin thought. He knew what a sav-
age determined man Osborne was, and how he stuck by his
198 VANITY FAIR.

word. “The only chance George hag of reconcilement,”
argued his friend, “is by distinguishing himself in the coming
campaign. If he dies, they both go together. If he fails in
distinction,—what then? He has some money from his moth-
er, I have heard,—enough to purchase his majority,—or he
must sell out and go and dig in Canada, or rough it in a cot-
tage in the country.” With such a partner Dobbin thought
he would not mind Siberia,—and, strange to say, this absurd
and utterly imprudent young fellow never for a moment con-
sidered that the want of means to keep a nice carriage and
horses, and of an income which should enable its possessors
to entertain their friends genteelly, ought to operate as bars
to the union of George and Miss Sedley.

It was these weighty considerations which made him think
too that the marriage should take place as quickly as possible.
Was he anxious himself, I wonder, to have it over?—as peo-
ple, when death has occurred, like to press forward the funeral,
or, when a parting is resolved upon, hasten it. It is certain
that Mr. Dobbin, having taken the matter in hand, was most
extraordinarily eager in the conduct of it. He urged on
George the necessity of immediate action: he showed the
chances of reconciliation with his father, which a favorable
mention of his name in the Gazette must bring about. If
need were, he would go himself and brave both the fathers in
the business. At all events he besought George to go through
with it before the orders came, which everybody expected,
for the departure of the regiment from England on forcign
service.

Bent upon these hymeneal projects, and with the applause
and consent of Mrs. Sedley, who did not care to break the
matter personally to her husband, Mr. Dobbin went to seek
John Sedley at his house of call in the City, the Tapioca Cof-
fee-House, where, since his own offices were shut up, and fate
had overtaken him, the poor broken-down old gentleman used
to betake himself daily, and write letters and receive them,
and tie them up into mysterious bundles, several of which
he carried in the flaps of his coat. I don’t know anything
more dismal than that business and bustle and mystery of a
ruined man; those letters from the wealthy which he shows
you; those worn greasy documents promising support and
offering condolence which he places wistfully before you, and
on which he builds his hopes of restoration and future for-
tune. My beloved reader has, no doubt, in the course of his
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 199

experience, been waylaid by many such a luckless companion.
He takes you into the corner; he has his bundle of papers
out of his gaping coat-pocket; and the tape off, and the
string in his mouth, and the favorite letters selected and laid
before you; and who does not know the sad, eager, half-
crazy look which he fixes on you with his hopeless eyes?

Changed into a man of this sort, Dobbin found the once
florid, jovial, and prosperous John Sedley. His coat, that
used to be so glossy and trim, was white at the seams, and
the buttons showed the copper. His face had fallen in, and
was unshorn; his frill and neckcloth hung limp under his
bagging waistcoat. When he used to treat the boys in old days
at a coffee-house, he would shout and laugh louder than any-
body there, and have all the waiters skipping round him; it
was quite painful to see how humble and civil he was to John
of the Tapioca, a blear eyed old attendant in dingy stockings
and cracked pumps, whose business it was to serve glasses
of wafers, and bumpers of ink in pewter, and slices of paper,
to the frequenters of this dreary house of entertainment,
where nothing else seemed to be consumed. As for William
Dobbin, whom he had tipped repeatedly in his youth, and
who had been the old gentleman’s butt on a thousand occa-
sions, old Sedley gave his hand to him in a very hesitating
humble manner now, and called him “Sir.” A feeling of
shame and remorse took possession of William Dobbin as the
broken old man so received and addressed him, as if he him-
self had been somehow guilty of the misfortunes which had
brought Sedley so low.

“J am very glad to see you, Captain Dobbin, sir,” says he,
after a skulking look or two at his visitor (whose lanky fig-
ure and military appearance caused some excitement likewise
to twinkle in the blear eyes of the waiter in the cracked danc-
ing pumps, and awakened the old lady in black, who dozed
among the mouldy old coffee-cups in the bar). “How is the
worthy alderman, and my lady, your excellent mother, sir?”
He looked round at the waiter as he said, “My lady,” as much
as to say, “Hark ye, John, I have friends still, and persons of
rank and reputation, too.” “Are you come to do anything in
my way, sir? My young friends, Dale and Spiggot, do all
my business for me now, until my new offices are ready; for
I’m only here temporarily, you know, Captain. What can we
do for you, sir? Will you like to take anything? ;

Dobbin, with a great deal of hesitation and stuttering, pro-
200 VANITY FAIR,

tested that he was not in the least hungry or thirsty; that he
had no business to transact; that he only came to ask if Mr.
Sedley was well, and to shake hands with an old friend; and
he added, with a desperate perversion of truth, “My mother is
very well—that i is, she’s been very unwell, and is only waiting
for the first fine day to go out and call upon Mrs. Sedley
How is Mrs. Sedley, sir? I hope she’s quite well.” And here
he paused, reflecting on his own consummate hypocrisy; for
the day was as fine, and the sunshine as bright, as it ever is in
Coffin Court, where the Tapioca Coffee-house is situated: and
Mr. Dobbin remembered that he had seen Mrs. Sedley himself
only an hour before, having driven Osborne down to Fulham
in his gig, and left him there téte-a-téte with Miss Amelia.

“My wife will be very happy to see her ladyship,” Sedley
replied, pulling out his papers. “I’ve a very kind letter here
from your father, sir, and beg my respectful compliments
to him. Lady D. will find us in rather a smaller house than
we were accustomed to receive our friends in; but it’s snug,
and the change of air does good to my daughter, who was suf-
fering in town rather,—you remember little Emmy, sir?—
yes, suffering a good deal.” The old gentleman’s eyes were
wandering as he spoke, and he was thinking of something
else, as he sat thrumming on his papers and fumbling at the
worn red tape.

“Youre a military man,” he went on; “I ask you, Bill
Dobbin, could any man ever have speculated upon the return
of that Corsican scoundrel from Elba? When the allied
sovereigns were here last year, and we gave ’em that dinner
in the City, sir, and we saw the Temple of Concord, and the
fireworks, and the Chinese bridge in St. James’s Park, could
any sensible man suppose that peace wasn’t really concluded,
after we’d actually sung “Te Deum’ for it, sir? I ask you, Wil-
liam, could I suppose that the Emperor of Austria was a
damned traitor,—a traitor, and nothing more? I don’t mince
words,—a double-faced infernal traitor and schemer, who
meant to have his son-in-law back all along. And I say that
the escape of Boney from Elba was a damned imposition and
plot, sir, in which half the powers of Europe were concerned,
to bring the funds down, and to ruin this country. That’s
why [Pm here, William. That’s why my name’s in the Gaz-
ette. Why, sir?—because I trusted the Emperor of Russia
and the Prince Regent. Look here. Look at my papers.
Look what the funds were on the Ist of March,—what the
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 201

French fives were when I bought for the account. And what
they’re at now. There was collusion, sir, or that villain
never would have escaped. Where was the English Commis-
sioner who allowed him to get away? He ought to be shot,
sir,—brought to a court-martial, and shot, by Jove.”

“We're going to hunt Boney out, sir,’ Dobbin said, rather
alarmed at the fury of the old man, the veins of whose fore-
head began to swell, and who sat drumming his papers with
his clenched fist. “We are going to hunt him out, sir—the
Duke’s in Belgium already, and we expect marching orders
every day.”

“Give him no quarter. Bring back the villain’s head, sir.
Shoot the coward down, sir,’ Sedley roared. “I’d enlist my-
self, by 3 but I’m a broken old man,—ruined by that
damned scoundrel,—and by a parcel of swindling thieves
in this country whom I made, sir, and who are rolling in their
carriages now,” he added, with a break in his voice.

Dobbin was not a little affected by the sight of this once
kind old friend, crazed almost with misfortune and raving
with senile anger. Pity the fallen gentleman: you to whom
money and fair repute are the chiefest good; and so, surely,
are they in Vanity Fair.

“Yes,” he continued, “there are some vipers that you
warm, and they sting you afterwards. There are some beg-
gars that you put on horseback, and they’re the first to ride
you down. You know whom I mean, William Dobbin, my
boy. I mean a purse-proud villain in Russell Square, whom I
knew without a shilling, and whom I pray and hope to see a
beggar as he was when I befriended him.”

“T have heard something of this, sir, from my friend
George,” Dobbin said, anxious to come to his point. “The
quarrel between you and his father has cut him up a great
deal, sir. Indeed, I’m the bearer of a message from him.”

“Q, that’s your errand, is it?” cried the old man, jumping
up. “What! perhaps he condoles with me, does he? Very
kind of him, the stiff-backed prig, with his dandified airs and
West End swagger. He’s hankering about my house, is he
still? If my son had the courage of a man, he’d shoot him.
He’s as big a villain as his father. I won’t have his name
mentioned in my house. I curse the day that ever I let him
into it; and I’d rather see my daughter dead at my feet than
married to him.”

“Tis father’s harshness is not George’s fault, sir. Your

 
202 VANITY FAIR.

daughter’s love for him is as much your doing as his. Who
are you, that you are to play with two young people’s affec-
tions and break their hearts at your will?”

“Recollect it’s not his father that breaks the match off,”
old Sedley cried out. “It’s I that forbid it. That family and
mine are separated forever. I’m fallen low, but not so low as
that; no, no. And so you may tell the whole race,—son, and
father, and sisters, and all.”

“Tt’s my belief, sir, that you have not the power or the
right to separate those two,” Dobbin answered, in a low voice;
“and that, if you don’t give your daughter your consent, it
will be her duty to marry without it. There’s no reason she
should die or live miserably because you are wrong-headed.
To my thinking she’s just as much married as if
the banns had been read in all the churches in Lon-
don. And what better answer can there be to Osborne’s
charges against you, as charges there are, than that his son
claims to enter your family and marry your daughter?”

A light of something like satisfaction seemed to break over
old Sedley as this point was put to him: but he still persisted
that with his consent the marriage between Amelia and George
should never take place.

“We must do it without,” Dobbin said, smiling, and told
Mr. Sedley, as he had told Mrs. Sedley in the day before, the
story of Rebecca’s elopement with Captain Crawley. It evi-
dently amused the old gentleman. “You’re terrible fellows,
you Captains,” said he, tying up his papers; and his face wore
something like a smile upon it, to the astonishment of the
blear-eyed waiter who now entered, and had never seen such
an expression upon Sedley’s countenance since he had used
the dismal coffee-house.

The idea of hitting his enemy Osborne such a blow soothed,
perhaps, the old gentleman: and, their colloquy presently
ending, he and Dobbin parted pretty good friends. .

“My sisters say she has diamonds as big as pigeons’ eggs,”
George said, laughing. “How they must set off her complex-
ion! <A perfect illumination it must be when her jewels are
on her neck. Her jet-black hair is as curly as Sambo’s. I
dare say she wore a nose-ring when she went to court; and
with a plume of feathers in her top-knot she would look a
perfect Belle Sauvage.”
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 208

George, in conversation with Amelia, was rallying the
appearance of a young lady of whom his father and sisters
had lately made the acquaintance, and who was an object of
vast respect to the Russell Square family. She was reported
to have I don’t know how many plantations in the West
Indies; a deal of money in the funds; and three stars to her
name in the East Indies stockholders’ list. She had a man-
sion in Surrey, and a house in Portland Place. The name of
the rich West India heiress had been mentioned with ap-
plause in the Morning Post. Mrs. Haggistoun, Colonel Hag-
gistoun’s widow, her relative, “chaperoned” her, and kept
her house. She was just from school, where she had com-
pleted her education, and George and his sisters had met
her at an evening party at old Hulker’s house, Devonshire
Place (Hulker, Bullock, and Co. were long the correspondents
of her house in the West Indies), and the girls had made the
most cordial advances to her, which the heiress had received
with great good-humor. An orphan in her position,—with
her money,—so interesting! the Misses Osborne said. They
were full of their new friend when they returned from the
Hulker ball to Miss Wirt, their companion; they had made
arrangements for continually meeting, and had the carriage
and drove to see her the very next day. Mrs. Haggistoun, Col-
onel Haggistoun’s widow, a relation of Lord Binke, and al-
ways talking of him, struck the dear unsophisticated girls as
rather haughty, and too much inclined to talk about her great
relations: but Rhoda was everything they could wish,—the
frankest, kindest, most agreeable creature,—wanting a little
polish, but so good-natured. The girls Christian-named each
other at once.

“You should have seen her dress for court, Emmy,” Os-
borne cried, laughing. “She came to my sisters to show it
off, before she was presented in state by my Lady Binkie, the
Haggistoun’s kinswoman. She’s related to every one, that
Haggistoun. Her diamonds blazed out like Vauxhall on
the night we were there. (Do you remember Vauxhall,
Emmy, and Jos singing to his dearest diddle iddle arling?)
Diamonds and mahogany, my dear! think what an advan-
tageous contrast,—and the white feathers in her hair,—I
mean in her wool. She had ear-rings like chandeliers; you
might have lighted ’em up, by Jove,—and a yellow satin train
that streeled after her like the tail of a comet.”

“How old is she?” asked Emmy, to whom George was rat-
204 VANITY FAIR.

tling away regarding this dark paragon, on the morning of
their reunion,—rattling away as no other man in the world
surely could.

“Why, the Black Princess, though she has only just left
school, must be two or three and twenty. And you should
see the hand she writes! Mrs. Colonel Haggistoun usually
writes her letters, but in a moment of confidence she put pen
to paper for my sisters; she spelt satin satting, and Saint
James’s Saint Jams.”

“Why, surely it must be Miss Swartz, the parlor boarder,”
Emmy said, remembering that good-natured young mulatto
girl, who had been so hysterically affected when Amelia left
Miss Pinkerton’s academy.

“The very name,” George said. “Her father was a Ger-
man Jew,—a slave-owner they say,—connected with the Can-
nibal Islands in some way or other. He died last year, and
Miss Pinkerton has finished her education. She can play two
pieces on the piano; she knows three songs; she can write
when Mrs. Haggistoun is by to spell for her; and Jane and
Maria already have got to love her as a sister.”

“T wish they would have loved me,” said Emmy, wistfully.
“They were always very cold to me.”

“My dear child, they would have loved you if you had had
two hundred thousand pounds,” George replied. “That is the
way in which they have been brought up. Ours is a ready-
money society. We live among bankers and city big-wigs, and
be hanged to them, and every man, as he talks to you, is
jingling his guineas in his pocket. There is that jackass,
Fred Bullock, is going to marry Maria,—there’s Goldmore, the
East India Director, there’s Dipley, in the tallow trade,—our
trade,” George said, with an uneasy laugh and a blush.
“Curse the whole pack of money-grubbing vulgarians! I fall
asleep at their great heavy dinners. I feel ashamed in my
father’s great stupid parties. I’ve been accustomed to live
with gentlemen, and men of the world and fashion, Emmy,
not with a parcel of turtle-fed tradesmen. Dear little wom-
an, you are the only person of our set who ever looked, or
thought, or spoke like a lady; and you do it because you’re
an angel and can’t help it. Don’t remonstrate. You are the
only lady. Didn’t Miss Crawley remark it, who has lived in
the best company in Europe? And as for Crawley of the
Life Guards, hang it, he’s a fine fellow: and I like him for
marrying the girl he had chosen.”
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 205

Amelia admired Mr. Crawley very much, too, for this; and
trusted Rebecca would be happy with him, and hoped (with
a laugh) Jos would be consoled. And so the pair went on
prattling, as in quite early days. Amelia’s confidence being
perfectly restored to her, though she expressed a great deal
of pretty jealousy about Miss Swartz, and professed to be
dreadfully frightened—like a hypocrite as she was—lest
George should forget her for the heiress and her money and
her estates in Saint Kitt’s. But the fact is, she was a great
deal too happy to have fears or doubts or misgivings of any
sort; and, having George at her side again, was not afraid of
any heiress or beauty, or indeed of any sort of danger.

When Captain Dobbin came back in the afternoon to these
people,—which he did with a great deal of sympathy for them,
—it did his heart good to see how Amelia had grown young
again, how she laughed, and chirped, and sang familiar old
songs at the piano, which were only interrupted by the bell
from without proclaiming Mr. Sedley’s return from the City,
before whom George received a signal to retreat.

Beyond the first smile of recognition,—and even that was
an hypocrisy, for she thought his arrival rather provoking,—
Miss Sedley did not once notice Dobbin during his visit. But
he was content, so that he saw her happy; and thankful to
have been the means of making her so.

CHAPTER XXI.

A QUARREL ABOUT AN HEIRESS.

Love may be felt for any young lady endowed with such
qualities as Miss Swartz possessed; and a great dream of
ambition entered into old Mr. Osborne’s soul, which she was
to realize. He encouraged, with the utmost enthusiasm and
friendliness, his daughters’ amiable attachment to the young
heiress, and protested that it gave him the sincerest pleasure
as a father to see the love of his girls so well disposed.

“You won’t find,” he would say to Miss Rhoda, “that splen-
dor and rank to which you are accustomed at the West End,
my dear miss, at our humble mansion in Russell Square. My
daughters are plain, disinterested girls, but their hearts are in
the right place, and they’ve conceived an attachment for you
206 VANITY FAIR.

which does them honor,—I say which does them honor. I’m
a plain, simple, humble British merchant,—-an honest one, as
my respected friends Hulker and Bullock will vouch, who
were the correspondents of your late lamented father. You'll
find us a united, simple, happy, and I think I may say re-
spected, family,—a plain table, a plain people, but a warm
welcome, my dear Miss Rhoda,—Rhoda, let me say, for my
heart warms to you, it does really. I’m a frank man, and
I like you. A glass of champagne! Hicks, chamgagne to Miss
Swartz.”

There is little doubt that old Osborne believed all he said,
and that the girls were quite earnest in their protestations of
affection for Miss Swartz. People in Vanity Fair fasten on—.
to rich folks quite naturally. If the simplest people are dis- —
posed to look not a little kindly on great Prosperity (for I defy —
any member of the British public to say that the notion of |
Wealth has not something awful and pleasing to him; and {
you, if you are told that the man next you at dinner has got '
half a million, not to look at him with a certain interest);-—
if the simple look benevolently on money, how much more do
your old worldings regard it! Their affections rush out to
meet and welcome money. Their kind sentiments awaken
spontaneously towards the interesting possessors of it, I
know some respectable people who don’t consider them-
selves at liberty to indulge in friendship for any individual
who has not a certain competency or place in society. They
give a loose to their feelings on proper occasions. And the
proof is, that the major part of the Osborne family, who had
not in fifteen years been able to get up a hearty regard fot
Amelia Sedley, became as fond of Miss Swartz in the course
of a single evening as the most romantic advocate of friend-
ship at first sight could desire.

What a match for George she’d be (the sister and Miss
Wirt agreed), and how much better than that insignificant
little Amelia! Such a dashing young fellow as he is, with
his good looks, rank, and accomplishments, would be the
very husband for her. Visions of balls in Portland Place,
presentations at Court, and introductions to half the peerage,
filled the minds of the young ladies; who talked of nothing
ee ies and his grand acquaintances to their beloved new
riend.

Old Osborne thought she would be a great match, too, for
his son. He should leave the army; he should go into Parlia-
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 207

ment; he should cut a figure in the fashion and in the state.
His blood boiled with honest British cxultation, as he saw
the name of Osborne ennobled in the person of his son, and
thought that he might be the progenitor of a glorious iine of
barenets. He worked in the city and on ’Change, until he
knew everything relating to the fortune of the heiress, how
her money was placed, and where her estates lay. Young
Fred Bullock, one of his chief informants, would have liked
to make a bid for her himself (it was so the young banker
expressed it), only he was booked to Maria Osborne. But not
being able to secure her as a wife, the disinterested Fred quite
approved of her as a sister-in-law. “Let George cut in di-
rectly and win her,” was his advice. “Strike while the iron’s
hot, you know,—while she’s fresh to the town; in a few
weeks some d fellow from the West End will come in
with a title and a rotten rent-roll and cut all us city men out,
as Lord Fitzrufus did last year with Miss Grogram, who was
actually engaged to Podder, of Podder & Brown’s. The sooner
it is done the better, Mr. Osborne; them’s my sentiments,”
the wag said; though, when Osborne had left the bank parlor,
Mr. Bullock remembered Amelia, and what a pretty girl she
was, and how attached to George Osborne; and he gave up
at least ten seconds of his valuable time to regretting the mis-
fortune which had befallen that unlucky young woman.

While thus George Osborne’s good feelings, and his good
friend and genius Dobbin, were carrying back the truant to
Amelia’s feet, George’s parent and sisters were arranging
this splendid match for him, which they never dreamed he
would resist.

When the elder Osborne gave what he called “a hint,” there
was no possibility for the most obtuse to mistake his mean-
ing. He called kicking a footman down stairs a hint to the
latter to leave his service. With his usual frankness and de-
licacy he told Mrs. Haggistoun that he would give her a check
for five thousand pounds on the day his son was married to
her ward; and called that proposal a hint, and considered
it a very dexterous piece of diplomacy. He gave George
finally such another hint regarding the heiress; and ordered
him to marry her out of hand, as he would have ordered his
butler to draw a cork, or his clerk to write a letter.

This imperative hint disturbed George a good deal. He
was in the very first enthusiasm and delight of his second
courtship of Amelia, which was inexpressibly sweet to him.

 
208 VANITY FAIR.

The contrast of her manners and appearance with those of
the heiress made the idea of a union with the latter appear
doubly ludicrous and odious. Carriages and opera-boxes,
thought he; fancy being seen in them by the side of such a
mahogany charmer as that? Add to all, that the junior Os.
borne was quite as obstinate as the senior: when he wanted
a thing, quite as firm in his resolution to get it; and quite as
violent, when angered, as his father in his most stern mo-
ments.

On the first day when his father formally gave him the hint
that he was to place his affections at Miss Swartz’s feet,
George temporized with the old gentleman. ‘Yeu should
have thought of the matter sooner, sir,” he said. “It can’t
be done now, when we’re expecting every day to go on foreign
service. Wait till my return, if I do return”; and then he
represented that the time when the regiment was daily ex-
pecting to quit England was exceedingly ill-chosen: that the
few days or weeks during which they were still to remain at
home must be devoted to business and not to love-making:
time enough for that when he came home with his majority;
“for I promise you,” said he, with a satisfied air, “that one way
or other you shall read the name of George Osborne in the
Gazette.”

The father’s reply to this was founded upon the informa-
tion which he had got in the city; that the West End chaps
would infallibly catch hold of the heiress if any delay took
place; that if he didn’t marry Miss S., he might at least have
an engagement in writing, to come into effect when he re-
turned to England; and that a man who could get ten thou-
sand a year by staying at home was a fool to risk his life
abroad.

“So that you would have me shown up as a coward, sir, and
our name dishonored for the sake of Miss Swartz’s money,”
George interposed.

This remark staggered the old gentleman; but as he had
to reply to it, and as his mind was nevertheless made up, he
said: “You will dine here to-morrow, sir, and every day Miss
Swartz comes you will be here to pay your respects to her.
If you want for money, call upon Mr. Chopper.” Thus a new
obstacle was in George’s way, to interfere with his plans re-
garding Amelia; and about which he. and Dobbin had more
than one confidential consultation. His friend’s opinion re-
specting the line of conduct which he ought to pursue, we
A NOVEL WITHOUT. A HERO, 209

know already, And as for Osborne, when’ he was once bent
on a thing, a fresh obstacle or two only rendered him the
more resolute.

The dark object of the conspiracy into which the chiefs of
the Osborne family had entered was quite ignorant of all
their plans regarding her (which, strange to say, her friend
and chaperon did not divulge), and, taking all the young
ladies’ flattery for genuine sentiment, and being, as we have
hefore had occasion to show, of a very warm and impetuous
nature, responded to their affection with quite a tropical
ardor. And if the truth may be told, I dare say that she too
had some selfish attraction in the Russell Square house; and
in a word thought George Osborne a very nice young man.
His whiskers had made an impression upon her, on the very
first night she beheld them at the ball at Messrs. Hulkers’;
and, as we knew, she was not the first woman who had been
charmed by them. George had an air at once swaggering
and melancholy, languid and fierce. He looked like a man
who had passions, secrets, and private harrowing griefs and
adventures. His voice was rich and deep. He would say it
was a warm evening, or ask his partner to take an ice, with a
tone as sad and confidential as if he were breaking her moth-
er’s death to her, or preluding a declaration of love. He
trampled over all the young bucks of his father’s circle, and
was the hero among those third-rate men. Some few sneered
at him and hated him. Some, like Dobbin, fanatically ad-
inired him. And his whiskers had begun to do their work,
and to curl themselves round the affections of Miss Swartz.

Whenever there was a chance of meeting him in Russell
Square, that simple and good-natured young woman was
quite in a flurry to see her dear Miss Osbornes. She went to
great expenses in new gowns, and bracelets, and bonnets, and
in prodigious feathers. She adorned her person with her ut-
most skill to please the Conqueror, and exhibited all her
simple accomplishments to win his favor. The girls would
ask her, with the greatest gravity, for a little music, and she
would sing her three songs and play her two little pieces as
often as ever they asked, and with an always-increasing pleas-
ure to herself. During these delectable entertainments, Miss
Wirt and the chaperon sat by, and conned over the peerage,
and talked about the nobility.

The day after George had his hint from his father, and a
short time before the hour of dinner, he was lolling upon a

16 3
210 VANITY FAIR.

sofa in the drawing-room in a very becoming and perfectly
natural attitude of melancholy. He had been, at his father’s
request, to Mr. Chopper in the City (the old gentleman,
though he gave great sums to his son, would never specify
any fixed allowance for him, and rewarded him only as he was
in the humor). He had then been to pass three hours with
Amelia, his dear little Amelia, at Fulham; and he came
home to find his sisters spread in starched muslin in the
drawing-room, the dowagers cackling in the background, and
honest Swartz in her favorite amber-colored satin, with tur-
quoise bracelets, countless rings, flowers, feathers, and all sorts
of tags and gimceracks, about as elegantly decorated as a she-
chimney-sweep on May day.

The girls, after vain attempts to engage him in conversa-
tion, talked about fashions and the last drawing-room until
he was perfectly sick of their chatter. He contrasted their
behavior with little Emmy’s,—their shrill voices with her ten-
der ringing tones; their attitudes and their elbows and their
starch, with her humble, soft movements and modest graces.
Poor Swartz was seated in a place where Emmy had been
accustomed to sit. Her bejeweled hands lay sprawling in her
amber satin lap. Her tags and ear-rings twinkled, and her
big eyes rolled about. She was doing nothing with perfect
contentment, and thinking herself charming. Anything
so becoming as the satin the sisters had never seen.

“Dammy,” George said to a confidential friend, “she looked
like a China doll, which has nothing to do all day but to grin
and wag its head. By Jove, Will, it was all I could do to
prevent myself from throwing the sofa-cushion at her.” He
restrained that exhibition of sentiment, however.

The sisters began to play the Battle of Prague. “Stop that
d—— thing,” George howled out in a fury from the sofa.
“It makes me mad. You play us something, Miss Swartz,
do. Sing something, anything but the Battle of Prague.”

“Shall I sing Blue-Eyed Mary, or the air from the Cabinet?”
Miss Swartz asked.

“That sweet thing from the Cabinet,” the sisters said,

“We've had that,” replied the misanthrope on the sofa,

“T can sing Fluvy du Tajy,” Swartz said, in a meek voice,
“if I had the words.” It was the last of the worthy young
woman’s collection.

“O, Fleuve du Tage,” Miss Maria cried; “we have the
song,” and went off to fetch the book in which it was.

 
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 211

Now it happened that this song, then in the height of the
fashion, had been given to the young ladies by a young friend
of theirs, whose name was on the title, and Miss Swartz, hav-
ing concluded the ditty with George’s applause (for he remem-
bered that it was a favorite of Amelia’s), was hoping for an
encore perhaps, and fiddling with the leaves of the music,
when her eye fell upon the title, and she saw “Amelia Sed-
ley” written in the corner.

“Lor!” cried Miss Swartz, spinning swiftly round on the
music-stool, “is it my Amelia? Amelia that was at Miss P.’s
at Hammersmith? I know it is. It’s her, and Tell
me about her,—where is she?”

“Don’t mention her,” Miss Maria Osborne said hastily.
“Her family has disgraced itself. Her father cheated papa,
and as for her, she is never to be mentioned here.” This was
Miss Maria’s return for George’s rudeness about the Battle of
Prague.

“Are you a friend of Amelia’s?” George said, bouncing up.
“God bless you for it, Miss Swartz. Don’t believe what the
girls say. She’s not to blame at any rate. She’s the best ”?

“You know you’re not to speak about her, George,” cried
Jane. “Papa forbids it.”

“Who’s to prevent me?” George cried out. “I will speak
of her. I say she’s the best, the kindest, the gentlest, the
sweetest girl in England; and that, bankrupt or no, my sis-
ters are not fit to hold candles to her. If you like her, go
and see her, Miss Swartz; she wants friends now; and I say,
God bless everybody who befriends her. Anybody who speaks
kindly of her is my friend; anybody who speaks against her is
my enemy. Thank you, Miss Swartz’; and he went up and
wrung her hand.

“George! George!” one of the sisters cried imploringly.

“T say,” George said fiercely, “I thank everybody who loves
Amelia Sed——_”_ He stopped. Old Osborne was in the room
with a face livid with rage, and eyes like hot coals.

Though George had stopped in his sentence, yet, his blood
being up, he was not to be cowed by all the generations of Os-
borne; rallying instantly, he replied to the bullying look of
his father, with another so indicative of resolution and de-
fiance, that the elder man quailed in his turn, and looked
away. He felt that the tussle was coming. ‘Mrs. Haggis-
toun, let me take you down to dinner,” he said. ‘‘Give your
arm to Miss Swarvz, George,” and they marched,

 

 
212 VANITY FAIR.

“Miss Swartz, I love Amelia, and we’ve been engaged al-
most all our lives,” Osborne said to his partner; and during
all the dinner, George rattled on with a volubility which sur-
prised himself, and made his father doubly nervous for the
fight which was to take place as soon as the ladies were gone.

The difference between the pair was, that, while the father
was violent and a bully, the son had thrice the nerve and
courage of the parent, and could not merely make an attack,
but resist it; and finding that the moment was now come
when the contest between him and his father was to be de-
cided, he took his dinner with perfect coolness and appetite
before the engagement began. Old Osborne, on the contrary,
was nervous, and drank much. He floundered in his conversa-
tion with the ladies, his neighbors: George’s coolness only
rendering him more angry. It made him half mad to see the
calm way in which George, flapping his napkin, and with a
swaggering bow, opened the door for the ladies to leave the
room; and, filling himself a glass of wine, smacked it, and
looked his father full in the face, as if to say, “Gentlemen of
the Guard, fire first.” The old man also took a supply of
ammunition, but his decanter clinked against the glass as he
tried to fill it.

After giving a great heave, and with a purple choking face,
he then began. “How dare you, sir, mention that person’s
name before Miss Swartz to-day, in my drawing-room? I
ask you, sir, how dare you do it?”

“Stop, sir,” says George, “don’t say dare, sir. Dare isn’t a
word to be used to a Captain in the British Army.”

“TI shall say what I like to my son, sir. I can cut him off
with a shilling if I like. I can make him a beggar if I like.
I will say what I like,” the elder said.

“Ym a gentleman, though I am your son, sir,” George an-
swered, haughtily. “Any communications which you have to
make to me, or any orders which you may please to give, I
beg may be couched in that kind of language which I am ac-
customed to hear.”

Whenever the lad assumed his haughty manner, it always
created either great awe or great irritation in the parent.
Old Osborne stood in secret terror of his son as a better gen-
tleman than himself; and perhaps my readers may have re-
marked in their experience of this Vanity Fair of ours, that
there is no character which a low-minded man so much mis-
trusts as that of a gentleman.
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 213

“My father didn’t give me the education you have had, nor

the advantages you have had, nor the money you have had.
If I had kept the company some folks have had through my
means, perhaps my son wouldn’t have any reason to brag, sir,
of his superiority and West End airs (these words were ut-
tered in the elder Osborne’s most sarcastic tones). But it
wasn’t considered the part of a gentleman, in my time, for a
man to insult his father. If P’d done any such thing, mine
would have kicked me down stairs, sir.”
_ “T never insulted you, sir. I said I begged you to remem-
ber your son was a gentleman as well as yourself. I know very
well that you give me plenty of money,” said George (finger-
ing a bundle of notes which he had got in the morning from
Mr. Chopper.) “You tell it me often enough, sir. There’s
no fear of my forgetting it.”

“I wish you’d remember other things as well, sir,” the sire
answered. “I wish you’d remember that in this house,—so
long as you choose to honor it with your company, Captain,
—IlI’m the master, and that name, and that—that—that you—
that I say. es

“That what, sir?” George asked, with scarcely a sneer,
filling another glass of claret.

“___!” burst out his father with a screaming oath,—‘“that
the name of those Sedleys never be mentioned here, sir,—not
one of the whole damned lot of ’em, sir.”

“Tt wasn’t I, sir, that introduced Miss Sedley’s name. It
was my sisters who spoke ill of her to Miss Swartz; and, by
Jove, Ill defend her wherever I go. Nobody shall speak
lightly of that name in my presence. Our family has done
her quite enough injury already, I think, and may leave off
reviling her now she’s down. I’ll shoot any man but you who
says a word against her.”

“Go on, sir, go on,” the old gentleman said, his eyes start-
ing out of his head.

“Go on about what, sir? about the way in which we’ve
treated that angel of a girl? Who told me to love her? It
was your doing. I might have chosen elsewhere, and looked
higher, perhaps, than your society; but I obeyed you. And
now that her heart’s mine, you give me orders to fling it
away, and punish her, kill her perhaps, for the faults of other
people. It’s a shame, by Heavens,” said George, working him-
self up into passion and enthusiasm as he proceeded, “to play
at fast and loose with a young girl’s affections—and with

 
214 VANITY FAIR.

such an angel as that,—one so superior to the people amongst
whom she lived, that she might have excited envy, only she
was so good and gentle, that it’s a wonder anybody dared to
hate her. If I desert her, sir, do you suppose she forgets me?”

“JT ain’t going to have any of this damn sentimental non-
sense and humbug here, sir,” the father cried out. “There
shall be no beggar-marriages in my family. If you choose tu
fling away eight thousand a year, which you may have for the
asking, you may do it; but, by Jove, you take your pack and
walk out of this house, sir. Will you do as I tell you, once
for all, sir, or will you not?”

“Marry that mulatto woman?” George said, pulling up his
shirt-collars. “I don’t like the color, sir. Ask the black that
sweeps opposite Fleet Market, sir. Vm not going to marry
a Hottentot Venus.”

Mr. Osborne pulled frantically at the cord by which he was
accustomed to summon the butler when he wanted wine,—
and, almost black in the face, ordered that functionary to call
a coach for Captain Osborne.

“Pye done it,” said George, coming into the Slaughter’s
an hour afterwards looking very pale.

“What, my boy?” says Dobbin.

George told what had passed between his father and him-
self.

“ll marry her to-morrow,” he said, with an oath. “I love
her more every day, Dobbin.”

CHAPTER XXII.

A MARRIAGE AND PART OF A HONEYMOON.

Enemies the most obstinate and courageous can’t hold out
against starvation; so the elder Osborne felt himself pretty
easy about his adversary in the encounter we have just de-
scribed; and, as soon as George’s supplies fell short, confi-
dently expected his unconditional submission. It was un-
lucky, to be sure, that the lad should have secured a stock
of provisions on the very day when the first encounter took
place; but this relief was only temporary, old Osborne
thought, and would but delay George’s surrender. No com-
munication passed between father and son for some days.
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 215

The former was sulky at this silence, but not disquieted; for,
as he said, he knew where he could put the screw upon
George, and only waited the result of that operation. He
told the sisters of the upshot of the dispute between them, but
ordered them to take no notice of the matter, and welcome
George on his return as if nothing had happened. His cover
was laid as usual every day, and perhaps the old gentleman
rather anxiously expected him; but he never came. Some one
inquired at the Slaughter’s regarding him, where it was said
that he and his friend Captain Dobbin had left town.

One gusty, raw day at the end of April,—the rain whipping
the pavement of that ancient street where the old Slaughter’s
Coffee-house was once situated,—George Osborne came into
the cotfee-room, looking very haggard and pale; although
dressed rather smartly in a blue coat and brass buttons, and a
neat buff waistcoat of the fashion of those days. Here was
his friend Captain Dobbin, in blue and brass too, having aban-
doned the military frock and French-gray trousers, which
were the usual coverings of his lanky person.

Dobbin had been in the coffee-room for an hour or more.
He had tried all the papers, but could not read them. He
had looked at the clock many scores of times; and at the
street, where the rain was pattering down, and the people,
as they clinked by in pattens, left long reflections on the
shining stone; he tattooed at the table: he bit his nails most
completely, and nearly to the quick (he was accustomed to
ornament his great big hand in this way); he balanced the
teaspoon dexterously on the milk-jug: upset it, ete., etc.;
and in fact showed those signs of disquietude, and practised
those desperate attempts at amusement, which men are ac-
customed to employ when very anxious, and expectant, and
perturbed in mind.

Some of his comrades, gentlemen who used the room, joked
him about the splendor of his costume and his agitation of
manner. One asked him if he was going to be married. Dob-
bin laughed, and said he would send his acquaintance (Major
Wagstaif of the Engineers) a piece of cake when that event
took place. At length Captain Osborne made his appearance,
very smartly dressed, but very pale and agitated as we have
said. He wiped his pale face with a large yellow bandanna
pocket-handkerchief that was prodigiously scented. He
shook hands with Dobbin, looked at the clock, and told John,
the waiter, to bring him some curacoa. Of this cordial he
216 VANITY FAIR.

swallowed off a couple of glasses with nervous eagerness. His
friend asked with some interest about his health.

“Couldn’t get a wink of sleep till daylight, Dob,” said he.
“Infernal headache and fever. Got up at nine, and went
down to the Hummums for a bath. I say, Dob, I feet just
as I did on the morning I went out with Rocket at Quebec.”

“So do I,” William responded. “I was a deuced deal more
nervous than you were that morning. You made a famous
breakfast, I remember. Eat something now.”

“Yov’re a good old fellow, Will. T’ll drink your health, old
boy, and farewell to e

“No, no; two glasses are enough,” Dobbin interrupted him.
“Ffere, take away the liqueurs, John. Have some cayenne-
pepper with your fowl. Make haste though, for it is time
we were there.”

It was about half an hour from twelve when this brief
meeting and coloquy took place between the two Captains. A
coach, into which Captain Osborne’s servant put his master’s
desk and dressing-case, had been in waiting for some time;
and into this the two gentlemen hurried under an umbrella,
and the valet mounted on the box, cursing the rain and the
dampness of the coachman who was steaming beside him.
“We shal] find a better trap than this at the church door,”
says he; “that’s a comfort.” And the carriage drove on, tak-
ing the road down Piccadilly, where Apsley House and St.
George’s Hospital wore red jackets still; where there were
oil-lamps; where Achilles was not yet born; nor the Pimlico
arch raised; nor the hideous equestrian monster which per-
vades il and the neighborhood;—and so they drove down by
Grompton to a certain chapel near the Fulham road there.

A chariot was in waiting with four horses; likewise a coach
of the kind called glass coaches. Only a very few idlers were
collected, on account of the dismal rain.

“Hang it!” said George, “I said only a pair.”

“My master would have four,” said Mr. Joseph Sedley’s
servant, who was in waiting; and he and Mr. Osborne’s man
agreed, as they followed George and William into the church,
that it was a “reg’lar shabby turnhout; and with scarce so
much as a breakfast or a wedding favior.”

“Here you are,” said our old friend, Jos Sedley, coming
forward. “You're five minutes late, George, my boy. What
a day, eh? Demmy, it’s like the commencement of the rainy

 
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO, 217

season in Bengal. But you'll find my carriage is water-tight.
Come along, my mother and Emmy are in the vestry.”

Jos Sedley was splendid. He was fatter than ever. [is
shirt-collars were higher; his face was redder; his shirt-frill
flaunted gorgeously out of his variegated waistcoat. Var-
nished boots were not invented as yet; but the Hessians on
his beautiful legs shone so, that they must have been the
identical pair in which the gentleman in the old picture used
to shave himself; and on his light green coat there bloomed
a fine wedding favor, like a great white spreading magnolia.
_ Ina word, George had thrown the great cast. He was go-
ing to be married. Hence his pallor and nervousness,-—his
sleepless night and agitation in the morning. I have heard
people who have gone through the same thing own to the same
emotion. After three or four ceremonies, you get accustomed
to it, no doubt; but the first dip, everybody allows, is awful.

The bride was dressed in a brown silk pelisse (ag Captain
Dobbir has since informed me), and wore a straw bonnet
with a pink ribbon; over the bonnet she had a veil of white
Chantilly lace, a gift from Mr. Joseph Sedley, her brother.
Captain Dobbin himself had asked leave to present her with
a gold chain and watch, which she sported on this occasion;
and her mother gave her her diamond brooch,—almost the
only trinket which was left to the old lady. As the service
went on, Mrs. Sedley sat and whimpered a great deal in a
pew, consoled by the Irish maid-servant and Mrs. Clapp from
the lodgings. Old Sedley would not be present. Jos acted
for his father, giving away the bride, whilst Captain Dobbin
stepped up as groom’s-man to his friend George.

There was nobody in the church besides the officiating per-
sons and the small marriage party and their attendants. The
two valets sat aloof superciliously. The rain came raitling
down on the windows. In the intervals of the service you
heard it, and the sobbing of old Mrs. Sedley in the pew. The
parson’s tones echoed sadly through the empty walls. Cs-
borne’s “I will” was sounded in very deep bass. Emmy’s re-
sponse came fluttering up to her lips from her heart, hut was
scarcely heard by anybody except Captain Dobbin.

When the service was completed, Jos Sedley came forward
and kissed his sister, the bride, for the first time for many
months,—George’s look of gloom had gone, and he seemed
quite proud and radiant. “It’s your turn, William,” says he,
218 VANITY FAIR,

putting his hand fondly upon Dobbin’s shoulder; and Dobbin
went up and touched Amelia on the cheek.

Then they went into the vestry and signed the register.
“God bless you, Old Dobbin,” George said, grasping him by
the hand, with something very like moisture glistering in
his eyes. William replied only by nodding his head. Mis
heart was too full to say much.

“Write directly, and come down as soon as you can, you
know,” Osborne said. After Mrs. Sedley had taken an hysteri-
cal adieu of her daughter, the pair went off to the carriage.
“Get out of the way, you little devils,’ George cried to a
smnall crowd of damp urchins, that were hanging about the
chapel door. The rain drove into the bride and bridegroom’s
faces es they passed to the chariot. The postilions’ favors
draggled on their dripping jackets. The few children made
a dismal cheer, as the carriage, splashing mud, drove away.

William Dobbin stood in the church-porch, looking at it, a
queer figure. The small crew of spectators jeered him. He
was not thinking about them or their laughter.

“Come home and have some tiffin, Dobbin,” a voice cried
behind him; as a pudgy hand was laid on his shoulder, and
the honest fellow’s reverie was interrupted. But the Captain
had no heari to go a feasting with Jos Sedley. He put the
weeping old lady and her attendants into the carriage along
with Jos, and left them without any further words passing.
This carriage, too, drove away, and the urchins gave another
sarcastical cheer.

“Here, you little beggars,” Dobbin said, giving some six-
pences amongst them, and then went off by himself through
the rain. It was all over. They were married, and happy,
he prayed God. Never since he was a boy had he felt eo mis-
erable and so lonely. He longed with a heart-sick yearning
for the first few days to be over, that he might see her again.

Some ten days after the above ceremony, three young men
of our acquaintance were enjoying that beautiful prospect of
bow-windows on the one side and blue sea on the other, which
Brighton affords to the traveler. Sometimes it is towards the
ocean,—siniling with countless dimples, speckled with white
sails, with a hundred bathing-machines kissing the skirt of his
blue garment,—that the Londoner looks enraptured; some-
times, on the contrary, a lover of human nature rather than
of prospects of any lind, it is towards the bow-windows that
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO, 219

he turns, and that swarm of human life which they exhibit.
From one issue the notes of a piano, which a young lady in
ringlets practices six hours daily, to the delight of the fellow-
lodgers: at another, lovely Polly, the nursemaid, may be seen
dandling Master Omnium in her arms: whilst Jacob, his papa,
is beheld eating prawns, and devouring the “Times” for break-
fast, at the window below. Yonder are the Misses Leery, who
are looking out for the young officers of the heavies, who are
pretty sure to be pacing the cliff; or again it is a City man,
with a nautical turn, and a telescope, the size of a six-pounder,
who has his instrument pointed seawards, so as to command
every pleasure-boat, herring-boat, or bathing-machine that
comes to, or quits the shore, etc., etc. But have we any leisure
for a description of Brighton?—for Brighton, a clean Naples
with genteel lazzaroni,—for Brighton, that always looks brisk,
gay, and gaudy, like a harlequin’s jacket,—for Brighton,
which used to be seven hours distant from London at the
time of our story; which is now only a hundred minutes off;
and which may approach who knows how much nearer, un-
less Joinville comes and untimely bombards it? ;

“What a monstrous fine girl that is in the lodgings over the
milliner’s,” one of these three promenaders remarked to the
other; “Gad, Crawley, did you see what a wink she gave me
as I passed?”

“Don’t break her heart, Jos, you rascal,” said another.
“Don’t trifle with her affections, you Don Juan!”

“Get away,” said Jos Sedley, quite pleased, and leering up
at the maid-servant in question with a most killing ogle.
Jos was even more splendid at Brighton than he had been at
his sister’s marriage. He had brilliant under-waistcoats any
one of which would have set up a moderate buck. He sported
a military frock-coat, ornamented with frogs, knobs, black but-
tons, and meandering embroidery. He had affected a military
appearance and habits of late; and he walked with his two
friends, who were of that profession, clinking his boot-spurs,
swaggering prodigiously, and shooting death-glances at all
the servant-girls who were worthy to be slain.

“What shall we do, boys, till the ladies return?” the buck
asked. The ladies were out to Rottingdean in his carriage
on a drive.

“Let’s have a game at billiards,” one of his friends said,—
the tall one, with lacquered mustachos. _

“No, dammy; no, Captain,” Jos replied, rather alarmed.
220 VANITY FAIR,

“No billiards to-day, Crawley, my boy; yesterday was enough.”

“You play very weil,” said Crawley, laughing. “Don’t he,
Osborne? How well he made that five stroke, eh?”

“Famous,” Osborne said. “Jos is a devil of a fellow at bil-
liards, and at everything else, too. I wish there were any
tiger-hunting about here; we might go and kill a few before
dinner. (There goes a fine girl! what an ankle, eh, Jos?)
Tell us that story about the tiger-hunt, and the way you did
for him in the jungle,—it’s a wonderful story that, Crawley.”
Here George Osborne gave a yawn. “It’s rather slow work,”
said he, “down here; what shall we do?”

“Shall we go and look at some horses that Snafiler’s just
brought from Lewes fair?” Crawley said.

“Suppose we go and have some jellies at Dutton’s,” said
the rogue Jos, willing to kill two birds with one stone. “Devil-
ish fine gal at Dutton’s.”

“Suppose we go and see the Lightning come in, it’s just
about time?” George said. This advice prevailing over the
stables and the jelly, they turned towards the coach-office to
witness the Lightning’s arrival.

As they passed, they met the carriage,—Jos Sedley’s open
carriage, with its magnificent armorial bearings,—that splen-
did conveyance in which he used to drive about at Chelten-
ham, majestic and solitary, with his arms folded, and his hat
cocked; or, more happy, with ladies by his side.

Two were in the carriage now: one a little person, with
light hair and dressed in the height of the fashion; the other
in a brown silk pelisse, and a straw bonnet with pink ribbons,
with a rosy, round, happy face that did you good to behold.
She checked the carriage as it neared the three gentlemen,
after which exercise of authority she looked rather nervous,
and then began to blush most absurdly. “We have had a de-
lightful drive, George,” she said, “and—and we’re so glad to
come back; and, Joseph, don’t let him be late.”

“Don’t be leading our husbands into mischief, Mr. Sedley,
you wicked, wicked man you,” Rebecca said, shaking at Jos
a pretty little finger covered with the neatest French kid
glove. “No billiards, no smoking, no naughtiness!”

“My dear Mrs. Crawley—Ah now! upon my honor!” was
all Jos could ejaculate by way of reply; but he managed to
fall into a tolerable attitude with his head lying on his shoul-
der, grinning upwards at his victim, with one hand at his
back, which he supported on his cane, and the other hand
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 221

(the one with the diamond ring) fumbling in his shirt-frill and
among his under-waistcoats. As the carriage drove off he
kissed the diamond hand to the fair ladies within. He wished
all Cheltenham, all Chowringhee, all Calcutta, could see him
in that position, waving his hand to such a beauty, and in
company with such a famous buck as Rawdon Crawley of the
Guards.

Our young bride and bridegroom had chosen Brighton as
the place where they would pass the first few days after their
marriage; and, having engaged apartments at the Ship Inn,
enjoyed themselves there in great comfort and quietude, until
Jos presently joined them. Nor was he the only companion
they found there. As they were coming into the Hotel from
a seaside walk one afternoon, on whom should they light but
Rebecca and her husband? The recognition was immediate.
Rebecca flew into the arms of her dearest friend. Crawley and
Osborne shook hands together cordially enough; and Becky,
in the course of a very few hours, found means to make the
latter forget that little unpleasant passage of words which had
happened between them. “Do you remember the last time
we met at Miss Crawley’s, when I was so rude to you, dear
Captain Osborne? I thought you seemed careless about dear
Amelia. It was that made me angry; and so pert; and so
unkind; and so ungrateful. Do forgive me?” Rebecca said,
and she held out her hand with so frank and winning a grace
that Osborne could not but take it. By humbly and frankly
acknowledging yourself to be in the wrong, there is no know-
ing, my son, what good you may do. I knew once a gentle-
man and very worthy practitioner in Vanity Fair who used to
do little wrongs to his neighbors on purpose, and in order
to apologize for them in an open and manly way afterwards,
—and what ensued? My friend Crocky Doyle was liked every-
where, and deemed to be rather impetuous,—but the honest-
est fellow. Becky’s humility passed for sincerity with George
Osborne.

These two young couples had plenty of tales to relate to
each other. The marriages of either were discussed; and their
prospects in life canvassed with the greatest frankness and
interest on both sides. George’s marriage was to be made
known to his father by his friend Captain Dobbin; and young
Osborne trembled rather for the result of that communica-
tion. Miss Crawley, on whom all Rawdon’s hopes depended,
still held out. Unable io make an entry into her house in
222 VANITY FAIR.

Park Lane, her affectionate nephew and niece had followed
her to Brighton, where they had emissaries continually
planted at her door.

“T wish you could see some of Rawdon’s friends who are
always about our door,’ Rebecca said, laughing. “Did you
ever see a dun my dear; or a bailiff and his man? Two of
the abominable wretches watched all last week at the green-
grocer’s opposite, and we could not get away until Sunday.
If aunty does not relent, what shall we do?”

Rawdon, with roars of laughter, related a dozen amusing
anecdotes of his duns, and Rebecca’s adroit treatment of
them. He vowed, with a great oath, that there was no
woman in Europe who could talk a creditor over as she could.
Almost immediately after their marriage, her practice had
begun, and her husband found the immense value of such a
wife. They had credit in plenty, but they had bills also in
abundance, and labored under a scarcity of ready money.
Did these debt-difficulties affect Rawdon’s good spirits? No.
Everybody in Vanity Fair must have remarked how well
those live who are comfortably and thoroughly in debt: how
they deny themselves nothing; how jolly and easy they are
in their minds. Rawdon and his wife had the very best
apartments at the inn at Brighton; the landlord, as he brought
in the first dish, bowed before them as to his greatest cus-
tomers; and Rawdon abused the dinners and wine with au
audacity which no grandee in the land could surpass. Long
custom, a manly appearance, faultless boots and clothes, and a
happy fierceness of manner, will often help a man as much
as a great balance at the banker’s.

The two wedding parties met constantly in each other’s
apartments. After two or three nights the gentlemen of an
evening had a little piquet, as their wives sat and chatted
apart. This pastime, and the arrival of Jos Sedley, who
made his appearance in his grand open carriage, and who
played a few games at billiards with Captain Crawley, re-
plenished Rawdon’s purse somewhat, and gave him the bene-
fit of that ready money for which the greatest spirits are
sometimes at a stand-still.

So the three gentlemen walked down to see the Lightning
coach come in. Punctual to the minute, the coach crowded
inside and out, the guard blowing his accustomed tune on
the horn,—the Lightning came tearing down the street, and
pulled up at the coach-office.
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 223

“Hullo! there’s old Dobbin,” George cried, quite delighted
to see his old friend perched on the roof; and whose prom-
ised visit to Brighton had been delayed until now. “How
are you, old fellow? Glad you’re come down. Emmy’ll be
delighted to see you,” Osborne said, shaking his comrade
warmly by the hand as soon as his descent from the vehicle
was effected,—and then he added, in a lower and agitated
voice: “What’s the news? Have you been in Russell Square?
What does the governor say? Tell me everything.”

Dobbin looked very pale and grave. “I’ve seen your fa-
ther,” said he. “How’s Amelia,—Mrs. George? T’ll tell you
all the news presently: but I’ve brought the great news of
all: and that is—”

“Out with it, old fellow,” George said.

“We're ordered to Belgium. All the army goes,—Guards
and all. Heavytop’s got the gout, and is mad at not being
able to move. O’Dowd goes in command, and we embark
from Chatham next week.”

This news of war could not but come with a shock upon
our lovers, and caused all these gentlemen to look very seri-
ous.

CHAPTER XXIII.

CAPTAIN DOBBIN PROCEEDS ON HIS CANVASS.

What is the secret mesmerism which friendship possesses,
and under the operation of which a person ordinarily slug-
gish, or cold, or timid, becomes wise, active, and resolute, in
another’s behalf? As Alexis, after a few passes from Dr.
Elliotson, despises pain, reads with the back of his head,
sees miles off, looks into next week, and performs other won-
ders, of which, in his own private normal condition, he is quite
incapable; so you see, in the affairs of the world and under
the magnetism of friendship, the modest man become bold,
the shy confident, the lazy active, or the impetuous prudent
and peaceful. What is it, on the other hand, that makes the
lawyer eschew his own cause, and call in his learned brother
as an adviser? And what causes the doctor, when ailing, to
send for his rival, and not sit down and examine his own
tongue in the chimney glass, or write his own prescription at
his study-table? I throw out these queries for intelligent
224 VANITY FAIR.

readers to answer, who know, at once, how credulous we are,
and how sceptical, how soft and how obstinate, how firm for
others and how diffident about ourselves; meanwhile, it is
certain that our friend William Dobbin, who was personally
of so complying a disposition, that, if his parents had pressed
him much, it is probable he would have stepped down into
the kitchen and married the cook, and who, to further his
own interests, would have found the most insuperable diffi-
culty in walking across the street, found himself as busy and
eager in the conduct of George Osborne’s affairs as the most
selfish tactician could be in the pursuit of his own.

Whilst our friend George and his young wife were enjoy-
ing the first blushing days of the honeymoon at Brighton,
honest William was left as George’s plenipotentiary in Lon-
don, to transact all the business part of the marriage. His
duty it was to call upon old Sedley and his wife, and to keep
the former in good-humor: to draw Jos and his brother-in-
law nearer together, so that Jos’s position and dignity, as
collector of Boggley Wollah, might compensate for his fa-
ther’s loss of station, and tend to reconcile old Osborne to the
alliance; and, finally, to communicate it to the latter in such
a way as should least irritate the old gentleman.

Now, before he faced the head of the Osborne house with
the news which it was his duty to tell, Dobbin bethought
him that it would be politic to make friends of the rest of the
family, and, if possible, have the ladies on his side. They
can’t be angry in their hearts, thought he. No woman ever
was really angry at a romantic marriage. A little crying out,
and they must come round to their brother; when the three
of us will lay siege to old Mr. Osborne. So this Machiavel-
lian captain of infantry cast about him for some happy means
or stratagem by which he could gently and gradually bring
the Miss Osbornes to a knowledge of their brother’s secret.

By a little inquiry regarding his mother’s engagements, he
was pretty soon able to find out by whom of her ladyship’s
friends parties were given at that season; where he would be
likely to meet Osborne’s sisters; and, though he had that
abhorrence of routs and evening parties which many sensi-
ble men, alas! entertain, he soon found one where the Misses
Osbornes were to be present. Making his appearance at the
ball, where he danced a couple of sets with both of them,
and was prodigiously polite, he actually had the courage to
ask Miss Osborne for a few minutes’ conversation at an early
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 225

hour the next day, when he had, he said, to communicate
to her news of the very greatest interest.

What was it that made her start back, and gaze upon him
for a moment, and then on the ground at her feet, and make
as if she would faint on his arm, had he not, by opportunely
treading on her toes, brought the young lady back to self-
control? Why was she so violently agitated at Dobbin’s re-
quest? This can never be known. But when he came the
next day, Maria was not in the drawing-room with her sister,
and Miss Wirt went off for the purpose of fetching the latter,
and the Captain and Miss Osborne were left together. They
were both so silent that the tick-tock of the Sacrifice of
ao clock on the mantel-piece became quite rudely audi-

e.

“What a nice party it was last night,” Miss Osborne at
length began, encouragingly; “and — and how youw’re im-
proved in your dancing, Captain Dobbin. Surely somebody
has taught you,” she added, with amiable archness.

“You should see me dance a reel with Mrs. Major O’Dowd
of ours; and a jig,—did you ever sce a jig? But I think any-
body could dance with you, Miss Osborne, who dance so well.”

“Ts the Major’s lady young and beautiful, Captain?” the
fair questioner continued. “Ah, what a terrible thing it
must be to be a soldier’s wife! I wonder they have any spir-
its to dance, and in these dreadful times of war, too! 0
Captain Dobbin, I tremble sometimes when I think of our
dearest George, and the dangers of the poor soldier. Are
there many married officers of the —th, Captain Dobbin?”

“Upon my word, she’s playing her hand rather too openly,”
Miss Wirt thought; but this observation is merely parenthetic,
and was not heard through the crevice of the door at which
the governess uttered it.

“One of our young men is just married,’ Dobbin said, now
coming to the point. “It was a very old attachment, and the
young couple are as poor as church mice.”

“O, how delightful! O, how romantic!” Miss Osborne
cried, as the Captain said “old attachment” and “poor.” Her
sympathy encouraged him.

“The first young fellow in the regiment,” he continued.
“Not a braver or handsomer officer in the army; and such a
charming wife! How you would like her! how you will like
her when you know her, Miss Osborne.” The young lady
thought the actual moment had arrived, and that Dobbin’s

ib
226 VANITY FAIR.

vervousness which now came on and was visible in many
twitchings of his face, in his manner of beating the ground
with his great feet, in the rapid buttoning and unbottoning
of his frock-coat, &c..—Miss Osborne, I say, thought that,
when he had given himself a little air, he would unbosom
himself entirely, and prepared eagerly to listen. And the
clock, in the altar on which Iphigenia was situated, begin-
ning, after a preparatory convulsion, to toll twelve, the mere
tolling seemed as if it would last until one,—so prolonged
was the knell to the anxious spinster.

“But it’s not about marriage that I came to speak—that is
that marriage—that is—no, J mean—my dear Miss Osborne,
it’s about our dear friend George,” Dobbin said.

“About George!” she said in a tone so discomfited that
Maria and Miss Wirt laughed at the other side of the door,
and even that abandoned wretch of a Dobbin felt inclined
to smile himself; for he was not altogether unconscious of the
state of affairs: George having often bantered him grace-
fully, and said, “Hang it, Will, why don’t you take old Polly?
She’ll have you if you ask her. TP bet you five to two she
will.”

“Yes, about George, then,” he continued. “There has
been a difference between him and Mr. Osborne. And I re-
gard him so much—for you know we have been like brothers
—that I hope and pray the quarrel may be settled. We must
go abroad, Miss Osborne. We may be ordered off at a day’s
warning. Who knows what may happen in the campaign?
Don’t be agitated, dear Miss Osborne: and those two at least
should part friends.”

“There has been no quarrel, Captain Dobbin, except a lit-
tle usual scene with papa,” the lady said. “We are expect-
ing George back daily. What papa wanted was only for his
good. He has but to come back, and I’m sure all will be
well; and dear Rhoda, who went away from here in sad, sad
anger, I know will forgive him. Woman forgives but too
readily, Captain.”

“Such an angel as you I am sure would,” Mr. Dobbin said,
with atrocious astuteness. “And no man can pardon himself
for giving a woman pain. What would you feel, if a man
were faithless to you?”

“T should perish,—I should throw myself out of window,—
J should take poison,—I should pine and die. I know I
‘A’ NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 227

should,” Miss cried, who had nevertheless gone through one
or two affairs of the heart without any idea of suicide.

“And there are others,” Dobbin continued, “as true and
as kind-hearted as yourself. I’m not speaking about the
West Indian heiress, Miss Osborne, but about a poor girl
whom George once loved, and who was bred from her child-
hood to think of nobody but him. I’ve seen her in her
poverty uncomplaining, broken-hearted, without a fault.
It is of Miss Sedley I speak. Dear Miss Osborne, can your
generous heart quarrel with your brother for being faithful
to her? Could his own conscience ever forgive him if he
deserted her? Be her friend—she always loved you—and—
and I am come here charged by George to tell you that he
holds his engagement to her as the most sacred duty he has:
and to entreat you, at least, to be on his side.”

When any strong emotion took possession of Mr. Dobbin,
and after the first word or two of hesitation, he could speak
with perfect fluency, and it was evident that his eloquence
on this occasion made some impression upon the lady whom
he addressed.

“Well,” said she, “this is—most surprising—most painful
—most extraordinary—what will papa say?—that George
should fling away such a superb establishment as was offered
to him,—but at any rate he has found a very brave cham-
pion in you, Captain Dobbin. It is of no use, however,” she
continued, after a pause; “I feel for poor Miss Sedley, most
certainly,—most sincerely, you know. We never thought the
match a good one, though we were always very kind to her
here,—very. But papa will never consent, I am sure. And
a well-brought-up young woman you know—with a well-
regulated mind must—George must give her up, dear Cap-
tain Dobbin, indeed he must.”

“Ought a man to give up the woman he loved, just when
misfortune befell her?” Dobbin said, holding out his hand.
“Dear Miss Osborne, is this the counsel I hear from you?
My dear young lady! you must befriend her. He can’t give
her up. He must not give her up. Would a man, think you,
give you up if you were poor?”

This adroit question touched the heart of Miss Jane Os-
borne not a little. “I don’t know whether we poor girls
ought to believe what you men say, Captain,” she said.
“There is that in woman’s tenderness which induces her to
believe too easily. I’m afraid you are cruel, cruel deceivers”;
228 VANITY FAIR.

and Dobbin certainly thought he felt a pressure of the hand
which Miss Osborne had extended to him.

He dropped it in some alarm. “Deceivers!” said he. “No,
dear Miss Osborne, all men are not; your brother is not;
George has loved Amelia Sedley ever since they were chil-
dren; no wealth would make him marry any but her. Ought
he to forsake her? Would you counsel him to do so?”

What could Miss Jane say to such a question, and with her
own peculiar views? She could not answer it, so she par-
ried it by saying, “Well, if you are not a deceiver, at least you
are very romantic;” and Captain William let this observation
pass without challenge.

At length, when, by the help of further polite speeches,
he deemed that Miss Osborne was sufficiently prepared to re-
ceive the whole news, he poured it into her ear. “George
could not give up Amelia,—George was married to her;” and
then he related the circumstances of the marriage as we know
them already; how the poor girl would have died had not
her lover kept his faith; how old Sedley had refused all con-
sent to the match, and a license had been got; and Jos Sed-
ley had come from Cheltenham to give away the bride; how
they had gone to Brighton in Jos’s chariot-and-four to pass
the honey-moon; and how George counted on his dear kind
sisters to befriend him with their father, as women—so true
and tender as they were—assuredly would do. And so ask-
ing permission (readily granted) to see her again, and rightly
conjecturing that the news he had brought would be told in
the next five minutes to the other ladies, Captain Dobbin
made his bow and took his leave.

He was scarcely out of the house, when Miss Maria and
Miss Wirt rushed in to Miss Osborne, and the whole wonder-
ful secret was imparted to them by that lady. To do them
justice, neither of the sisters were very much displeased.
There is something about a runaway match with which few
ladies can be seriously angry, and Amelia rather rose in their
estimation, from the spirit which she had displayed in con-
senting to the union. As they debated the story, and prat-
tled about it, and wondered what papa would do and say,
came a loud knock, as of an avenging thunder-clap, at the
door, which made these conspirators start. It must be papa,
they thought. But it was not he. It was only Mr. Frederic
Bullock, who had come from the City, according to appoint-
mert, to conduct the ladies to a flower-show.
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 229

_ This gentleman, as may be imagined, was not kept long
in ignorance of the secret. But his face, when he heard it,
showed an amazement which was very different to that look
_of sentimental wonder which the countenances of the sisters
wore. Mr. Bullock was a man of the world, and a junior
partner of a wealthy firm. He knew what money was, and
the value of it; and a delightful throb of expectation lighted
up his little eyes, and caused him to smile on his Maria, as
he thought that by this piece of folly of Mr. George’s she
might be worth thirty thousand pounds more than he had
ever hoped to get with her.

“Gad! Jane,” said he, surveying even the elder sister with
some interest, “Eels will be sorry he cried off. You may be
a fifty-thousand pounder yet.”

The sisters had never thought of the money question up to
that moment, but Fred Bullock bantered them with graceful
gayety about it during their forenoon’s excursion; and they
had risen not a little in their own esteem by the time when,
the morning amusement over, they drove back to dinner.
And do not let my respected reader exclaim against this sel-
fishness as unnatural. It was but this present morning, as he
rode on the omnibus from Richmond; while it changed horses,
this present chronicler, being on the roof, marked three little
children playing in a puddle below, very dirty, and friendly,
and happy. To these three presently came another little one.
“Polly,” says she, “your sister’s got a penny.” At which the
children got up from the puddle instantly, and ran off
to pay their court to Peggy. And as the omnibus drove off
I saw Peggy, with the infantine procession at her tail, march-
ing with great dignity towards the stall of a neighboring lolli-
pop-woman.

CHAPTER XXIV.

IN WHICH MR. OSBORNE TAKES DOWN THE FAMILY
BIBLE.

So having prepared the sisters, Dobbin hastened away to
the City to perform the rest and more difficult part of the
task which he had undertaken. The idea of facing old Os-
borne rendered him not a little nervous, and more than once
he thought of leaving the young ladies to communicate the
230 VANITY FAIR.

secret, which, as he was aware, they could not Icng retain.
But he had promised to report to George upon the manner
in which the elder Osborne bore the intelligence; so, going
into the City to the paternal counting-house in Thames
Street, he despatched thence a note to Mr. Osborne begging
for a half-hour’s conversation relative to the affairs of his son
George. Dobbin’s messenger returned from Mr. Osborne’s
‘house of business, with the compliments of the latter, who
would be very happy to see the Captain immediately, and
away accordingly Dobbin went to confront him.

The Captain, with a half-guilty secret to confess, and with
the prospect of a painful and stormy interview before him,
entered Mr. Osborne’s offices with a most dismal countenance
and abashed gait, and, passing through the outer room where
Mr. Chopper presided, was greeted by that functionary from
his desk with a waggish air which further discomfited him.
Mr. Chopper winked and nodded and pointed his pen towards
his patron’s door, and said, “You'll find the governor all
right,” with the most provoking good-humor.

Osborne rose too, and shook him heartily by the hand, and
said, “How do, my dear boy?” with a cordiality that made
poor George’s ambassador feel doubly guilty. His hand lay
as if dead in the old gentieman’s grasp. He felt that he, Dob-
bin, was more or less the cause of all that had happened. It
was he had brought back George to Amelia; it was he had
applauded, encouraged, transacted almost the marriage which
he was come to reveal to George’s father; and the latter was
receiving him with smiles of welcome; patting him on the
shoulder, and calling him, “Dobbin, my dear boy.” The en-
voy had indeed good reason to hang his head.

Osborne fully believed that Dobbin had come to announce
his son’s surrender. Mr. Chopper and his principal were
talking over the matter between George and his father, at
the very moment when Dobbin’s messenger arrived. Both
agreed that George was sending in his submission. Both
had been expecting it for some days,—and “Lord! Chopper,
what a marriage we’ll have!” Mr. Osborne said to his clerk,
snapping his big fingers, and jingling all the guineas and shil-
lings in his great pockets as he eyed his subordinate with a
look of triumph.

With similar operations conducted in both pockets, and a
knowing jolly air, Osborne from his chair regarded Dobbin
seated blank and silent opposite to him. “What a bumpkin
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 231

he is for a Captain in the army,” old Osborne thought. “TI
wonder George hasn’t taught him better manners.”

At last Dobbin summoned courage to begin. “Sir,” said
he, “I’ve brought you some very grave news. I have been
at the Horse Guards this morning, and there’s no doubt that
our regiment will be ordered abroad, and on its way to Bel-
gium before the week is over. And you know, sir, that we
sha’n’t be home again before a tussle which may be fatal to
many of us.”

Osborne looked grave. “My s , the regiment will do its
duty, sir, I dare say,” he said.

“The French are very strong, sir,” Dobbin went on. “The
Russians and Austrians will be a long time before they can
bring their troops down. We shall have the first of the fight,
sir; and depend on it Boney will take care that it shall be
a hard one.”

“What are you driving at, Dobbin?” his interlocutor said,
uneasy and with a scowl. “I suppose no Briton’s afraid of
any d Frenchman, hay?”

“TI only mean, that before we go, and considering the great
and certain risk that hangs over every one of us—if there are
any differences between you and George—it would be as well,
sir, that—that you should shake hands: wouldn’t it? Should
anything happen to him, I think you would never forgive
yourself if you hadn’t parted in charity.”

As he said this, poor William Dobbin blushed crimson, and
felt and owned that he himself was a traitor. But for him,
perhaps, this severance need never have taken place. Why
had not George’s marriage been delayed? What call was there
to press it on so eagerly? He felt that George would have
parted from Amelia at any rate without a mortal pang. Ame-
lia, too, might have recovered the shock of losing him. It
was his counsel had brought about this marriage, and all that
was to ensue from it. And why was it? Because he loved
her so much that he could not bear to see her unhappy: or
because his own sufferings of suspense were so unendurable
that he was glad to crush them at once,—as we hasten a
funeral after a death, or, when a separation from those we love
is imminent, cannot rest until the parting be over.

“You are a good fellow, William,” said Mr. Osborne, in a
softened voice; “and me and George shouldn’t part in anger,
that is true. Look here. I’ve done for him as much as any
father ever did, He’s had three times as much money from

 

 
232 VANITY FAIR.

me, as I warrant your father ever gave you. But I don’t brag
about that. How I’ve toiled for him, and worked and em-
ployed my talents and energy, I won’t say. Ask Chopper.
Ask himself. Ask the city of London. Well, I propose to
him such a marriage as any nobleman in the land might be
proud of,—the only thing in life I ever asked him,—and
he refuses me. Am I wrong? Is the quarrel of my making?
What do I seek but his good, for which I’ve been toiling like
a convict ever since he was born? Nobody can say there’s
anything selfish in me. Jet him come back. I say, here’s
my hand. I say, forget and forgive. As for marrying now, _
it’s out of the question. Let him and Miss S. make it up, and >
make out the marriage afterwards, when he comes back a
Colonel; for he shall be a Colonel, by G he shall, if mon-
ey can do it. Dm glad you’ve brought him round. I know
it’s you, Dobbin. You’ve took him out of many a scrape be-
fore. Let him come. I sha’n’t be hard. Come along, and
dine in Russell Square to-day, both of you. The old shop, the
old hour. You'll find a neck of venison, and no questions
asked.”

This praise and confidence smote Dobbin’s heart very keen-
ly. Every moment the colloquy continued in this tone, he
felt more and more guilty. “Sir,” said he, “I fear you deceive
yourself. Iam sure you do. George is much too high-minded
a man ever to marry for money. A threat on your part that
you would disinherit him in case of disobedience would only
be followed by resistance on his.”

“Why, hang it, man, you don’t call offering him eight or ten
thousand a year threatening him?” Mr. Osborne said, with
still provoking good-humor. “’Gad, if Miss 8S. will have me,
I’m her man. J ain’t particular about a shade or so of tawny.”
And the old gentleman gave his knowing grin and coarse
laugh.

“You forget, sir, previous engagements into which Captain
Osborne had entered,” the ambassador said, gravely.

“What engagements? What the devil do you mean? You
don’t mean,” Mr. Osborne continued, gathering wrath and
astonishment as the thought now first came upon him,—“you
don’t mean that he’s such a d fool as to be still hankering
after that swindling old bankrupt’s daughter? You've not
come here for to make me suppose that he wants to marry
her? Marry her, that is a good one. My son and heir marry
a beggar’s girl out of a gutter. D—— him if he does, let

 

 
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 233

him buy a broom and sweep a crossing. She was always
dangling and ogling after him, I recollect now; and I’ve no
doubt she was put on by her old sharper of a father.”

“Mr. Sedley was your very good friend, sir,” Dobbin inter-
posed, almost pleased at finding himself growing angry.
“Time was you called him better names than rogue and swin-
dler. The match was of your making. George had no right
to play fast and loose ”?

“Fast and loose?” howled out old Osborne,—“fast and
loose! Why, hang me, those are the very words my gentle-
man used himself when he gave himself airs, last Thursday
was a fortnight, and talked about the British army to his
father who made him. What, it’s you who have been a setting
of him up, is it? and my service to you, Captain. It’s you
who want to introduce beggars into my family. Thank you
for nothing, Captain. Marry her indeed—he, he! why should
he? I warrant you she’d go to him fast enough without.”

“Sir,” said Dobbin, starting up in undisguised anger; “no
man shall abuse that lady in my hearing, and you least of all.”

“Q, youw’re a going to call me out, are you? Stop, let me
ring the bell for pistols for two. Mr. George sent you here
to insult his father, did he?” Osborne said, pulling at the bell-
cord.

“Mr. Osborne,” said Dobbin, with a faltering voice, “it’s
you who are insulting the best creature in the world. You
had best spare her, sir, for she’s your son’s wife.”

And with this, feeling that he could say no more, Dobbin
went away, Osborne sinking back in his chair, and looking
wildly after him. A clerk came in, obedient to the bell; and
the Captain was scarcely out of the court where Mr. Os-
borne’s offices were, when Mr. Chopper the chief clerk came
rushing hatless after him.

“For God’s sake, what is it?” Mr. Chopper said, catching
the Captain by the skirt. “The governor’s in a fit. What has
Mr. George been doing?”

“He married Miss Sedley five days ago,” Dobbin replied.
“I was his groomsman, Mr. Chopper, and you must stand his
friend.”

The old clerk shook his head. “If that’s your news, Cap-
tain, it’s bad. The governor will never forgive him.”

Dobbin begged Chopper to report progress to him at the
hotel where he was stopping, and walked off moodily west-
wards, greatly perturbed as to the past and the future.

 
234 VANITY FAIR.

When the Russell Square family came to dinner that even-
ing, they found the father of the house seated in his usual
place, but with that air of gloom on his face, which, whenever
it appeared there, kept the whole circle silent. The ladies,
and Mr. Bullock who dined with them, felt that the news
had been communicated to Mr. Osborne. His dark looks
affected Mr. Bullock so far as to render him still and quiet:
but he was unusually bland and attentive to Miss Maria, by
whom he sat, and to her sister presiding at the head of the
table.

Miss Wirt, by consequence, was alone on her side of the
board, a gap being left between her and Miss Jane Osborne.
Now this was George’s place when he dined at home; and his
cover, as we said, was laid for him in expectation of that
truant’s return. Nothing occurred during dinner-time ex-
cept smiling Mr. Frederick’s flagging confidential whispers,
and the clinking of plate and china, to interrupt the silence of
the repast. The servants went about stealthily doing their
duty. Mutes at funerals could not look more glum than the
domestics of Mr. Osborne. The neck of venison of which he
had invited Dobbin to partake was carved by him in perfect
silence; but his own share went away almost untasted, though
he drank much, and the butler assiduously filled his glass.

At last, just at the end of the dinner, his eyes, which had
been staring at everybody in turn, fixed themselves for a
while upon the plate laid for George. He pointed to it pres-
ently with his left hand. His daughters looked at him and
did not comprehend, or choose to comprehend, the signal;
nor did the servants at first understand it.

“Take that plate away,” at last he said, getting up with
an oath; and with this, pushing his chair back, he walked
into his own room.

Behind Mr. Osborne’s dining-room was the usual apart-
ment which went in his house by the name of the study, and
was sacred to the master of the house. Hither Mr. Osborne
would retire of a Sunday forenoon when not minded to go
to church; and here pass the morning in his crimson leather
chair, reading the paper. A couple of glazed book-cases were
here, containing standard works in stout gilt bindings. The
“Annual Register,” the “Gentleman’s Magazine,” “Blair’s
Sermons,” and “Hume and Smollett.” From year’s end to
year’s end he never took one of these volumes from the shelf;
but there was no member of the family that would dare for
‘A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 235

his life to touch one of the books, except upon those rare
Sunday evenings when there was no dinner-party, and when
the great scarlet Bible and Prayer-book were taken out from
the corner where they stood beside his copy of the Peerage,
and the servants being rung up to the dining parlor, Osborne
read the evening service to his family in a loud, grating,
pompous voice. No member of the household, child, or
domestic, ever entered that room without a certain terror.
Here he checked the housekeeper’s accounts, and overhauled
the butler’s cellar-book. Hence he could command, across the
clean gravel court-yard, the back entrance of the stables with
which one of his bells communicated, and into this yard the
coachman issued from his premises as into a dock, and Os-
borne swore at him from the study window. Four times a
year Miss Wirt entered this apartment to get her salary; and
his daughters to receive their quarterly allowance. George
as a boy had been horsewhipped in this room many times;
his mother sitting sick on the stair listening to the cuts of
the whip. The boy was scarcely ever known to cry under the
punishment; the poor woman used to fondle and kiss him
secretly, and give him money to soothe him when he came
out.

There was a picture of the family over the mantel-piece,
removed thither from the front room after Mrs. Osborne’s
death,—George was on a pony, the elder sister holding him up
a bunch of flowers; the younger led by her mother’s hand;
all with red cheeks and large red mouths, simpering on each
other in the approved family-portrait manner. The mother
lay underground now, long since forgotten,—the sisters and
brother had a hundred different interests of their own, and,
familiar still, were utterly estranged from each other. Some
few score of years afterwards, when all the parties represented
are grown old, what bitter satire there is in those flaunting
childish family portraits, with their farce of sentiment and
smiling lies, and innocence so self-conscious and self-satisfied.
Osborne’s own state portrait, with that of his great silver ink-
stand and arm-chair, had taken the place of honor in the
dining-room, vacated by the family-piece.

To this study old Osborne retired then, greatly to the relief
of the small party whom he left. When the servants had with-
drawn, they began to talk for a while volubly but very low;
then they went up stairs quietly, Mr. Bullock accompanying
them stealthily on his creaking shoes. He had no heart to sit
236 VANITY FAIR.

alone drinking wine, and so close to the terrible old gentle-
man in the study hard at hand.

An hour at least after dark, the butler, not having received
any summons, ventured to tap at his door and take him in
wax candles and tea. The master of the house sat in his
chair pretending to read the paper, and when the servant,
placing the lights and refreshments on the table by him, re-
tired, Mr. Osborne got up and locked the door after him.
This time there was no mistaking the matter; all the house-
hold knew that some great catastrophe was going to happen
which was likely direly to affect Master George.

In the large shining mahogany escritoire Mr. Osborne had
a drawer especially devoted to his son’s affairs and papers.
Here he kept all the documents relating to him ever since
he had been a boy: here were his prize copy-books and draw-
ing-books, all bearing George’s hand, and that of the master:
here were his first letters in large round hand sending his love
to papa and mamma, and conveying his petitions for a cake.
His dear god-papa Sedley was more than once mentioned in
them. Curses quivered on old Osborne’s livid lips, and horrid
hatred and disappointment writhed in his heart, as looking
through some of these papers he came on that name. They
were all marked and docketed, and tied with red tape. Jt
was—“From Georgy, requesting 5s., April 23, 18—; an-
swered, Apri] 25,”—or “Georgy about a pony, October 13,”—
and so forth. In another packet were “Dr. 8.’s accounts,” —
“G.’s tailor’s bills and outfits, drafts on me by G. Osborne,
jun.”, ete.—his letters from the West Indies,—his agent’s
letters, and the newspapers containing his commissions: here
was a whip he had when a boy, and in a paper a locket con-
taining his hair, which his mother used to wear.

Turning one over after another, and musing over these
memorials, the unhappy man passed many hours. His dear-
est vanities, ambitious hopes, had all been here. What pride
he had in his boy! He was the handsomest child ever seen.
Everybody said he was like a nobleman’s son. A royal prin-
cess had remarked him, and kissed him, and asked his name
in Kew Gardens. What City man could show such another?
Could a prince have been better cared for? Anything that
money couid buy had been his son’s. He used to go down on
speech-days with four horses and new liveries, and scatter new
shillings among the boys at the school where George was:
when he went with George to the depot of his regiment, before
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 237

the boy embarked for Canada, he gave the officers such a
dinner as the Duke of York might have sat down to. Had
he ever refused a bill when George drew one? There they
were,—paid without a word. Many a general in the army
couldn’t ride the horses he had! He had the child before his
eyes, on a hundred different days when he remembered George,
—after dinner, when he used to come in as bold as a lord and
drink off his glass by his father’s side, at the head of the table,
—on the pony at Brighton, when he cleared the hedge and
kept up with the huntsman,—on the day when he was pre-
sented to the Prince Regent at the levee, when all Saint
James’s couldn’t produce a finer young fellow. And this, this
was the end of all!—to marry a bankrupt and fly in the face
of duty and fortune! What humiliation and fury; what
pangs of sickening rage, balked ambition and love; what
wounds of outraged vanity, tenderness even, had this old
worldling now to suffer under!

Having examined these papers, and pondered over this one
and the other, in that bitterest of all helpless woe, with which
miserable men think of happy past times,—George’s father
took the whole of the documents out of the drawer in which
he had kept them so long, and locked them into a writing-
box, which he tied, and sealed with his seal. Then he opened
the book-case, and took down the great red Bible we have
spoken of,—a pompous book, seldom looked at, and shining
all over with gold. There was a frontispiece to the volume,
representing Abraham sacrificing Isaac. Here, according to
custom, Osborne had recorded on the fly-leaf, and in his large
clerk-like hand, the dates of his marriage and his wife’s death,
and the births and Christian names of his children. Jane
came first, then George Sedley Osborne, then Maria Frances,
and the days of the christening of each. Taking a pen, he
carefully obliterated George’s name from the page; and when
the leaf was quite dry, restored the volume to the place from
which he had moved it. Then he took a document out of an-
other drawer, where his own private papers were kept; and,
having read it, crumpled it up and lighted it at one of the
candles, and saw it burn entirely away in the grate. It was his
will; which being burned, he sat down and wrote off a letter,
and rang for his servant, whom he charged to deliver it in the
morning. It was morning already: as he went up to bed, the
whole house was alight with the sunshine; and the birds
were singing among the fresh green leaves in Russell Square.
238 VANITY FAIR,

Anxious to keep all Mr. Osborne’s family and dependants
in good-humor, and to make as many friends as possible for
George in his hour of adversity, William Dobbin, who knew the
effect which good dinners and good wines have upon the soul
of man, wrote off immediately on his return to his inn the
most hospitable of invitations to Thomas Chopper, Esquire,
begging that gentleman to dine with him at the Slaughter’s
next day. The note reached Mr. Chopper before he left the
City and the instant reply was, that “Mr. Chopper presents
his respectful compliments, and will have the honor and pleas-
ure of waiting on Captain D.” The invitation and the rough
draft of the answer were shown to Mrs. Chopper and her
daughters on his return to Somers’ Town that evening, and
they talked about military gents and West End men with
great exultation as the family sat and partook of tea. When
the girls had gone to rest, Mr. and Mrs. C. discoursed upon
the strange events which were occurring in the governor’s
family. Never had the clerk seen his principal so moved.
When he went in to Mr. Osborne, after Captain Dobbin’s de-
parture, Mr. Chopper found his chief black in the face, and
all but in a fit: some dreadful quarrel, he was certain, had
occurred between Mr. O. and the young Captain. Chopper
had been instructed to make out an account of all sums paid
to Captain Osborne within the last three years. “And a
precious lot of money he has had too,” the chief clerk said,
and respected his old and young master the more for the
liberal way in which the guineas had been flung about. The
dispute was something about Miss Sedley. Mrs. Chopper
vowed and declared she pitied that poor young lady to lose
such a handsome young fellow as the Capting. As the daugh-
ter of an unlucky speculator, who had paid a very shabby
dividend, Mr. Chopper had no great regard for Miss Sedley.
He respected the house of Osborne before all otherg in the
city of London; and his hope and wish was that Captain
George should marry a nobleman’s daughter. The clerk slept
a great deal sounder than his principal that night; and, cud-
dling his children after breakfast (of which he partook with a
very hearty appetite, though his modest cup of life was only
sweetened with brown sugar), he set off in his best Sunday
suit and frilled shirt for business, promising his admiring wife
not to punish Captain D.’s port too severely that evening.

Mr. Osborne’s countenance, when he arrived in the City
at his usual time, struck those dependants who were accus-
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 239

tomed, for good reasons, to watch its expression, as peculiarly
ghastly and worn. At twelve o’clock Mr. Higgs (of the firm
of Higgs & Blatherwick, solicitors, Bedford Row) called by
appointment, and was ushered into the governor’s private
room, and closeted there for more than an hour. At about
one Mr. Chopper received a note brought by Captain Dob-
bin’s man, and containing an enclosure for Mr. Osborne, which
the clerk went in and delivered. A short time afterwards Mr.
Chopper and Mr. Birch, the next clerk, were summoned, and
requested to witness a paper. “I’ve been making a new will,”
Mr. Osborne said, to which these gentlemen appended their
names accordingly. No conversation passed. Mr. Higgs
looked exceedingly grave as he came into the outer rooms,
and very hard in Mr. Chopper’s face; but there were not any
explanations. It was remarked that Mr. Osborne was partic-
ularly quiet and gentle all day, to the surprise of those who
had augured ill from his darkling demeanor. He called no
man names that day, and was not heard to swear once. He
left business early; and, before going away, summoned his
chief clerk once more, and, having given him general instruc-
tions, asked him, after some seeming hesitation and reluctance
to speak, if he knew whether Captain Dobbin was in town.

Chopper said he believed he was. Indeed both of them
Imew the fact perfectly.

Osborne took a letter directed to that officer, and, giving
it to the clerk, requested the latter to deliver it into Dobbin’s
own hands immediately.

“And now, Chopper,” says he, taking his hat, and with
a strange look, “my mind will be easy.” Exactly as the clock
struck two (there was no doubt an appointment between the
pair), Mr. Frederick Bullock called, and he and Mr. Osborne
walked away together.

The Colonel of the —th Regiment, in which Messieurs Dob-
bin and Osborne had companies, was an old general who had
made his first campaign under Wolfe at Quebec, and was long
since quite too old and feeble for command; but he took some
interest in the regiment of which he was the nominal head,
and made certain of his young officers welcome at his table,
a kind of hospitality which I believe is not now common
amongst his brethren. Captain Dobbin was an especial favor-
ite of this old General. Dobbin was versed in the literature
of his profession, and could talk about the great Frederic, and
240 = VANITY FAIR.

the Empress Queen, and their wars, almost as well as the
General himself, who was indifferent to the triumphs of the
present day, and whose heart was with the tacticians of fifty
years back. This officer sent a summons to Dobbin to come
and breakfast with him, on the morning when Mr. Osborne al-
tered his will, and Mr. Chopper put on his best shirt-frill, and
then informed his young favorite, a couple of days in advance,
of that which they were all expecting,—a marching order to
go to Belgium. The order for the regiment to hold itself in
readiness would leave the Horse Guards in a day or two; and
as transports were in plenty, they would get their route be-
fore the week was over. Recruits had come in during the stay
of the regiment at Chatham; and the old General hoped
that the regiment which had helped to beat Montcalm in
Canada, and to rout Mr. Washington on Long Island, would
prove itself worthy of its historical reputation on the oft-
trodden battle-grounds of the Low Countries. “And so, my
good friend, if you have any affaireld,” said the old General,
taking a pinch of snuff with his trembling white old hand,
and then pointing to the spot of his robe de chambre under
which his heart was still feebly beating, “if you have any
Phillis to console, or to bid farewell to papa and mamma, or
any will to make, I recommend you to set about your business
without delay.” With which the General gave his young
friend a finger to shake, and a good-natured nod of his pow-
dered and pigtailed head; and, the door being closed upon
Dobbin, sat down to pen a poulet (he was exceedingly vain of
his French) to Mademoiselle Aménaide of his Majesty’s
Theater.

This news made Dobbin grave, and he thought of our
friends at Brighton, and then he was ashamed of himself
that Amelia was always the first thing in his thoughts (always
before anybody,—before father and mother, sisters and duty,
—always at waking and sleeping indeed, and all day long);
and, returning to his hotel, he sent off a brief note to Mr. Os-
borne acquainting him with the information which he had
received, and which might tend further, he hoped, to bring
about a reconciliation with George.

This note, despatched by the same messenger who had car-
ried the invitation to Chopper on the previous day, alarmed
the worthy clerk not a little. It was inclosed to him, and as
he opened the letter he trembled lest the dinner should be put
off on which he was calculating. His mind was inexpressibly
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 241

relieved when he found that the envelope was only a reminder
for himself. (*“T shall expect you at half past five,” Captain
Dobbin wrote.) He was very much interested about his em-
ployer’s family; but, gue voulez-vous? a grand dinner was
of more concern to him than the affairs of any other mortal.

Dobbin was quite justified in repeating the General’s in-
formation to any officers of the regiment whom he should sce
in the course of his peregrinations; accordingly he imparted
it to Ensign Stubble, whom he met at the agent’s, and who—
such was his military ardor—went off instantly to purchase
a new sword at the accounterment-maker’s. Here this young
fellow, who, though only seventeen years of age, and about
sixty-five inches high, with a constitution naturally rickety
and much impaired by premature brandy and water, had an
undoubted courage and a lion’s heart, poised, tried, bent, and
balanced a weapon such as he thought would do execution
amongst Frenchmen. Shouting “Ha, ha!” and stamping his
little feet with tremendous energy, he delivered the point twice
or thrice at Captain Dobbin, who parried the thrust laugh-
ingly with his bamboo walking-stick.

Mr. Stubble, as may be supposed from his size and slender-
ness, was of the Light Bobs. Ensign Spooney, on the con-
trary, was a tall youth, and belonged to (Captain Dobbin’s)
the Grenadier Company, and he tried on a new bear-skin cap,
under which he looked savage beyond his years. Then these
two lads went off to the Slaughter’s, and, having ordered a
famous dinner, sat down and wrote off letters to the kind,
anxious parents at home,—letters full of love and heartiness,
and pluck and bad spelling. Ah! there were many anxious
hearts beating through England at that time; and mothers’
prayers and tears flowing in many homesteads.

Seeing young Stubble engaged in composition at one of
the coffee-room tables at the Slaughter’s, and the tears trick-
ling down his nose on to the paper (for the youngster was
thinking of his mamma, and that he might never see her
again), Dobbin, who was going to write off a letter to George
Osborne, relented, and locked up his desk. “Why should 1?”
said he. “Let her have this night happy. I'll go and see my
parents early in the morning, and go down to Brighton my-
self to-morrow.”

So he went up and laid his big hand on young Stubble’s
shoulder, and backed up that young champion, and told him
if he would leave off brandy and water he would be a good

16
242 VANITY FAIR,

soldier, as he always was a gentlemanly, good-hearted fellow.
Young Stubble’s eyes brightened up at this, for Dobbin was
greatly respected in the regiment, as the best officer and the
cleverest man in it.

“Thank you, Dobbin,” he said, rubbing his eyes with his
knuckles, “I was just—just telling her I would. And, O sir,
she’s so dam kind to me.” The water pumps were at work
again, and I am not sure that the soft-hearted Captain’s eyes
did not also twinkle.

The two ensigns, the captain, and Mr. Chopper, dined to-
gether in the same box. Chopper brought the letter from
Mr. Osborne, in which the latter briefly presented his compli-
ments to Captain Dobbin, and requested him to forward the
enclosed to Captain George Osborne. Chopper knew nothing
further; he described Mr. Osborne’s appearance, it is true,
and his interview with his lawyer, wondered how the governor
had sworn at nobody, and—especially as the wine circled
round—abounded in speculations and conjectures. But these
grew more vague with every glass, and at length became per-
fectly unintelligible. Ata late hour Captain Dobbin put his
guest into a hackney-coach, in a hiccoughing state, and
swearing that he would be the kick—the kick—captain’s
friend for ever and ever.

When Captain Dobbin took leave of Miss Osborne we have
said that he asked leave to come and pay her another visit,
and the spinster expected him for some hours the next day,
when, perhaps, had he come, and had he asked her that ques-
tion which she was prepared to answer, she would have de-
clared herself as her brother’s friend, and a reconciliation
might have been effected between George and his angry
father. But, though she waited at home, the Captain never
came. He had his own affairs to pursue; his own parents to
visit and console; and at an early hour of the day to take his
place on the Lightning coach, and go down to his friends at
Brighton. In the course of the day Miss Osborne heard her
father give orders that that meddling scoundrel, Captain Dob-
bin, should never be admitted within his doors again, and any
hopes in which she may have indulged privately were thus
abruptly brought to an end. Mr. Frederick Bullock came,
and was particularly affectionate to Maria, and attentive to
the broken-spirited old gentleman. For, though he said his
mind would be easy, the means which he had taken to secure
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO, 243

quiet did not seem to have succeeded as yet, and the events
of the past two days had visibly shattered him.

CHAPTER XXV.

IN WHICH ALL THE PRINCIPAL PERSONAGES THINK FIT
TO LEAVE BRIGHTON.

Conducted to the ladies, at the Ship Inn, Dobbin assumed
a jovial and rattling manner, which proved that this young
officer was becoming a more consummate hypocrite every day
of his life. He was trying to hide his own private feelings,
first upon seeing Mrs. George Osborne in her new condition,
and secondly to mask the apprehensions he entertained as to
the effect which the dismal news brought down by him would
certainly have upon her.

“It is my opinion, George,” he said, “that the French
Emperor will be upon us, horse and foot, before three weeks
are over, and will give the Duke such a dance as shall make
the Peninsula appear mere child’s play. But you need not
say that to Mrs. Osborne, you know. There mayn’t be any
fighting on our side after all, and our business in Belgium
may turn out to be a mere military occupation. Many per-
sons think so; and Brussels is full of fine people and ladies
of fashion.” So it was agreed to represent the duty of the
British army in Belgium in this harmless light to Amelia.

This plot being arranged, the hypocritical Dobbin saluted
Mrs. George Osborne quite gayly, tried to pay her one or two
compliments relative to her new position as a bride (which
compliments, it must be confessed, were exceedingly clumsy
and hung fire wofully), and then fell to talking about Brigh-
ton, and the sea-air, and the gayeties of the place, and the
beauties of the road, and the merits of the “Lightning” coach
and horses,—all in a manner quite incomprehensible to Ame-
lia, and very amusing to Rebecca, who was watching the Cap-
tain, as indeed she watched every one near whom she came.

Little Amelia, it must be owned, had rather a mean opinion
of her husband’s friend, Captain Dobbin. He lisped,—he was
very plain and homely-looking: and exceedingly awkward
and ungainly. She liked him for his attachment to her hus-
band (to be sure there was very little merit in that), and she
thought George was most generous and kind in extending
244 VANITY FAIR.

his friendship to his brother officer. George had mimicked
Dobbin’s lisp and queer manners many times to her, though,
to do him justice, he always spoke most highly of his friend’s
good qualities. In her little day of triumph, and not know-
ing him intimately as yet, she made light of honest William,—
and he knew her opinions of him quite well, and acquiesced in
them very humbly. A time came when she knew him better,
and changed her notions regarding him; but that was distant
as yet.

As for Rebecca, Captain Dobbin had not been two hours
in the ladies’ company before she understood his secret per-
fectly. She did not like him, and feared him privately; nor
was he very much prepossessed in her favor. He was so hon-
est, that her arts and cajoleries did not affect him, and he
shrank from her with instinctive repulsion. And, as she was
by no means so far superior to her sex as to be above jealousy,
she disliked him the more for his adoration of Amelia. Never-
theless, she was very respectful and cordial in her manner to-
wards him. A friend to the Osbornes! a friend to her dearest
benefactors! She vowed she should always love him sincerely:
she remembered him quite well on the Vauxhall night, as
she told Amelia archly, and she made a little fun of him when
the two ladies went to dress for dinner. Rawdon Crawley paid
scarcely any attention to Dobbin, looking upon him as a good-
natured nincompoop and under-bred City man. Jos patron-
ized him with much dignity.

When George and Dobbin were alone in the latter’s room,
to which George had followed him, Dobbin took from his
desk the letter which he had been charged by Mr. Osborne
to deliver to hig son. “It’s not in my father’s handwriting,”
said George, looking rather alarmed; nor was it: the letter
was from Mr. Osborne’s lawyer, and to the following effect:—

“Bedford Row, May 7, 1815.

“Sir:—I am commissioned by Mr. Osborne to inform you,
that he abides by the determination which he before expressed
to you, and that, in consequence of the marriage which you
have been pleased to contract, he ceases to consider you hence-
forth as a member of his family. This determination is final
and irrevocable.

“Although the moneys expended upon you in your minority,
and the bills which you have drawn upon him so unsparingly
of late years, far exceed in amount the sum to which you are
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 248

entitled in your own right (being the third part of the fortune
of your mother, the late Mrs. Osborne, and which reverted
to you at her decease, and to Miss Jane Osborne and Miss
Maria Frances Osborne); yet I am instructed by Mr. Osborne
to say, that he waives all claim upon your estate and that
the sum of £2,000, 4 per cent annuities, at the
value of the day (being your one-third share of the sum
of £6,000), shall be paid over to yourself or your agents upon
your receipt for the same, by
“Your obedient servt.,
“S. Higgs.

“P. S.—Mr. Osborne desires me to say, once for all, that he
declines to receive any messages, letters, or communications
from you on this or any other subject.”

“A pretty way you have managed the affair,” said George
looking savagely at William Dobbin. “Look there, Dobbin,”
and he flung over to the latter his parent’s letter. “A beg-
gar, by Jove, and all in consequence of my d—d sentimen-
tality. Why couldn’t we have waited? A ball might have
done for me in the course of the war, and may still, and how
will Emmy be bettered by being left a beggar’s widow? It
was all your doing. You were never easy until you had got
me married and ruined. What the deuce am I to do with
two thousand pounds? Such a sum won’t last two years.
T’ve lost a hundred and forty to Crawley at cards and billiards
since I’ve been down here. A pretty manager of a man’s
matters you are, forsooth.”

“There’s no denying that the position is a hard one,” Dob-
bin replied, after reading over the letter with a blank coun-
tenance; “and, as you say, it is partly of my making. There
are some men that wouldn’t mind changing with you,” he
added, with a bitter smile. “How many captains in the regi-
ment have two thousand pounds to the fore, think you?
You must live on your pay till your father relents, and, if you
die, you leave your wife with a hundred a year.”

“Do you suppose a man of my habits can live on his pay
and a hundred a year?” George cried out in great anger.
“You must be a fool to talk so, Dobbin. How the deuce am
I to keep up my position in the world upon such a pitiful
pittance? I can’t change my habits. I must have my com-
forts. I wasn’t brought up on porridge, like MacWhirter, or
246 VANITY FAIR.

on potatoes, like old O'Dowd. Do you expect my wife to take
in soldiers’ washing, or ride after the regiment in a baggage
wagon?”

“Well, well,” said Dobbin still good-naturedly, “we'll get
her a better conveyance. But try and remember that you are
only a dethroned prince now, George, my boy; and be quiet
whilst the tempest lasts. It won’t be for long. Let your
name be mentioned in the Gazette, and T’ll engage the old
father relents toward you.”

“Mentioned in the Gazette!” George answered. “And in
what part of it? Among the killed and wounded returns,
and at the top of the list, very likely.”

“Psha! It will be time enough to ery out when we are
hurt,” Dobbin said. “And if anything happens, you know,
George, I have got a little, and I am not a marrying man,
and I shall not forget my godson in my will,” he added, with
a smile. Whereupon the dispute ended,—as many scores of
such conversations between Osborne and his friend had con-
cluded previously,—by the former declaring there was no pos-
sibility of being angry with Dobbin long, and forgiving him
very generously after abusing him without cause.

“T say, Becky,” cried Rawdon Crawley out of his dressing-
room, to his lady, who was attiring herself for dinner in her
own chamber.

“What?” said Becky’s shrill voice. She was looking over
her shoulder in the glass. She had put on the neatest and
freshest white frock imaginable, and with bare shoulders and
a little necklace, and a light blue sash, she looked the image
of youthful innocence and girlish happiness.

“I say, what'll Mrs. O. do, when O. goes out with the regi-
ment?” Crawley said, coming into the room, performing a
duet on his head with two huge hair-brushes, and looking
out from under his hair with admiration on his pretty little
wife.

“T suppose she'll cry her eyes out,” Becky answered. “She
has been whimpering half a dozen times, at the very notion
of it, already to me.”

“You don’t care, I suppose?” Rawdon said, half angry at
his wife’s want of feeling.

“You wretch! don’t you know that I intend to go with
you?” Becky replied. “Besides, you’re different. You go
as General Tufto’s aide-de-camp. We don’t belong to the
line,’ Mrs. Crawley said, throwing up her head with an air
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 247

that so enchanted her husband that he stooped down and
kissed it.

“Rawdon, dear,—don’t you think—you’d better get that—
money from Cupid, before he goes?’ Becky continued, fix-
ing on a killing bow. She called George Osborne, Cupid. She
had flattered him about his good looks a score of times al-
ready. She watched over him kindly at écarté of a night
when he would drop into Rawdon’s quarters for a half-hour
before bedtime.

She had often called him a horrid dissipated wretch, and
threatened to tell Emmy of his wicked ways and naughty ex-
travagant habits. She brought his cigar and lighted it for
him; she knew the effect of that manoeuver, having prac-
ticed it in former days upon Rawdon Crawley. He thought
her gay, brisk, arch, distinguée, delightful. In their little
drives and dinners, Becky, of course, quite outshone poor
Emmy, who remained very mute and timid while Mrs. Craw-
ley and her husband rattled away together, and Captain Craw-
ley (and Jos after he joined the young married people) gob-
bled in silence.

Emmy’s mind somehow misgave her about her friend. Re-
becca’s wit, spirits, and accomplishments troubled her with a
rueful disquiet. They were only a week married, and here
was George already suffering ennui, and eager for others’ so-
ciety. She trembled for the future. How shall I be a com-
panion for him, she thought,—so clever and so brilliant, and I
such a humble, foolish creature? How noble it was of him to
marry me,—to give up everything and stoop down to me! I
ought to have refused him, only I had not the heart. I
ought to have stopped at home and taken care of poor papa.
And her neglect of her parents (and, indeed, there was some
foundation for this charge which the poor child’s uneasy con-
science brought against her) was now remembered for the
first time, and caused her to blush with humiliation. Oh!
thought she, I have been very wicked and selfish,—selfish in
forgetting them in their sorrows,—selfish in forcing George
to marry me. I know I’m not worthy of him,—I know he
would have been happy without me,—and yet—I tried, I tried
to give him up.

Tt is hard when, before seven days of marriage are over,
such thoughts and confessions as these force themselves on a
little bride’s mind. But so it was, and the night before Dob-
bin came to join these young people,—on a fine brilliant
248 VANITY FAIR.

moonlight night of May,—so warm and balmy that the win-
dows were flung open to the balcony, from which George and
Mrs. Crawley were gazing upon the calm ocean spread shin-
ing before them, while Rawdon and Jos were engaged at
backgammon within,—Amelia couched in a great chair quite
neglected, and watching both these parties, felt a despair and
remorse such as were bitter companions for that tender, lonely
soul. Scarce a week was past, and it was come to this! The
future, had she regarded it, offered a dismal prospect; but
Emmy was too shy, so to speak, to look to that, and embark
alone on that wide sea, and unfit to navigate it without a
guide and protector. I know Miss Smith has a mean opinion
of her. But how many, my dear madam, are endowed with
your prodigious strength of mind?

“Gad, what a fine night, and how bright the moon is!”
George said, with a puff of his cigar, which went soaring up
skywards.

“How delicious they smell in the open air! J adore them.
Who’d think the moon was two hundred and thirty-six thou-
sand eight hundred and forty-seven miles off?” Becky added,
gazing at that orb with a smile. “Isn’t it clever of me to re-
member that? Pooh! we learned it all at Miss Pinkerton’s!
How calm the sea is, and how clear everything! I declare
I can almost see the coast of France!” and her bright green
eyes streamed out, and shot into the night as if they could
see through it.

“Do you know what I intend to do one morning?” she said;
“T find I can swim beautifully, and some day, when my Aunt
Crawley’s companion—old Briggs, you know—you remember
her—that hook-nosed woman, with the long wisps of hair—
when Briggs goes out to bathe, I intend to dive under her
awning, and insist on a reconciliation in the water. Isn’t that
a stratagem?”

George burst out laughing at the idea of this aquatic meet-
ing. “What’s the row there, you two?” Rawdon shouted out,
rattling the box. Amelia was making a fool of herself in an
absurd hysterical manner, and retired to her own room to
whimper in private.

Our history is destined in this chapter to go backwards
and forwards in a very irresolute manner seemingly, and, hav-
ing conducted our story to to-morrow presently, we shall im-
mediately again have occasion to step back to yesterday, so
that the whole of the tale may get a hearing. As you behold
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 249

at her Majesty’s drawing-room, the ambassadors’ and high
dignitaries’ carriages whisk off from a private door, while
Captain Jones’s ladies are waiting for their fly: as you see
in the Secretary of the Treasury’s antechamber a half-dozen
of petitioners waiting patiently for their audience, and called
out one by one, when suddenly an Jvish member or some emi-
nent personage enters the apartment, and instantly walks into
Mr. Under-Secretary over the heads of all the people present:
so, in the conduct of a tale, the romancer is obliged to exer-
cise this most partial sort of justice. Although all the little
incidents must be heard, yet they must be put off when the
great events make their appearance; and surely such a circnn-
stance as that which brought Dobbin to Brighton, viz., the or-
dering out of the Guards and the line to Belgium, and the
mustering of the allied armies in that country under the com-
mand of his Grace the Duke of Wellington,—such a digni-
fied circumstance as that, I say, was entitled to the pas over
all minor occurrences whereof this history is composed main-
ly, and hence a little trifling disarrangement and disorder was
excusable and becoming. We have only now advanced in
time so far beyond Chapter XXII. as to have got our various
characters up into their dressing-rooms before the dinner,
which took place as usual on the day of Dobbin’s arrival.

George was too humane or too much occupied with the tie
of his neckcloth to convey at once all the news to Amelia
which his comrade had brought with him from London. He
came into her room, however, holding the attorney’s letter in
his hand, and with so solemn and important an air that his
wife, always ingeniously on the watch for calamity, thought
the worst was about to befall, and, running up to her hus-
band, besought her dearest George to tell her everything,—
he was ordered abroad; there would be a battle next week,—
she knew there would.

Dearest George parried the question about foreign service,
and with a melancholy shake of the head said, “No, Emmy;
jt isn’t that: it’s not myself I care about: it’s you. I have had
bad news from my father. He refuses any communication
with me; he has flung us off; and leaves us to poverty. I can
rough it well enough; but you, my dear, how will you bear
it? read here.” And he handed her over the letter.

Amelia, with a look of tender alarm in her eyes, listened
to her noble hero as he uttered the above generous sentiments,
and, sitting down on the bed, read the letter which George
250 VANITY FAIR.

gave her with such a pompous, martyr-like air. Her face
cleared up as she read the document, however. The idea of
sharing’ poverty and privation in company with the beloved
object is, as we have before said, far from being disagreeable
to a warm-hearted woman. The notion was actually pleasant
to little Amelia. Then, as usual, she was ashamed of herself
for feeling happy at such an indecorous moment, and checked
her pleasure, saying demurely, “O George, how your poor
hear, must bleed at the idea of being separated from your
papa!’

“Tt does,” said George, with an agonized countenance.

“But he can’t be angry with you long,” she continued.
“Nobody could, I’m sure. He must forgive you, my dearest,
kindest husband. O, I shall never forgive myself if he does
not.”

“What vexes me, my poor Emmy, is not my misfortune, but
yours,” George said. “I don’t care for a little poverty; and I
think, without vanity, I’ve talents enough to make my own
way.”

“That you have,” interposed his wife, who thought that
war should cease, and her husband should be made a general
instantly.

“Yes, I shall make my way as well as another,” Osborne
went on; “but you, my dear girl, how can I bear your being
deprived of the comforts and station in society which my
wife had a right to expect? My dearest girl in barracks; the
wife of a soldier in a marching regiment; subject to all sorts
of annoyance and privation! It makes me miserable.”

Emmy, quite at ease, as this was her husband’s only cause
of disquiet, took his hand, and with a radiant face and smile
began to warble that stanza from the favorite song of “Wap-
ping Old Stairs,” in which the heroine, after rebuking her
Tom for inattention, promises “his trousers to mend, and his
grog too to make,” if he will be constant and kind, and not
forsake her. “Besides,” she said, after a pause, during which
she looked as pretty and happy as any young woman need,
“isn’t two thousand pounds an immense deal of money,
George?”

George laughed at her naiveté; and finally they went down
to dinner, Amelia clinging on George’s arm, still warbling
the tune of “Wapping Old Stairs,” and more pleased and
light of mind than she had been for some days past. ;

“Thus the repast, which at length came off, instead of being
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 251

dismal, was an exceedingly brisk and merry one. The excite-
ment of the campaign counteracted in George’s mind the de-
pression occasioned by the disinheriting letter. Dobbin still
kept up his character of rattle. He amused the company
with accounts of the army in Belgium, where nothing but
fétes and gayety and fashion were going on. Then, having
a particular end in view, this dexterous Captain proceeded to
describe Mrs. Major O’Dowd packing her own and her Major’s
wardrobe, and how his best epaulets had been stowed into a
tea-canister, whilst her own famous yellow turban, with the
bird of paradise wrapped in brown paper, was locked up in the
Major’s tin cocked-hat case, and wondered what effect it
would have at the French king’s court at Ghent, or the great
military balls at Brussels.

“Ghent! Brussels!” cried out Amelia, with a sudden shock
and start. “Is the regiment ordered away, George,—is it or-
dered away?” <A look of terror came over the sweet smil-
ing face, and she clung to George as by an instinct.

“Don’t be afraid, dear,” he said good-naturedly; “it is but
a twelve hours’ passage. It won’t hurt you. You shall go,
too, Emmy.”

“T intend to go,” said Becky. “I’m on the staff. General
Tufto is a great flirt of mine. Isn’t he, Rawdon?”

Rawdon laughed out with his usual roar. William Dobbin
fiushed up quite red. “She can’t go,” he said; “think of the—
of the danger,” he was going to add; but had not all his con-
versation during dinner-time tended to prove there was none?
He became very confused and silent.

“T must and will go,’ Amelia cried, with the greatest spirit;
and George, applauding her resolution, patted her under the
chin, and asked all the persons present if they ever saw such
a termagant of a wife, and agreed that the lady should bear
him company. ‘We'll have Mrs. O’Dowd to chaperon you,”
he said. What cared she so long as her husband was near
her? Thus somehow the bitterness of a parting was juggled
away. Though war and danger were in store, war and danger
might not befall for months to come. There was a respite
at any rate, which made the timid little Amelia almost as
happy as a full reprieve would have done, and which even
Dobbin owned in his heart was very welcome. For, to be per-
mitted to see her was now the greatest privilege and hope of
his life, and he thought with himself secretly how he would
watch and protect her. I wouldn’t have let her go if I had
252 VANITY FAIR,

been married to her, he thought. But George was the master,
and his friend did not think fit to remonstrate.

Putting her arm round her friend’s waist, Rebecca at length
carried Amelia off from the dinner-table where so much busi-
ness of importance had been discussed, and left the gentle-
ae in a highly exhilarated state, drinking and talking very
gayly.

In the course of the evening Rawdon got a little family
note from his wife, which, although he crumpled it up and
burnt it instantly in the candle, we had the good luck to read
over Rebecca’s shoulder. “Great news,” she wrote. “Mrs.
Bute is gone. Get the money from Cupid to-night, as he’ll
be off to-morrow most likely. Mind this—R.” So when the
little company was about adjourning to coffee in the women’s
apartment, Rawdon touched Osborne on the elbow, and said
gracefully, “I say, Osborne, my boy, if quite convenient, I'll
trouble you for that ’ere small trifle.” It was not quite con-
venient, but nevertheless George gave him a considerable
present instalment in bank-notes from his pocket-book, and a
bill on his agents at a week’s date for the remaining sum.

This matter arranged, George and Jos and Dobbin held
a council of war over their cigars, and agreed that a general
move should be made for London in Jos’s open carriage the
next day. Jos, I think, would have preferred staying until
Rawdon Crawley quitted Brighton, but Dobbin and George
overruled him, and he agreed to carry the party to town, and
ordered four horses, as became his dignity. With these they
set off in state, after breakfast, the next day. Amelia had
risen very early in the morning, and packed her little trunks
with the greatest alacrity, while Osborne lay in bed deploring
that she had not a maid to help her. She was only too glad,
however, to perform this office for herself. A dim, uneasy
sentiment about Rebecca filled her mind already; and al-
though they kissed each other most tenderly at parting, yet
we know what jealousy is; and Mrs. Amelia possessed that
among other virtues of her sex.

Besides these characters who are coming and going away,
we must remember that there were some other old friends
of ours at Brighton; Miss Crawley, namely, and the suite in
attendance upon her. Now, although Rebecca and her hus-
band were but at a few stones’ throw of the lodgings which
the invalid Miss Crawley occupied, the old lady’s door re-
mained as pitilessly closed to them as it had been heretofore
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO, 253

in London. As long as she remained by the side of her sister-
in-law, Mrs. Bute Crawley took care that her beloved Ma-
tilda should not be agitated by a meeting with her nephew.
When the spinster took her drive, the faithful Mrs. Bute
sat beside her in the carriage. When Miss Crawley took the
air in a chair, Mrs. Bute marched on one side of the vehicle,
whilst honest Briggs occupied the other wing. And if they
met Rawdon and his wife by chance, although the former
constantly and obsequiously took off his hat, the Miss-Craw-
ley party passed him by with such a frigid and killing in-
difference, that Rawdon began to despair.

“We might as well be in London as here,” Captain Rawdon
often said, with a downcast air.

“A comfortable inn in Brighton is better than a sponging-
house in Chancery Lane,” his wife answered, who was of a
more cheerful temperament. “Think of those two aides-de-
camp of Mr. Moses, the sheriff’s officer, who watched our
lodging for a week. Our friends here are very stupid, but
Mr. Jos and Captain Cupid are better companions than Mr.
Moses’s men, Rawdon, my love.”

I wonder the writs haven’t followed me down here,” Raw-
don continued, still desponding.

“When they do, we’ll find means to give them the slip,”
said dauntless little Becky, and further pointed out to her
husband the great comfort and advantage of meeting Jos and
Osborne, whose acquaintance had brought to Rawdon Crawley
a most timely little supply of ready money.

“Tt will hardly be enough to pay the inn bill,” grumbled
the Guardsman.

“Why need we pay it?” said the lady, who had an answer
for everything.

Through Rawdon’s valet, who still kept up a trifling ac-
quaintance with the male inhabitants of Miss Crawley’s serv-
ants’ hall, and was instructed to treat the coachman to drink
whenever they met, old Miss Crawley’s movements were pretty
well known by our young couple; and Rebecca luckily be-
thought herself of being unwell, and of calling in the same
apothecary who was in attendance upon the spinster, so that
their information was on the whole tolerably complete. Nor
was Miss Briggs, although forced to adopt a hostile attitude,
secretly inimical to Rawdon and his wife. She was naturally
of a kindly and forgiving disposition, Now that the cause of
jealousy was removed, her dislike for Rebecca disappeared
254 VANITY FAIR.

also, and she remembered the latter’s invariable good words
and good-humor. And, indeed, she and Mrs. Firkin, the
lady’s-maid, and the whole of Miss Crawley’s household,
groaned under the tyranny of the triumphant Mrs. Bute.

As often will be the case, that good but imperious woman
pushed her advantages too far, and her successes quite un-
mercifully. She had in the course of a few weeks brought
the invalid to such a state of helpless docility, that the poor
soul yielded herself entirely to her sister’s orders, and did not
even dare to complain of her slavery to Briggs or Firkin.
Mrs. Bute measured out the glasses of wine which Miss Craw-
ley was daily allowed to take, with irresistible accuracy, great-
ly to the annoyance of Firkin and the butler, who found
themselves deprived of control over even the sherry-bottle.
She apportioned the sweetbreads, jellies, chickens; their quan-
tity and order. Night and noon and morning she brought
the abominable drinks ordained by the Doctor, and made her
patient swallow them with so affecting an obedience, that
Firkin said, “My poor Missus du take her physic like a lamb.”
She prescribed the drive in the carriage or the ride in the
chair, and, in a word, ground down the old lady in her con-
valescence in such a way as only belongs to your proper-man-
aging, motherly, moral woman. If ever the patient faintly
resisted, and pleaded for a little bit more dinner or a little
drop less medicine, the nurse threatened her with instan-
taneous death, when Miss Crawley instantly gave in. “She’s
no spirit left in her,” Firkin remarked to Briggs; “she ain’t
ave called me a fool these three weeks.” Finally, Mrs. Bute
had made up her mind to dismiss the aforesaid honest lady’s-
maid, Mr. Bowls the large confidential man, and Briggs her-
self, and to send for her daughters from the Rectory, previous
to removing the dear invalid bodily to Queen’s Crawley, when
an odious accident happened which called her away from
duties so pleasing. The Reverend Bute Crawley, her hus-
band, riding home one night, fell with his horse and broke his
collar-bone. Fever and inflammatory symptoms set in, and
Mrs. Bute was forced to leave Sussex for Hampshire. As
soon as ever Bute was restored, she promised to return to her
dearest friend, and departed, leaving the strongest injunctions
with the household regarding their behavior to their mistress;
and as soon as she got into the Southampton coach, there was
such a jubilee and sense of relief in all Miss Crawley’ s house
as the company of persons assembled aner had not exper*-
 

VIRTUE REWARDED.

 

A BOOTH IN

VANITY FAIR
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 255

enced for many a week before. That very day Miss Crawley
left off her afternoon dose of medicine; that afternoon Bowls
opened an independent bottle of sherry for himself and Mrs.
Firkin; that night Miss Crawley and Miss Briggs indulged in
a game of piquet instead of one of Porteus’s sermons. It was
as In the old nursery-story, when the stick forgot to beat the
dog, and the whole course of events underwent a peaceful and
happy revolution.

At a very early hour in the morning, twice or thrice a week,
Miss Briggs used to betake herself to a bathing-machine, and
disport in the water in a flannel gown and an oil-skin cap.
Rebecca, as we have seen, was aware of this circumstance, and
though she did not attempt to storm Briggs as she had
threatened, and actually dive into that lady’s presence and
surprise her under the sacredness of the awning, Mrs. Raw-
don determined to attack Briggs as she came away from her
bath, refreshed and invigorated by her dip, and likely to be
in good-humor.

So, getting up very early the next morning, Becky brought
the telescope in their sitting-room, which faced the sea, to
bear upon the bathing-machines on the beach; saw Briggs
arrive, enter her box, and put out to sea; and was on the
shore just as the nymph of whom she came in quest stepped
out of the little caravan on to the shingles. It was a pretty
picture; the beach; the bathing-women’s faces; the long line
of rocks and buildings were blushing and bright in the sun-
shine. Rebecca wore a kind, tender smile on her face, and
was holding out her pretty white hand as Briggs emerged
from the box. What could Briggs do but accept the saluta-
tion?

“Miss Sh—, Mrs. Crawley,” she said.

Mrs. Crawley seized her hand, pressed it to her heart, and
with a sudden impulse, flinging her arms round Briggs, kissed
her affectionately. “Dear, dear friend!” she said, with a
touch of such natural feeling, that Miss Briggs of course at
once began to melt, and even the bathing-woman was molli-
fied.

Rebecca found no difficulty in engaging Briggs in a long,
intimate, and delightful conversation. Everything that had
passed since the morning of Becky’s sudden departure from
Miss Crawley’s house in Park Lane up to the present day, and
Mrs. Bute’s happy retreat, was discussed and described by
Briggs. All Miss Crawley’s symptoms, and the particulars
256 VANITY FAIR.

of her illness and medical treatment, were narrated by the
confidante with that fullness and accuracy which women de-
light in. About their complaints and their doctors do ladies
ever tire of talking to each other? Briggs did not on this oc-
casion; nor did Rebecca weary of listening. She was thank-
ful, truly thankful, that the dear kind Briggs, that the faith-
ful, the invaluable Firkin, had been permitted to remain
with their benfactress through her illness. Heaven bless her!
though she, Rebecca, had seemed to act undutifully towards
Miss Crawley; yet was not her fault a natural and excusable
one? Could she help giving her hand to the man who had
won her heart? Briggs, the sentimental, could only turn up
her eyes to heaven at this appeal, and heave a sympathetic
sigh, and think that she, too, had given away her affections
Jong years ago, and own that Rebecca was no very great crim-
inal.

“Can I ever forget her who so befriended the friendless or-
phan? No, though she has cast me off,” the latter said, “I
shall never cease to love her, and I would devote my life to her
service. As my own benefactress, as my beloved Rawdon’s
adored relative, I love and admire Miss Crawley, dear Miss
Briggs, beyond any woman in the world, and next to her I
love all those who are faithful to her. I would never have
treated Miss Crawley’s faithful friends as that odious, design-
ing Mrs. Bute had done. Rawdon, who was all heart,” Re-
becca continued, “although his outward manners might seem
rough and careless, had said a hundred times, with tears in
his eyes, that he blessed Heaven for sending his dearest Aunty
two such admirable nurses as her attached Firkin and her
admirable Miss Briggs. Should the machinations of the hor-
rible Mrs. Bute end, as she too much feared they would, in
banishing everybody that Miss Crawley loved from her side,
and leaving that poor lady a victim to those harpies at the
Rectory, Rebecca besought her (Miss Briggs) to remember
that her own home, humble as it was, was always open to re-
ceive Briggs. Dear friend,” she exclaimed, in a transport of
enthusiasm, “some hearts can never forget benefits; all wom-
en are not Bute Crawleys! Though why should I complain
of her?” Rebecca added; “though I have been her tool and
the victim to her arts, do I not owe my dearest Rawdon to
her?” And Rebecca unfolded to Briggs all Mrs. Bute’s con-
duct at Queen’s Crawley, which, though unintelligible to her
then, was clearly enough explained by the events now,—now
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 257

that the attachment had sprung up which Mrs. Bute had en-
eouraged by a thousand artifices,—now that two innocent peo-
ple had fallen into the snares which she had laid for them,
and loved and married and been ruined through her schemes.

It was all very true. Briggs saw the stratagems as clearly
as possible. Mrs. Bute had made the match between Rawdon
and Rebecca. Yet, though the latter was a perfectly inno-
cent victim, Miss Briggs could not disguise from her friend
her fear that Miss Crawley’s affections were hopelessly es-
tranged from Rebecca, and that the old lady would never for-
give her nephew for making so imprudent a marriage.

On this point Rebecca had her own opinion, and still kept
up a good heart. If Miss Crawley did not forgive them at
present, she might at least relent on a future day. Even
now, there was only that puling, sickly Pitt Crawley between
Rawdon and a baronetcy; and, should anything happen to
the former, all would be well. At all events, to have Mrs.
Bute’s designs exposed, and herself well abused, was a satis-
faction, and might be advantageous to Rawdon’s interest;
and Rebecca, after an hour’s chat with her recovered friend,
left her with the most tender demonstrations of regard, and
quite assured that the conversation they had had together
would be reported to Miss Crawley before many hours were
over.

This interview ended, it became full time for Rebecca to
return to her inn, where all the party of the previous day were
assembled at a farewell breakfast. Rebecca took such a ten-
der leave of Amelia as became two women who loved each
other as sisters; and having used her handkerchief plenti-
fully, and hung on her friend’s neck as if they were parting
forever, and waved the handkerchief (which was quite dry, by
the way) out of window, as the carriage drove off, she came
back to the breakfast-table, and ate some prawns with a good
deal of appetite, considering her emotion; and while she was
munching these delicacies, explained to Rawdon what had oc-
curred in her morning walk between herself and Briggs. Her
hopes were very high: she made her husband share them.
She generally succeeded in making her husband share all her
opinions, whether melancholy or cheerful.

“You will now, if you please, my dear, sit down at the writ-
ing-table and pen me a pretty little letter to Miss Crawley,
in which you’ll say that you are a good boy, and that sort of
thing.” So Rawdon sat down, and wrote off, “Brighton,

17
258 VANITY FAIR.

Thursday,” and “My dear Aunt,” with great rapidity; but
there the gallant officer’s imagination failed him. He mum-
bled the end of his pen, and looked up in his wife’s face. She
could not help laughing at his rueful countenance, and,
marching up and down the room with her hands behind her,
the little woman began to dictate a letter, which he took
down.

“Before quitting the country and commencing a campaign,
which very possibly may be fatal,”

“What?” said Rawdon, rather surprised, but took the hu-
mor of the phrase, and presently wrote it down with a grin.

“Which very possibly may be fatal, I have come hither—”

“Why not say come here, Becky? come here’s grammar,”
the dragoon interposed.

“T have come hither,” Rebecca insisted, with a stamp of her
foot, “to say farewell to my dearest and earliest friend. I be-
seech you before I go, not perhaps to return, once more to let
me press the hand from which I have received nothing but
kindnesses all my life.”

“Kindnesses all my life,” echoed Rawdon, scratching down
the words, and quite amazed at his own facility of composition.

“T ask nothing from you but that we should part not in
anger. I have the pride of my family on some points, though
not on all. I married a painter’s daughter, and am not
ashamed of the union.”

“No, run me through the body if I am!” Rawdon ejacu-
lated.

“You old booby,” Rebecca said, pinching his ear and look-
ing over to see that he made no mistakes in spelling,—“be-
seech is not spelt with an a, and earliest is.’ So he altered
these words, bowing to the superior knowledge of his little
Missis.

“T thought that you were aware of the progress of my at-
tachment,” Rebecca continued; “I knew that Mrs. Bute Craw-
ley confirmed and encouraged it. But I make no reproaches.
I married a poor woman, and am content to abide by what I
have done. Leave your property, dear Aunt, as you will. I
shall never complain of the way in which you dispose of it. I
would have you believe that I love you for yourself, and not
for money’s sake. I want to be reconciled to you ere I leave
England. Let me, let me see you before I go. A few weeks
or months hence it may be too late, and 1 cannot bear the
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 259

notion of quitting the country without a kind word of fare-
well from you.”

“She won’t recognize my style in that,” said Becky. “I
made the sentences short and brisk on purpose.” And this
authentic missive was despatched under cover to Miss Briggs.

Old Miss Crawley laughed when Miss Briggs, with great
mystery, handed her over this candid and simple statement.
“We may read it now Mrs. Bute is away,” she said. “Read
it to me, Briggs.”

When Briggs had read the epistle out, her patroness laugh-
ed more.

“Don’t you see, you goose,” she said to Briggs, who professed
to be much touched by the honest affection which pervaded
the composition,—‘“don’t you see that Rawdon never wrote a
word of it? He never wrote to me without asking for money
in his life, and all his letters are full of bad spelling, and
dashes, and bad grammar. It is that little serpent of a gov-
erness who rules him.” They are all alike, Miss Crawley
thought in her heart. They all want me dead, and are hank-
ering for my money.

“J don’t mind seeing Rawdon,” she added, after a pause,
and in a:tone of perfect indifference. “I had just as soon
shake hands with him as not. Provided there is no scene,
why shouldn’t we meet? Idon’t mind. But human patience
has its limits; and mind, my dear, I respectfully decline to see
Mrs. Rawdon,—TI can’t support that quite;’—and Miss Briggs
was fain to be content with this half-message of conciliation;
and thought that the best method of bringing the old lady
and her nephew together, was to warn Rawdon to be in wait-
ing on the Cliff when Miss Crawley went out for her air in her
chair.

There they met. I don’t know whether Miss Crawley had
any private feeling of regard or emotion upon seeing her old
favorite; but she held out a couple of fingers to him with as
smiling and good-humored an air as if they had met only the
day before. And as for Rawdon, he turned as red as scarlet,
and wrung off Briggs’s hand, so great was his rapture and
his confusion at the meeting. Perhaps it was interest that
moved him; or perhaps affection; perhaps he was touched by
the change which the illness of the last weeks had wrought
in his aunt.

“The old girl has always acted like a trump to me,” he said
to his wife, as he narrated the interview, “and I felt, you
260 VANITY FAIR,

know, rather queer, and that sort of thing. I walked by the
side of the what-d’-ye-call’em, you know, and to her own
door, where Bowls came to help her in. And I wanted to go
in very much, only—”

“You didn’t go in, Rawdon!” screamed his wife.

“No, my dear; I’m hanged if I wasn’t afraid when it came
to the point.”

“You fool! you ought to have gone in, and never come out
again,” Rebecca said.

“Don’t call me names,” said the big Guardsman, sulkily.
“Perhaps I was a fool, Becky, but you shouldn’t say so;” and
he gave his wife a look, such as his countenance could wear
when angered, and such as was not pleasant to face.

“Well, dearest, to-morrow you must be on the lookout, and
go and see her, mind, whether she asks you or no,” Rebecca
said, trying to soothe her angry yoke-mate. On which he
replied, that he would do exactly as he liked, and would just
thank her to keep a civil tongue in her head,—and the
wounded husband went away, and passed the forenoon at the
billiard-room, sulky, silent, and suspicious.

But before the night was over he was compelled to give in,
and own, as usual, to his wife’s superior prudence and fore-
sight, by the most melancholy confirmation of the presenti-
ments which she had regarding the consequences of the mis-
take which he had made. Miss Crawley must have had some
emotion upon seeing him and shaking hands with him after
so long a rupture. She mused upon the meeting a consid-
erable time. “Rawdon is getting very fat and old, Briggs,”
she said to her companion. “His nose has become red, and
he is exceedingly coarse in appearance. Tis marriage to that
woman has hopelessly vulgarized him. Mrs. Bute always said
they drank together; and I have no doubt they do. Yes: he
smelt of gin abominably. I remarked it. Didn’t you?”

In vain Briggs interposed that Mrs. Bute spoke ill of every-
body; and, as far as a person in her humble position could
judge, was an—

“An artful, designing woman? Yes, so she is, and she
does speak ill of every one,—but I am certain that woman has
made Rawdon drink. All those low people do—”

“He was very much affected at seeing you, ma’am,” the
companion said; “and IJ am sure, when you remember that he
is going to the field of danger—”
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 261

“How much money has he promised you, Briggs?” the old
spinster cried ont, working herself into a nervous rage,—
“there now, of course, you begin to cry. I hate scenes. Why
am I always to be worried? Go and cry up in your own
room, and send Firkin to me,—no, stop, sit down and blow
your nose, and leave off crying, and write a letter to Captain
Crawley.” Poor Briggs went and placed herself obediently
at_the writing-book. Its leaves were blotted all over with
relics of the firm, strong, rapid handwriting of the spinster’s
late amanuensis, Mrs. Bute Crawley.

“Begin ‘My dear sir,’ or ‘Dear sir, that will be better, and
say you are desired by Mrs. Crawley,—no, by Miss Crawley’s
medical man, by Mr. Creamer, to state, that my health is such
that all strong emotions would be dangerous in my present
delicate condition,—and that I must decline any family dis-
cussions or interviews whatever. And thank him for coming
to Brighton, and so forth, and beg him not to stay any longer
on my account. And, Miss Briggs, you may add that I wish
him a bon voyage, and that, if he will take the trouble to call
upon my lawyer’s in Gray’s Inn Square, he will find there a
communication for him. Yes, that will do; and that will
make him leave Brighton.” The benevolent Briggs penned
this sentence with the utmost satisfaction.

“To seize upon me the very day after Mrs. Bute was gone,”
the old lady prattled on; “it was too indecent. Briggs, my
dear, write to Mrs. Crawley, and say she needn’t come back.
No,—she needn’t,—and she sha’n’t,—and I won’t be a slave
in my own house,—and I won’t be starved and choked with
poison. They all want to kill me—all—all;” and with this
the lonely woman burst into a scream of hysterical tears.

The last scene of her dismal Vanity Fair comedy was fast
approaching; the tawdry lamps were going out one by one;
und the dark curtain was almost ready to descend.

That final paragraph, which referred Rawdon to Miss Craw-
ley’s solicitor in London, and which Briggs had written so
vood-naturedly, consoled the dragoon and his wife somewhat,
after their first blank disappointment, on reading the spin-
ster’s refusal of a reconciliation. And it effected the purpose
for which the old lady had caused it to be written, by making
Rawdon very eager to get to London.

Out of Jos’s losings and George Osborne’s bank-notes he
paid his bill at the inn, the landlord whereof does not proba-
bly know to this day how doubtfully his account once stood.
262 VANITY FAIR.

For, as a general sends his baggage to the rear before an ac-
tion, Rebecca had wisely packed up all their chief valuables
and sent them off under care of George’s servant, who went
in charge of the trunks on the coach back to London. Raw-
don and his wife returned by the same conveyance next day.

“T ghould have liked to see the old girl before we went,”
Rawdon said. “She looks so cut up and altered that ’m sure
she can’t last long. I wonder what sort of a check I shall
have at Waxy’s. Two hundred,—it can’t be less than two
hundred,—hey, Becky?”

In consequence of the repeated visits of the aides-de-camp
of the Sheriff of Middlesex, Rawdon and his wife did not go
back to their lodgings at Brompton, but put up at an inn.
Early the next morning, Rebecca had an opportunity of see-
ing them as she skirted that suburb on her road to old Mrs.
Sedley’s house at Fulham, whither she went to look for her
dear Amelia and her Brighton friends. They were all off to
Chatham, thence to Harwich to take shipping for Belgium
with the regiment,—kind old Mrs. Sedley very much depress-
ed and tearful, solitary. Returning from this visit, Rebecca
found her husband, who had been off to Gray’s Inn, and
learnt his fate. He came back furious.

“By Jove, Becky,” says he, “she’s only given me twenty
pounds!”

Though it told against themselves, the joke was too good,
and Becky burst out laughing at Rawdon’s discomfiture.

CHAPTER XXVI.

BETWEEN LONDON AND CHATHAM.

On quitting Brighton, our friend George, as became a per-
son of rank and fashion traveling in a barouche with four
horses, drove in state to a fine hotel in Cavendish Square,
where a suite of splendid rooms, and a table magnificently
furnished with plate and surrounded by a half-dozen of black
and silent waiters, was ready to receive the young gentleman
and his bride. George did the honors of the place with a
princely air to Jos and Dobbin; and Amelia, for the first time,
and with exceeding shyness and timidity, presided at what
George called her own table.
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 263

George pooh-poohed the wine and bullied the waiters roy-
ally, and Jos gobbled the turtle with immense satisfaction.
Dobbin helped him to it; for the lady of the house before
whom the tureen was placed was so ignorant of the contents,
that she was going to help Mr. Sedley without bestowing
upon him either callipash or callipee.

The splendor of the entertainment and the apartments in
which it was given alarmed Mr. Dobbin, who remonstrated
after dinner when Jos was asleep in the great chair. But in
vain he cried out against the enormity of turtle and cham-
pagne that was fit for an archbishop. “I’ve always been ac-
customed to travel like a gentleman,’ George said, “and,
damme, my wife shall travel like a lady. As long as there’s
a shot in the locker, she shall want for nothing,” said the
generous fellow, quite pleased with himself for his mag-
nificence of spirit. Nor did Dobbin try and convince him
that Amelia’s happiness was not centered in turtle-soup.

Awhile after dinner, Amelia timidly expressed a wish to go
and see her mamma, at Fulham: which permission George
granted her with some grumbling. And she tripped away
to her enormous bedroom, in the center of which stood the
enormous funereal bed, “that the Emperor Halixander’s sister
slep’ in when the allied sufferings was here,” and put on her
little bonnet and shawl with the utmost eagerness and pleas-
ure. George was still drinking claret when she returned to
the dining-room, and made no signs of moving. “Ar’n’t you
coming with me, dearest?” she asked him. No; the “dearest”
had “business” that night. His man should get her a coach
and go with her. And the coach being at the door of the
hotel, Amelia made George a little disappointed courtesy after
looking vainly into his face once or twice, and went sadly
down the great staircase, Captain Dobbin after, who handed
her into the vehicle, and saw it drive away to its destination.
The very valet was ashamed of mentioning the address to the
hackney-coachman before the hotel waiters, and promised to
instruct him when they got farther on.

Dobbin walked home to his old quarters at the Slaughter’s,
thinking very likely that it would be delightful to be in that
hackney-coach, along with Mrs. Osborne. George was evi-
dently of quite a different taste; for when he had taken wine
enough, he went off to half-price at the play, to see Mr. Kean
perform in Shylock. Captain Osborne was a great lover of
the drama, and had himself performed high-comedy charac-
264 VANITY FAIR.

ters with great distinction in several garrison theatrical en-
tertainments. Jos slept on until long after dark, when he
woke up with a start at the motions of his servant, who was
removing and emptying the decanters on the table; and the
hackney-coach stand was again put into requisition for a car-
riage to convey this stout hero to his lodgings and bed.

Mrs. Sedley, we may be sure, clasped her daughter to her
heart with all maternal eagerness and affection, running out
of the door as the carriage drew up before the little garden-
gate, to welcome the weeping, trembling young bride. Old
Mr. Clapp, who was in his shirt-sleeves, trimming the garden-
plot, shrank back alarmed. The Irish servant-lass rushed up
from the kitchen and smiled a “God bless you.” Amelia
could hardly walk along the flags and up the steps into the

arlor.

i How the floodgates were opened and mother and daughter
wept, when they were together embracing cach other in this
sanctuary, may readily be imagined by every reader who pos-
sesses the least sentimental turn. When don’t ladies weep?
At what occasion of joy, sorrow, or other business of life?
and, after such an event as a marriage, mother and daughter
were surely at liberty to give way to a sensibility which is as
tender as it is refreshing. About a question of marriage I
have seen women who hate each other kiss and cry together
quite fondly. How much more do they feel when they love!
Good mothers are married over again at their daughters’ wed-
dings; and as for subsequent events, who does not know how
ultra-maternal grandmothers are?—in fact a woman, until she
is a grandmother, does not often really know what to be a
mother is. Let us respect Amelia and her mamma whisper-
ing and whimpering and laughing and crying in the parlor
and the twilight. Old Mr. Sedley did. He had not divined
who was in the carriage when it drove up. He had not flown
out to meet his daughter, though he kissed her very warmly
when she entered the room (where he was occupied, as usual,
with his papers and tapes and statements of accounts), and,
after sitting with the mother and daughter for a short time,
he very wisely left the little apartment in their possession.

George’s valet was looking on in a very supercilious manner
at Mr. Clapp in his shirt-sleeves, watering his rose-bushes.
He took off his hat, however, with much condescension to Mr.
Sedley, who asked news about his son-in-law, and about Jos’s
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 265

carriage, and whether his horses had been down to Brighton,
and about that infernal traitor Bonaparty, and the war; until
the Irish maid-servant came with a plate and a bottle of
wine, from which the old gentleman insisted upon helping the
valet. He gave him a half-guinea too, which the servant
pocketed with a mixture of wonder and contempt. “To the
health of your master and mistress, Trotter,’ Mr. Sedley
said, “and here’s something to drink your health when you
get home, Trotter.”

There were but nine days past since Amelia had left that
little cottage and home,—and yet how far off the time seemed
since she had bidden it farewell. What a gulf lay between
her and that past life. She could look back to it from her
present standing-place, and contemplate, almost as another
being, the young unmarried girl absorbed in her love, having
no eyes but for one special object, receiving parental affection
if not ungratefully, at least indifferently, and as if it were
her due,—her whole heart and thoughts bent on the accom-
plishment of one desire. The review of those days, so lately
gone yet so far away, touched her with shame; and the aspect
of the kind parents filled her with tender remorse. Was the
prize gained,—the heaven of life,-—and the winner still doubt-
ful and unsatisfied? As his hero and heroine pass the matri-
monial barrier, the novelist generally drops the curtain, as if
the drama were over then; the doubts and struggles of life
ended; as if, once landed in the marriage country, all were
green and pleasant there; and wife and husband had nothing
but to link each other’s arms together, and wander gently
downwards towards old age in happy and perfect fruition.
But our little Amelia was just on the bank of her new coun-
try, and was already looking anxiously back towards the sad,
friendly figures waving farewell to her across the stream,
from the other distant shore.

In honor of the young bride’s arrival, her mother thought
it necessary to prepare I don’t know what festive entertain-
ment, and, after the first ebullition of talk, took leave of
Mrs. George Osborne for a while, and dived down to the
lower regions of the house to a sort of kitchen-parlor (oc-
cupied by Mr. and Mrs. Clapp, and in the evening, when
her dishes were washed and her curl-papers removed, by Miss
Flannigan, the Irish servant), there to take measures for the
preparing of a magnificent ornamented tea. All people have
their ways of expressing kindness, and it seemed to Mrs. Sed.
266 VANITY FAIR.

ley that a muffin and a quantity of orange marmalade spread
out in a little cut-glass saucer would be peculiarly agreeable
refreshments to Amelia in her most interesting situation.

While these delicacies were being transacted below, Amelia,
leaving the drawing-room, walked up stairs and found her-
self, she scarce knew how, in the little room which she had
occupied before her marriage, and in that very chair in
which she had passed so many bitter hours. She sank back
in its arms as if it were an old friend; and fell to thinking
over the past week, and the life beyond it. Already to be
looking sadly and vaguely back; always to be pining for
something which, when obtained, brought doubt and sadness
rather than pleasure; here was the lot of our poor little crea-
ture, and harmless lost wanderer in the great struggling
crowds of Vanity Fair.

Here she sat, and recalled to herself fondly that image
of George to which she had knelt before marriage. Did she
own to herself how different the real man was from that
superb young hero whom she had worshiped? It requires
many, many years—and a man must be very bad indeed—he-
fore a woman’s pride and vanity will let her own to such a
confession. Then Rebecca’s twinkling green eyes and baleful
smile lighted upon her, and filled her with dismay. And so
she sat for a while indulging in her usual mood of selfish
brooding, in that very listless melancholy attitude in which
the honest maid-servant had found her, on the day when she
brought up the letter in which George renewed his offer of
marriage.

She looked at the little white bed, which had been hers, a
few days before, and thought she would like to sleep in it
that night, and wake, as formerly, with her mother smiling
over her in the morning. Then she thought with terror of
the great funereal damask pavilion in the vast and dingy
state bedroom, which was awaiting her at the grand hotel in
Cavendish Square. Dear little white bed! how many a long
night had she wept on its pillow! How she had despaired and
hoped to die there; and now were not all her wishes accom-
plished, and the lover of whom she had despaired her own
forever? Kind mother! how patiently and tenderly she had
watched round that bed! She went and knelt down by the
bedside; and there this wounded and timorous, but gentle and
loving soul, sought for consolation, where as yet, it must be
owned, our little girl had but seldom looked for it. Love had
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 267

been her faith hitherto; and the sad, bleeding, disappointed
heart began to feel the want of another sea

Have we a right to repeat or to overhear her prayers?
These, brother, are secrets, and out of the domain of Vanity
Fair, in which our story lies.

But this may be said, that, when the tea was finally an-
nounced, our young lady came down stairs a great deal more
cheerful; that she did not despond, or deplore her fate, or
think about George’s coldness, or Rebecca’s eyes, as she had
been wont to do of late. She went down stairs, and kissed
her father and mother, and talked to the old gentleman, and
made him more merry than he had been for many a day.
She sat down at the piano which Dobbin had bought for her,
and sang over all her father’s favorite old songs. She pro-
nounced the tea to be excellent, and praised the exquisite
taste in which the marmalade was arranged in the saucers.
And in determining to make everybody else happy, she found
herself so; and was sound asleep in the great funereal pavil-
ion, and only woke up with a smile when George arrived
from the theater.

For the next day, George had more important “business”
to transact than that which took him to see Mr. Kean in Shy-
lock. Immediately on his arrival in London he had written
off to his father’s solicitors, signifying his royal pleasure that
an interview should take place between them on the morrow.
His hotel logses at billiards and cards to Captain Crawley bad
almost drained the young man’s purse, which wanted replen-
ishing before he set out on his travels, and he had no re-
source but to infringe upon the two thousand pounds which
the attorneys were commissioned to pay overto him. He had
a perfect belief in his own mind that his father would relent
before very long. How could any parent be obdurate for a
length of time against such a paragon as he was? If his
mere past and personal merits did not succeed in mollifying
the father, George determined that he would distinguish him-
self so prodigiously in the ensuing campaign that the old
gentleman must give in to him. Andif not? Bah! the world
was before him. His luck might change at cards, and there
was a deal of spending in two thousand pounds.

So he sent off Amelia once more in a carriage to her mam-
ma, with strict orders and carte blanche to the two ladies
to purchase everything requisite for a lady of Mrs. George
Osborne’s fashion, who was going on a foreign tour. They
268 VANITY FAIR.

had but one day to complete the outfit, and it may be im-
agined that their business therefore occupied them pretty
fully. In a carriage once more, bustling about from milliner
to linendraper, escorted back to the carriage by obsequious
shopmen or polite owners, Mrs. Sedley was herself again al-
most, and sincerely happy for the first time since their mis-
fortunes. Nor was Mrs. Amelia at all above the pleasure of
shopping, and bargaining, and seeing and buying pretty
things. (Would any man, the most philosophic, give two-
pence for a woman who was?) She gave herself a little treat,
obedient to her husband’s orders, and purchased a quantity of
lady’s gear, showing a great deal of taste and elegant dis-
cernment, as all the shop-folks said.

And about the war that was ensuing, Mrs. Osborne was not
much alarmed; Bonaparty was to be crushed almost without
a struggle. Margate packets were sailing every day, filled
with men of fashion and ladies of note, on their way to Brus-
sels and Ghent. People were going not so much to a war
as to a fashionable tour. The newspapers laughed the wretch-
ed upstart and swindler to scorn. Such a Corsican wretch as
that withstand the armies of Europe and the genius of the
immortal Wellington! Amelia held him in utter contempt;
for it needs not to be said that this soft and gentle creature
took her opinions from those people who surrounded her,
such fidelity being much too humble-minded to think for
itself. Well, ina word, she and her mother performed a
great day’s shopping, and she acquitted herself with consid-
erable liveliness and credit on this her first appearance in the
genteel world of London.

George meanwhile, with his hat on one side, his elbows
squared, and his swaggering martial air, made for Bedford
Row, and stalked into the attorney’s offices as if he was lord
of every pale-faced clerk who was scribbling there. He or-
dered somebody to inform Mr. Higgs that Captain Osborne
was waiting, in a fierce and patronizing way, as if the pékin
of an attorney, who had thrice his brains, fifty times his
money, and a thousand times his experience, was a wretched
underling who should instantly leave all his business in
life to attend on the Captain’s pleasure. He did not see the
sneer of contempt which passed all round the room, from the
first clerk to the articled gents, from the articled gents to the
ragged writers and white-faced runners, in clothes too tight
for them, as he sat there tapping his boot with his cane, and
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 269

thinking what a parcel of miserable poor devils these were.
The miserable poor devils knew all about his affairs. They
talked about them over their pints of beer at their public-
house clubs to other clerks of a night. Ye Gods, what do
not attorneys and attorneys’ clerks know in London! Noth-
ing is hidden from their inquisition, and their familiars mute-
ly rule our city.

Perhaps George expected, when he entered Mr. Higgs’s
apartment, to find that gentleman commissioned to give him
some message of compromise or conciliation from his father;
perhaps hig haughty and cold demeanor was adopted as a
sign of his spirit and resolution: but if so, his fierceness was
met by a chilling coolness and indifference on the attorney’s
part, that rendered swaggering absurd. He pretended to be
writing at a paper, when the Captain entered. “Pray, sit
down, sir,” said he, “and I will attend to your little affair in
a moment. Mr. Poe, get the release papers, if you please;”
and then he fell to writing again.

Poe having produced those papers, his chief calculated the
amount of two thousand pounds stock at the rate of the day;
and asked Captain Osborne whether he would take the sum in
a check upon the bankers, or whether he should direct the
latter to purchase stock to that amount. “One of the late
Mrs. Osborne’s trustees is out of town,” he said indifferently,
“but my client wishes to meet your wishes, and have done
with the business as quick as possible.”

“Give me a check, sir,” said the Captain very surlily.
“Damn the shillings and halfpence, sir,” he added, as the
lawyer was making out the amount of the draft; and, flatter-
ing himself that by this stroke of magnanimity he had put
the old quiz to the blush, he stalked out of his office with
the paper in his pocket.

“That chap will be in jail in two years,” Mr. Higgs said to
Mr. Poe.

“Won’t O. come round, sir, don’t you think?”

“Won't the monument come round?” Mr. Higgs replied.

“He’s going it pretty fast,” said the clerk. “He’s only mar-
ried a week, and I saw him and some other military chaps
handing Mrs. Highflyer to her carriage after the play.” And
then another case was called, and Mr. George Osborne thence-
forth dismissed from these worthy gentlemen’s memory.

The draft was upon our friends Hulker and Bullock of
Lombard Street, to whose house, still thinking he was doing
270 VANITY FAIR.

business, George bent his way, and from whom he received
his money. Frederick Bullock, Esq., whose yellow face was
over a ledger, at which sat a demure clerk, happened to be in
the banking-room when George entered. His yellow face
turned to a more deadly color when he saw the Captain, and
he slunk back guiltily into the inmost parlor. George was
too busy gloating over the money (for he had never had such
a sum before), to mark the countenance or flight of the cada-
verous suitor of his sister.

Fred. Bullock told old Osborne of his son’s appearance and
conduct, “He came in as bold as brass,” said Frederick. “He
has drawn out every shilling. How long will a few hundred
pounds last such a chap as that?” Osborne swore with a
great oath that he little cared when or how soon he spent it.
Fred. dined every day in Russell Square now. But altogether,
George was highly pleased with his day’s business. All his
own baggage and outfit was put into a state of speedy prepar-
ation, and he paid Amelia’s purchases with checks on his
agents, and with the splendor of a lord.

 

CHAPTER XXVII.

IN WHICH AMELIA JOINS HER REGIMENT,

When Jos’s fine carriage drove up to the inn door at Chat-
ham, the first face which Amelia recognized was the friendly
countenance of Captain Dobbin, who had been pacing the
street for an hour past in expectation of bis friend’s arrival.
The Captain, with shells on his frock coat, and a crimson
sash and saber, presented a military appearance, which made
Jos quite proud to be able to claim such an acquaintance,
and the stout civilian hailed him with a cordiality very dif-
ferent from the reception which Jos vouchsafed to his friend
in Brighton and Bond Street.

Along with the Captain was Ensign Stubble; who, as the
barouche neared the inn, burst out with an exclamation of
“By Jove! what a pretty girl!” highly applauding Osborne’s
choice. Indeed, Amelia, dressed in her wedding-pelisse and
pink ribbons, with a flush in her face occasioned by rapid
travel through the open air, looked so fresh and pretty as
fully to justify the Ensign’s compliment. Debbin liked him
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 271

for making it. As he stepped forward to help the lady out
of the carriage, Stubble saw what a pretty little hand she
gave him, and what a sweet pretty little foot came tripping
down the step. He blushed profusely, and made the very best
bow of which he was capable; to which Amelia, seeing the
number of the —th regiment embroidered on the Ensign’s
cap, replied with a blushing smile, and a courtesy on her
part; which finished the young Ensign on the spot. Dobbin
took most kindly to Mr. Stubble from that day,and encouraged
him to talk about Amelia in their private walks, and at each
other’s quarters. It became the fashion, indeed, among all
the honest young fellows of the —th to adore and admire
Mrs. Osborne. Her simple, artless behavior and modest kind-
ness of demeanor won all their unsophisticated hearts; all
which simplicity and sweetness are quite impossible to de-
scribe in print. But who has not beheld these among women,
and recognized the presence of all sorts of qualities in them,
even though they say no more to you than _ that
they are engaged to dance the next quadrille, or
that it is very hot weather? George, always the champion of
his regiment, rose immensely in the opinion of the youth of
the corps, by his gallantry in marrying this portionless young
creature, and by his choice of such a pretty, kind partner.

In the sitting-room which was awaiting the travelers, Ame-
lia, to her surprise, found a letter addressed to Mrs. Captain
Osborne. It was a triangular billet, on pink paper, and sealed
with a dove and an olive-branch and a profusion of light
blue sealing-wax, and it was written in a very large, though
undecided female hand.

“It’s Peggy O’Dowd’s fist,” said George, laughing. “TI
know it by the kisses on the seal.” And, in fact, it was a note
from Mrs. Major O’Dowd, requesting the pleasure of Mrs. Os-
borne’s company that very evening to a small friendly party.
“You must go,” George said. “You will make acquaintance
with the regiment there. O’Dowd goes in command of the
regiment, and Peggy goes in command of O’Dowd.”

But they had not been for many minutes in the enjoy-
ment of Mrs. O’Dowd’s letter, when the door was flung open,
and a stout jolly lady, in a riding-habit, followed by a couple
of officers of Ours, entered the room.

“Sure, I could’nt stop till tay-time. Present me, Garge,
my dear fellow, to your lady. Madam, I’m deloighted to see
ye, and to present to you me husband, Meejor O’Dowd”; and
272 VANITY FAIR,

with this, the jolly lady in the riding-habit grasped Amelia's
hand very warmly, and the latter knew at once that the lady
was before her whom her husband had so often laughed at.
“You've often heard of me from that husband of yours,” said
the lady, with great vivacity.

“You’ve often heard of her,” echoed her husband, the
Major.

Amelia answered, smiling, that she had.

“And small good he’s told you of me,’ Mrs. O’Dowd re-
plied: adding that “George was a wicked divvle.”

“That I'll go bail for,” said the Major, trying to look know-
ing, at which George laughed; and Mrs. O’Dowd, with a tap
of her whip, told the Major to be quiet; and then requested
to be presented in form to Mrs. Captain Osborne.

“This, my dear,” said George, with great gravity, “is my
very good, kind, and excellent friend, Auralia Margaretta,
otherwise called Peggy.”

“Faith, you’re right,” interposed the Major.

- “Otherwise called Peggy, lady of Major Michael O’Dowd,
of our regiment, and daughter of Fitzjurld Ber’sford de
Burgo Malony of Glenmalony, County Kildare.”

“And Muryan Squeer, Dobbin,” said the lady, with calm
superiority.

“And Muryan Square, sure enough,” the Major whispered.

“?Twas there ye coorted me, Meejor dear,” the lady said;
and the Major assented to this as to every other proposition
which was made generally in company.

Major O’Dowd, who had served his sovereign in every quar-
ter of the world, and had paid for every step in his profession
by some more than equivalent act of daring and gallantry,
was the most modest, silent, sheep-faced, and meek of little
men, and as obedient to his wife as if he had been her tap-
boy. At the mess-table he sat silently, and drank a great
deal. When full of liquor, he reeled silently home. When
he spoke, it was to agree with everybody on every conceivable
point; and he passed through life in perfect ease and good-
humor. The hottest suns of India never heated his temper;
and the Walcheren ague never shook it. He walked up to a
battery with just as much indifference as to a dinner-table;
had dined on horse-flesh and turtle with equal relish and ap-
petite; and had an old mother, Mrs. O’Dowd of O’Dowds-
town indeed, whom he had never disobeyed but when he ran
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 278

away and enlisted, and when he persisted in marrying that
odious Peggy Malony.

Peggy was one of five sisters, and eleven children of the
noble house of Glenmalony; but her husband, though her own
cousin, was of the mother’s side, and so had not the inestim-
able advantage of being allied to the Malonies, whom she be-
lieved to be the most famous family in the world. Having
tried nine seasons at Dublin and two at Bath and Cheltenham,
and not finding a partner for life, Miss Malony ordered her
cousin Mick to marry her when she was about thirty-three
years of age; and the honest fellow obeying, carried her off
to the West Indies, to preside over the ladies of the —th regi-
ment, into which he had just exchanged.

Before Mrs. O’Dowd was half an hour in Amelia’s (or im
deed in anybody else’s) company, this amiable lady told all
her birth and pedigree to her new friend. “My dear,” said
she, good-naturedly, “it was my intention that Garge should
be a brother of my own, and my sister Glorvina would have
suited him entirely. But as bygones are bygones, and he was
engaged to yourself, why, I’m determined to take you as a
sister instead, and to look upon you as such, and to love you
as one of the family. Faith, you’ve got such a nice good-
natured face and way widg you, that I’m sure we’ll agree;
and that yow’ll be an addition to our family any way.”

“Deed and she will,” said O’Dowd, with an approving air;
and Amelia felt herself not a little amused and grateful to be
thus suddenly introduced to so large a party of relations.

“We're all good fellows here,” the Major’s lady continued.
“There’s not a regiment in the service where you'll find a
more united society nor a more agreeable mess-room. There’s
no quarreling, bickering, slandthering, nor small talk
amongst us. We all love each other.”

“Especially Mrs. Magenis,” said George, laughing.

“Mrs. Captain Magenis and me has made up, though her
treatment of me would bring me gray hairs with sorrow to
the grave.”

“And you with such a beautiful front of black, Peggy, my
dear,” the Major cried.

“Hould your tongue, Mick, you booby. Them husbands
are always in the way, Mrs. Osborne, my dear; and as for my
Mick, I often tell him he should never open his mouth but
to give the word of command, or to put meat and drink into it.
V’ll tell you about the regiment, and warn you when we’re

18
24 VANITY FAIR,

alone. Introduce me to your brother now; sure he’s a mighty
fine man, and reminds me of me cousin, Dan Malony (Malony
of Ballymalony, my dear, you know, who married Ophalia
Scully, of Oysthertown, own cousin to Lord Poldoody). Mr.
Sedley, sir, ’'m deloighted to be made known te ye. I sup-
pose yow’ll dine at the mess to-day. (Mind that divvle of a
docther, Mick, and whatever ye du, keep yourself sober for me
party this evening.)”

“Tt’?g the 150th gives us a farewell dinner, my love,” inter-
posed the Major, “but we’ll easy get a card for Mr. Sedley.”

“Run Simple (Ensign Simple, of Ours, my dear Amelia. I
forgot to introjuice him to ye). Run in a hurry, with Mrs.
Major O’Dowd’s compliments to Colonel Tavish, and Captain
Osborne has brought his brothernlaw down, and will bring
him to the 150th mess at five o’clock sharp,—when you and
I, my dear, will take a snack here, if you like.” Before Mrs.
O’Dowd’s speech was concluded, the young Ensign was trot-
ting down stairs on his commission.

“Obedience is the soul of the army. We will go to our
duty while Mrs. O’Dowd will stay and enlighten you, Emmy,”
Captain Osborne said; and the two Captains, taking each a
wing of the Major, walked out with that officer, grinning at
each other over his head.

And now, having her new friend to herself, the impetuous
Mrs. O’Dowd proceeded to pour out such a quantity of in-
formation as no poor little woman’s memory could ever tax
itself to bear. She told Amelia a thousand particulars rela-
tive to the very numerous family of which the amazed young
lady found herself a member. “Mrs. Heavytop, the Colonel’s
wife, died in Jamaica of the yellow faver and a broken heart
comboined, for the horrud old Colonel, with a head as bald
as a cannon-ball, was making sheep’s eyes at a half-caste girl
there. Mrs. Magenis, though without education, was a good
. woman, but she had the divvle’s tongue, and would cheat her
own mother at whist. Mrs. Captain Kirk must turn up her
lobster eyes forsooth at the idea of an honest round game
(wherein me fawther, as pious a man as ever went to church,
me uncle Dane Malony, and our cousin the Bishop, took a
hand at loo, or whist, every night of their lives). Nayther of
’em’s goin’ with the regiment this time,” Mrs. O’Dowd added.
“fanny Magenis stops with her mother, who sells small coal
and potatoes, most likely, in Islington-town, hard by Lon-
don, though she’s always bragging of her father’s ships, and
A. NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO, 275

pointing them out to us as they go up the river; and Mrs,
Kirk and her children will stop here in Bethesda Place, to be
nigh to her favorite preacher, Dr. Ramshorn. Mrs. Bunny’s
in an interesting situation,—faith, and she always is, then,—
and has given the Lieutenant seven already. And Ensign
Posky’s wife, who joined two months before you, my dear,
has quarl’d with Tom Posky a score of times, till you can hear
*m all over the bar’ck (they say they’re come to broken pleets,
and Tom never accounted for his black oi), and she'll go
back to her mother, who keeps a ladies’ siminary at Richmond,
—bad luck to her for running away from it! Where did ye
get your finishing, my dear? I had moin, and no expince
spared, at Madame Flanahan’s, at Ilyssus Grove, Booterstown,
near Dublin, wid a Marchioness to teach us the true Parisian
pronunciation, and a retired Mejor-General of the French
service to put us through the exercise.”

Of this incongruous family our astonished Amelia found
herself all of a sudden a member: with Mrs. O’Dowd as an
elder sister. She was presented to her other female relations
at tea-time, on whom, as she was quiet, good-natured, and not
too handsome, she made rather an agreeable impression until
the arrival of the gentlemen from the mess of the 150th, who
all admired her so, that her sisters began, of course, to find
fault with her.

“T hope Osborne has sown his wild-oats,” said Mrs. Magenis
to Mrs. Bunny. “Ifa reformed rake makes a good husband,
sure it’s she will have the fine chance with Garge,” Mrs.
O’Dowd remarked to Posky, who had lost her position as
bride in the regiment, and was quite angry with the usurper.
And, as for Mrs. Kirk, the disciple of Dr. Ramshorn put one
of two leading professional questions to Amelia, to see whether
she was awakened, whether she was a professing Christian and
so forth, and finding from the simplicity of Mrs. Osborne’s
replies that she was yet in utter darkness, put into her hands
three little penny books with pictures, viz., the “Howling
Wilderness,” the “Washerwoman of Wandsworth Common,”
and the “British Soldier’s best Bayonet,” which, bent upon
awakening her before she slept, Mrs. Kirk begged Amelia
to read that night ere she went to bed.

But all the men, like good fellows as they were, rallied
round their comrade’s pretty wife, and paid her their court
with soldierly gallantry. She had a little triumph, which
flushed her spirits and made her eyes sparkle. George was
276 VANITY FAIR.

proud of her popularity, and pleased with the manner (which
was very gay and graceful, though naive and a little timid)
with which she received the gentlemen’s attentions, and an-
swered their compliments. And he in his uniform,—how
much handsomer he was than any man in the room! She felt
that he was affectionately watching her, and glowed with
pleasure at his kindness. “I will make all his friends wel-
come,” she resolved in her heart. “TI will love all as I love him.
I will always try and be gay and good-humored and make his
home happy.”

The regiment indeed adopted her with acclamation. The
Captains approved, the Lieutenants applauded, the Ensigns
admired. Old Cutler, the Doctor, made one or two jokes,
which, being professional, need not be repeated; and Cackle,
the assistant M.D. of Edinburgh, condescended to examine
her upon leeterature, and tried her with his three best French
quotations. Young Stubble went about from man to man
whispering, “Jove, isn’t she a pretty gal?” and never took his
eyes off her except when the negus came in.

As for Captain Dobbin, he never so much as spoke to her
during the whole evening. But he and Captain Porter of the
150th took home Jos to the hotel, who was in a very maudlin
state, and had told his tiger-hunt story with great effect, both
at the mess-table and at the soirée, to Mrs. O’Dowd in her tur-
ban and bird of paradise. Having put the Collector into the
hands of his servant, Dobbin loitered about, smoking his cigar
before the inn door. George had meanwhile very carefully
shawled his wife, and brought her away from Mrs. O’Dowd’s
after a general hand-shaking from the young officers, who ac-
companied her to the fly, and cheered that vehicle as it drove
off. So Amelia gave Dobbin her little hand as she got out
of the carriage, and rebuked him similingly for not having
taken any notice of her all night.

The Captain continued that deleterious amusement of
smoking, long after the inn and the street were gone to bed.
He watched the lights vanish from George’s sitting-room win-
dows, and shine out in the bedroom close at hand. It was
almost morning when he returned to his own quarters. He
could hear the cheering from the ships in the river, where the
transports were already taking in their cargoes preparatory
to dropping down the Thames.
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 277

CHAPTER XXVIII.
IN WHICH AMELIA INVADES THE LOW COUNTRIES.

The regiment with its officers was to be transported in
ships provided by his Majesty’s government for the occasion;
and in two days after the festive assembly at Mrs. O’Dowd’s
apartments, in the midst of cheering from all the East India
ships in the river, and the military on shore, the band playing
“God save the King,” the officers waving their hats, and the
crews hurrahing gallantly, the transports went down the river
and proceeded under convoy to Ostend. Meanwhile the gal-
lant Jos had agreed to escort his sister and the Major’s wife,
the bulk of whose goods and chattels, including the famous
bird of paradise and turban, were with the regimental bag-
gage: so that our two heroines drove pretty much unencum-
bered to Ramsgate, where there were plenty of packets plying,
in one of which they had a speedy passage to Ostend.

That period of Jos’s life which now ensued was so full of
incident, that it served him for conversation for many years
after, and even the tiger-hunt story was put aside for more
stirring narratives which he had to tell about the great cam-
paign of Waterloo. As soon as he had agreed to escort his
sister abroad, it was remarked that he ceased shaving his upper
lip. At Chatham he followed the parades and drills with
great assiduity. He listened with the utmost attention to the
conversation of his brother officers (as he called them in after
days sometimes), and learned as many military names as he
could. In these studies the excellent Mrs. O’Dowd was of
great assistance to him; and on the day finally when they em-
barked on board the Lovely Rose which was to carry them to
their destination, he made his appearance in a braided frock-
coat and duck trousers, with a foraging cap ornamented with
asmart gold band. Having his carriage with him, and inform-
ing everybody on board confidentially that he was going to
join the Duke of Wellington’s army, folks mistook him for a
great personage, a commissary-general, or a government
courier at the very least.

He suffered hugely on the voyage, during which the ladies
were likewise prostrate; but Amelia was brought to life again
278 VANITY FAIR.

as the packet made Ostend, by the sight of the transports con.
veying her regiment, which entered the harbor almost at the
same time with the Lovely Rose. Jos went in a collapsed state
to an inn, while Captain Dobbin escorted the ladies, and then
busied himself in freeing Jos’s carriage and luggage from the
ship and the custom-house, for Mr. Jos was at present without
a servant, Osborne’s man and his own pampered menial hav-
ing conspired together at Chatham, and refused point-blank
to cross the water. This revolt, which came very suddenly,
and on the last day, so alarmed Mr. Sedley, Junior, that he
was on the point of giving up the expedition, but Captain
Dobbin (who made himself immensely officious in the business,
Jos said) rated him and laughed at him soundly: the mus-
tachios were grown in advance, and Jos finally was persuaded
to embark. In place of the well-bred and well-fed London
domestics, who could only speak English, Dobbin procured for
Jos’s party a swarthy little Belgian servant who could speak
no language at all; but who, by his bustling behavior, and by
invariably addressing Mr. Sedley as “My lord,” speedily ac-
quired that gentleman’s favor. Times are altered at Ostend
now; of the Britons who go thither, very few look like lords,
or act like those members of our hereditary aristocracy. They
seem for the most part shabby in attire, dingy of linen, lovers
of billiards and brandy and cigars and greasy ordinaries.

But it may be said, as a rule, that every Englishman in the
Duke of Wellington’s army paid his way. The remembrance
of such a fact surely becomes a nation of shopkeepers. It
was a blessing for a commerce-loving country to be overrun
by such an army of customers: and to have such creditable
warriors to feed. And the country which they came to pro-
tect is not military. For a long period of history they have
let other people fight there. When the present writer went
to survey with eagle glance the field of Waterloo, we asked
the conductor of the diligence, a portly, warlike-looking veter-
an, whether he had been at the battle. ‘‘Pas st béte”—such an
answer and sentiment as no Frenchman would own to—was
his reply. But on the other hand, the postilion who drove us
was a Viscount, a son of some bankrupt Imperial General,
who accepted a pennyworth of beer on the road. The moral
is surely a good one.

This flat, flourishing, easy country never could have looked
more rich and prosperous than in that opening summer of
1815, when its green fields and quiet cities were enlivened
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 279

by multiplied red-coats; when its wide chaussées swarmed
with brilliant English equipages; when its great canal-boats,
gliding by rich pastures and pleasant quaint old villages by
old chateaux lying amongst old trees, were all crowded with
well-to-do English travelers; when the soldier who drank
at the village inn, not only drank, but paid his score; and
Donald, the Highlander,* billeted in the Flemish farm-house,
rocked the baby’s cradle, while Jean and Jeannette were out
getting in the hay. As our painters are bent on military sub-
Jects just now, I throw out this as a good subject for the pen-
cil, to illustrate the principle of an honest English war. All
looked as brilliant and harmless as a Hyde Park review. Mean-
while, Napoleon, screened behind his curtain of frontier for-
tresses, was preparing for the outbreak which was to drive all
these orderly people into fury and blood, and lay so many of
them low.

Everybody had such a perfect feeling of confidence in the
leader (for the resolute faith which the Duke of Wellington
had inspired in the whole English nation was as intense as
that more frantic enthusiasm with which at one time the
French regarded Napoleon), the country seemed in so per-
fect a state of orderly defense, and the help at hand in case
of need so near and overwhelming, that alarm was unknown,
and that our travelers, among whom two were naturally of a
very timid sort, were, like all the other multiplied English
tourists, entirely at ease. The famous regiment, with so many
of whose officers we have made acquaintance, was drafted in
canal-boats to Bruges and Ghent, thence to march to Brussels.
Jos accompanied the ladies in the public boats; the which all
old travelers in Flanders must remember for the luxury and
accommodation they afforded. So prodigiously good was the
eating and drinking on board these sluggish but most comfort-
able vessels, that there are legends extant of an English trav-
eler, who, coming to Belgium for a week, and traveling in one
of these boats, was so delighted with the fare there that he
went backwards and forwards from Ghent to Bruges perpetu-
ally until the railroads were invented, when he drowned him-
self on the last trip of the passage-boat. Jos’s death was not
to be of this sort, but his comfort was exceeding, and Mrs.
O’Dowd insisted that he only wanted her sister Glorvina to

 

* This incident is mentioned in Mr. Gleig’s “Story of the Battle
of Waterloo,”
280 VANITY FAIR.

make his happiness complete. He sat on the roof of the cabin
all day drinking Flemish beer, shouting for Isidor, his ser-
vant, and talking gallantly to the ladies.

His courage was prodigious. “Boney attack us!” he cried.
“My dear creature, my poor Emmy, don’t be frightened.
There’s no danger. The allies will be in Paris in two months,
I tell you; when I’ll take you to dine in the Palais Royal, by
Jove! There are three hundred thousand Rooshians, I tell
you, now entering France by Mayence and the Rhine,—three
hundred thousand under Wittgenstein and Barclay de Tolly,
my poor love. You don’t know military affairs, my dear. I
do, and I tell you there’s no infantry in France can stand
against Rooshian infantry, and no general of Boney’s that’s
fit to hold a candle to Wittgenstein. Then there are the
Austrians, they are five hundred thousand if a man, and they
are within ten marches of the frontier by this time, under
Schwartzenberg and Prince Charles. Then there are the
Prooshians under the gallant Prince Marshal. Show me a
cavalry chief like him now that Murat is gone. Hey, Mrs.
O’Dowd? Do you think our little girl here need be afraid?
Is there any cause for fear, Isidor? Hey, sir? Get some more
beer.”

Mrs. O’Dowd said that her “Glorvina was not afraid of any
man alive, let alone a Frenchman,” and tossed off a glass of
beer with a wink which expressed her liking for the beverage.

Having frequently been in presence of the enemy, or, in
other words, faced the ladies at Cheltenham and Bath, our
friend, the Collector, had lost a great deal of his pristine
timidity, and was now, especially when fortified with liquor,
as talkative as might be. He was rather a favorite with the
regiment, treating the young officers with sumptuosity, and
amusing them by his military airs. And as there ‘is one well-
known regiment of the army which travels with a goat head-
ing the column, whilst another is led by a deer, George said
with respect to his brother-in-law, that his regiment marched
with an elephant.

Since Amelia’s introduction to the regiment, George began
to be rather ashamed of some of the company to which he had
been forced to present her; and determined, as he told Dobbin
(with what satisfaction to the latter it need not be said), to ex-
change into some better regiment soon, and to get his wife
away from those damned vulgar women. But this vulgarity
of being ashamed of one’s society is much more common
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 281

among men than women (except very great ladies of fashion,
who, to be sure, indulge in it); and Mrs. Amelia, a natural
and unaffected person, had none of that artificia) shamefaced-
ness which her husband mistook for delicacy on his own part.
Thus Mrs. O’Dowd had a cock’s plume in her hat, and a
very large “repayther” on her stomach, which she used to
ring on all occasions, narrating how it had been presented
to her by her fawther, as she stipt into the car’ge after her
marge; and these ornaments, with other outward peculiari-
ties of the Major’s wife, gave excruciating agonies to Captain
Osborne, when his wife and the Major’s came in contact;
whereas Amelia was only amused by the honest lady’s eccen-
tricities, and not in the least ashamed of her company.

As they made that well-known journey, which almost every
Englishman of middle rank has traveled since, there might
have been more instructive, but few more entertaining com-
panions than Mrs. Major O’Dowd. “Talk about kenal-boats,
my dear! Ye should see the kenal-boats between Dublin and
Ballinasloe. It’s there the rapid traveling is; and the beauti-
ful cattle. Sure me fawther got a goold medal (and his Ex-
cellency himself eat a slice of it, and said never was finer
mate in his loif) for a four-year-old heifer, the like of which
ye never saw in this country any day.” And Jos owned with
a sigh, “that for good streaky beef, really mingled with fat
and lean, there was no country like England.”

“Except Ireland, where all your best mate comes from,”
said the Major’s lady: proceeding, as is not unusual with
patriots of her nation, to make comparisons greatly in favor
of her own country. The idea of comparing the market at
Bruges with those of Dublin, although she had suggested it
herself, caused immense scorn and derision on her part. “T’ll
thank ye to tell me what they mean by that old gazabo on the
top of the market-place,” said she, in a burst of ridicule fit
to have brought the old tower down. The place was full of
English soldiery as they passed. English bugles woke them in
the morning; at nightfall they went to bed to the note of the
British fife and drum; all the country and Europe was in
arms, and the greatest event of history pending; and honest
Peggy O’Dowd, whom it concerned as well as another, went
on prattling about Ballinafad, and the horses in the stables
at Glenmalony, and the clar’t drunk there; and Jos Sedley
interposed about curry and rice at Dumdum; and Amelia
thought about her husband, and how best she should show
282 VANITY FAIR.

her love for him; as if these were the great topics of the
world.

Those who like to lay down the History-book, and to spec-
ulate upon what might have happened in the world, but for
the fatal occurrence of what actually did take place (a most
puzzling, amusing, ingenious, and profitable kind of medita-
tion), have no doubt often thought to themselves what a
specially bad time Napoleon took to come back from Elba,
and to let loose his eagle from Gulf San Juan to Notre Dame.
The historians on our side tell us that the armies of the allied
powers were all providentially on a war-footing, and ready
to bear down at a moment’s notice upon the Elban Emperor.
The august jobbers assembled at Vienna, and carving out the
kingdoms of Europe according to their wisdom, had such
causes of quarrel among themselves as might have set the
armies which had overcome Napoleon to fight against each
other, but for the return of the object of unanimous hatred
and fear. This monarch had an army in full force because
he had jobbed to himself Poland, and was determined to keep
it; another had robbed half Saxony, and was bent upon main-
taining his acquisition; Italy was the object: of a third’s solici-
tude. Each was protesting against the rapacity of the other;
and could the Corsican but have waited in prison until all
these parties were by the ears, he might have returned and
reigned unmolested. But what would have become of our
story and all our friends, then? If all the drops in it were
dried up, what would become of the sea?

In the mean while the business of life and living, and the
pursuits of pleasure, especially, went on as if no end were to
be expected to them, and no enemy in front. When our trav-
elers arrived at Brussels, in which their regiment was quar-
tered, a great piece of good fortune, as all said, they found
themselves in one of the gayest and most brilliant little capi-
tals in Europe, and where all the Vanity Fair booths were
laid out with the most tempting liveliness and splendor.
Gambling was here in profusion, and dancing in plenty; feast-
ing was there to fill with delight that great gourmand of a
Jos: there was a theater where a miraculous Catalani was de-
lighting all hearers: beautiful rides, all enlivened with martial
splendor; a rare old city, with strange costumes ahd wonder-
ful architecture, to delight the eyes of little Amelia, who had
never before seen a foreign country, and fill her with charm-
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 283

Ing surprises; so that now and for a few weeks’ space in a
fine handsome lodging, whereof the expenses were borne by
Jos and Osborne, who was flush of money and full of kind at-
tentions to his wife,—for about a fortnight, I say, during
which her honeymoon ended, Mrs. Amelia was as pleased and
happy as any little bride out of England.

Every day during this happy time there was novelty and
amusement for all parties. There was a church to see, or a
picture-gallery—there was a ride, or an opera. The bands
of the regiments were making music at all hours. The great-
est folks of England walked in the Park,—there was a per-
petual military festival. George, taking out his wife to a new
jaunt or junket every night, was quite pleased with himself
as usual, and swore he was becoming quite a domestic char-
acter. And a jaunt ora junket with him! Was it not enough
to set this little heart beating with joy? Her letters home to
her mother were filled with delight and gratitude at this sea-
son. Her husband bade her buy laces, millinery, jewels, and
gimeracks of all sorts. O, he was the kindest, best, and most
generous of men!

The sight of the very great company of lords and ladies and
fashionable persons who thronged the town, and appeared in
every public place, filled George’s truly British soul with in-
tense delight. They flung off that happy frigidity and in-
solence of demeanor which occasionally characterizes the great
at home, and, appearing in numberless public places, conde-
scended to mingle with the rest of the company whom they
met there. One night at a party given by the general of the
division to which George’s regiment belonged, he had the
honor of dancing with Lady Blanche Thistlewood, Lord
Bareacres’ daughter; he bustled for ices and refreshments for
the two noble ladies; he pushed and squeezed for Lady Bare-
acres’ carriage; he bragged about the Countess when he got
home, in a way which his own father could not have sur-
passed. He called upon the ladies the next day; he rode by
their side in the Park; he asked their party to a great dinner
at a restaurateur’s, and was quite wild with exultation when
they agreed to come. Old Bareacres, who had not much pride
and a large appetite, would go for a dinner anywhere.

“I hope there will be no women besides our own party.”
Lady Bareacres said, after reflecting upon the invitation which
had been made, and accepted with too much precipitancy.

“Gracious Heaven, mamma,—you don’t suppose the man
284 VANITY FAIR.

would bring his wife,” shrieked Lady Blanche, who had been
languishing in George's arms in the newly imported waltz for
hours the night before. “The men are bearable, but their
women——”

“Wife, just married, dev’lish pretty woman, I hear,” the
old Ear] said.

“Well, my dear Blanche,” said the mother, “I suppose, as
papa wants to go, we must go; but we needn’t know them in
England, you know.” And so, determined to cut their new
acquaintance in Bond Street, these great folks went to eat
his dinner at Brussels, and, condescending to make him pay
for their pleasure, showed their dignity by making his wife
uncomfortable, and carefully excluding her from the con-
versation. This is a species of dignity in which the high-bred
British female reigns supreme. To watch the behavior of a
fine lady to other and humbler women, is a very good sport
for a philosophical frequenter of Vanity Fair.

This festival, on which honest George spent a great deal,
of money, was the very dismallest of all the entertainments
which Amelia had in her honeymoon. She wrote the most
piteous accounts of the feast home to her mamma; how the
Countess of Bareacres would not answer when spoken to;
how Lady Blanche stared at her with her eye-glass; and what
a rage Captain Dobbin was in at their behavior; and how my
ford, as they came away from the feast, asked to see the bill,
and pronounced it a d bad dinner, and d. dear. But
though Amelia told all these stories, and wrote home regarding
her guests’ rudeness and her own discomfiture, old Mrs. Sed-
ley was mightily pleased nevertheless, and talked about
Emmy’s friend, the Countess of Bareacres, with such assiduity
that the news how his son was entertaining Peers and Peer-
esses actually came to Osborne’s ears in the City.

Those who know the present Lieutenant-General Sir George
Tufto, K. C. B., and have seen him, as they may on most days
in the season, padded and in stays, strutting down Pall Mall
with a rickety swagger on his high-heeled lacquered boots,
leering under the bonnets of passers-by, or riding a showy
chestnut, and ogling Broughams in the Parks,—those who
know the present Sir George Tufto would hardly recognize
the daring Peninsula and Waterloo officer. He has thick
curling brown hair and black eyebrows now, and his whiskers
are of the deepest purple. He was light-haired and bald in
1815, and stouter in the person and in the limbs, which espe-

 

 
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 286

cially have shrunk very much of late. When he was about
seventy years of age (he is now nearly eighty), his hair, which
was very scarce and quite white, suddenly grew thick, and
brown, and curly, and his whiskers and eyebrows took their
present color. TIll-natured people say that his chest is all wool,
and that his hair, because it never grows, is a wig. Tom
Tufto, with whose father he quarreled ever so many years
ago, declares that Mademoiselle de Jaisey, of the French
theater, pulled his grandpapa’s hair off in the green-room;
but Tom is notoriously spiteful and jealous; and the general’s
wig has nothing to do with our story.

One day, as some of our friends of the —th were saunter-
ing in the flower-market of Brussels, having been to see the
Hotel de Ville, which Mrs. Major O’Dowd declared was not
near so large or handsome as her fawther’s Mansion of Glen-
malony, an officer of rank, with an orderly behind him, rode
up to the market, and descending from his horse, came
amongst the flowers and selected the very finest bouquet
which money could buy. The beautiful bundle being tied up
in a paper, the officer remounted, giving the nosegay into the
charge of his military groom, who carried it with a grin, fol-
lowing his chief, who rode away in great state and self-satis-
faction.

“You should see the flowers at Glenmalony,” Mrs. O’Dowd
was remarking. “Me fawther has three Scotch garners with
nine helpers. We have an acre of hot-houses, and pines as
common as pays in the sayson. Our greeps weighs six pounds
every bunch of ’em, and upon me honor and conscience I
think our magnolias is as big as taykettles.”’

Dobbin, who never used to “draw out” Mrs. O’Dowd as
that wicked Osborne delighted in doing (much to Amelia’s
terror, who implored him to spare her), fell back in the crowd,
crowing and sputtering, until he reached a safe distance,
when he exploded amongst the astonished market-people with
shrieks of yelling laughter.

“Hwhat’s that gawky guggling about?” said Mrs. O’Dowd.
“Tg it his nose bleedn? He always used to say *twas his nose
bleedn, till he must have pomped all the blood out of *um.
An’t the magnolias at Glenmalony as big as taykettles,
O’Dowd?” :

“Deed then they are, and bigger, Peggy,” the Major said.
When the conversation was interrupted in the manner stated
by the arrival of the officer who purchased the bouquet.
286 VANITY FAIR.

“Devlish fine horse,—who is it?” George asked.

“You should see me brother Molloy Malony’s horse, Molas-
ses, that won the cop at the Curragh,” the Major’s wife was
exclaiming, and was continuing the family history, when her
husband interrupted her by saying:— ;

“It?s General Tufto, who commands the cavalry di-
vision”; adding quietly, “he and I were both shot in the same
leg at Talavera.”

“Where you got your step,” said George with a laugh.
“General Tufto! Then, my dear, the Crawleys are come.”

Amelia’s heart fell, she knew not why. The sun did not
seem to shine so bright. The tall old roofs and gables looked
less picturesque all of a sudden, though it was a brilliant
sunset and one of the brightest and most beautiful days at
the end of May.

 

CHAPTER XXIX.

BRUSSELS.
'

wr. Jos had hired a pair of horses for his open carriage,
with which cattle, and the smart London vehicle, he made
a very tolerable figure in the drives about Brussels. George
purchased a horse for his private riding, and he and Cap-
tain Dobbin would often accompany the carriage in which
Jos and his sister took daily excursions of pleasure. They
went out that day in the park for their accustomed diversion,
and there, sure enough, George’s remark with regard to the
arrival of Rawdon Crawley and his wife proved to be correct.
In the midst of a little troop of horsemen, consisting of some
of the very greatest persons in Brussels, Rebecca was seen
in the prettiest and tightest of riding-habits, mounted on a
beautiful little Arab, which she rode to perfection (having
acquired the art at Queen’s Crawley, where the Baronet, Mr.
Pitt, and Rawdon himself had given her many lessons), and
by the side of the gallant General Tufto.

“Sure it’s the Juke himself,” cried Mrs. Major O’Dowd
to Jos, who began to blush violently; “and that’s Lord Ux-
bridge on the bay. How elegant he looks! Me brother, Mol-
loy Malony, is as like him as two peas.”

Rebecca did not make for the carriage; but as soon as she
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 28?

perceived her old acquaintance Amelia seated in it, acknowl-
edged her presence by a gracious word and smile, and by kiss-
ing and shaking her fingers playfully in the direction of the
vehicle. Then she resumed her conversation with General Tuf-
to, who asked who the fat officer was in the gold-laced cap;
on which Becky replied, “that he was an officer in the East
Indian service.” But Rawdon Crawley rode out of the ranks
of his company, and came up and shook hands heartily with
Amelia, and said to Jos, “Well, old boy, how are you?” and
stared in Mrs. O’Dowd’s face and black cock’s feathers until
she began to think she had made a conquest of him.

George, who had been delayed behind, rode up almost im-
mediately with Dobbin, and they touched their caps to the
august personages, among whom Osborne at once perceived
Mrs. Crawley. He was delighted to see Rawdon leaning over
his carriage familiarly and talking to Amelia, and met the
aide-de-camp’s cordial greeting with more than corresponding
warmth. The nods between Rawdon and Dobbin were of
the very faintest specimens of politeness.

Crawley told George where they were stopping with Gen-
eral 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 din-
ner at the Restaurateur’s,—rather a nice thing. Lord Bare-
acres, and the Countess, and Lady Blanche, were good enough
to dine with us,—wish we’d had you.” ITaving 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 re-
sumed 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 gen-
eral, 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
288 VANITY FAIR.

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 toilets 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 an-
swer, yes or no: and how do we know what her thoughts
were?

The coup-d’oetl of the Brussels opera-house did not strike
Mrs. O’Dowd as being so fine as the theater in Fishamble
Street, Dublin, aor was French music at all equal, in her
opinion, to the melodies of her native country. She favored
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 warld!” 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 Rebec-
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO, 289

ca, 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 check all right at the agent’s?” George
said, with a knowing air.

“All right, my boy,” Rawdon answered. “Happy to give
you your revenge. Governor come round?”

“Not yet,” said George, “but he will; and you know I’ve
some private fortune through my mother. Has Aunty re-
lented ?”

“Sent me twenty pounds, damned old screw. When shall
we have a meet? The General dines out on Tuesday. Can't
you come Tuesday? I say, make Sedley cut off his mustache.
What the devil does a civilian mean with a mustache and
those infernal frogs to his coat! By-by. 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.

“<Pntrez,” 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 new-comer with a sulky scowl,
as much as to say, who the devil are you?

“My dear Captain George!” cried little Rebecca, in an
ecstasy. “How good of you to come. The General and I
were moping together téte-a-téte. General, this is my Captain
George, of whom you heard me talk.”

19
290 VANITY FAIR.

“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— Os-
bornes?”

“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-barreled 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 blood-shot 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? QO, 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 ’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. fe

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 Gen-
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 291

eral’s heart; and a wonderful thing it is to think that the hu-
man 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 pub-
licity 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 an-
other, 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 com-
edy of action better), she skipped back to her own box, lean-
ing 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?”

iia = sean 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 appari-
292 VANITY FAIR.

tion, 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 sermonizing?” was the other’s reply.
“What the deuce, man, are you alarmed about? We play
low; I won last night. You don’t suppose Crawley cheats?
With fair play it comes to pretty much the same thing at
the year’s end.”

“But I don’t think he could pay if he lost,” Dobbin said;
and his advice met with the success which advice usually com-
mands. Osborne and Crawley were repeatedly together now.
General 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 to-
wards Mrs. Crawley, her old friend; and Amelia did not say
one single word in reply; but with her hushband’s eye upon
her, and Rebecca scanning her as she felt, was, if possible,
more bashful and awkward on the second visit which she
paid to Mrs. Rawdon than on her first call.

Rebecca was doubly affectionate, of course, and would not
take notice, in the least, of her friend’s coolness. “I think
Emmy has become prouder since her father’s name was in
the—since Mr. Sedley’s misfortunes,” Rebecca said, soften-
ing the phrase charitably for George’s ear.

“Upon my word, I thought when we were at Brighton she
was doing me the honor to be jealous of me; and now I
suppose she is scandalized 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 ex-
penses? And do you suppose that Rawdon is not big enough
to take care of my honor? But I’m very much obliged to
Emmy, very,” Mrs. Rawdon said

“Pooh, jealousy!” answered George, “all women are jeal-
ous.”
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 293

“And all men too. Weren’t you jealous of General Tutto,
and the General of you, on the night of the operay 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 into 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 school-boys brag of their amours,
er 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 (hy which false-
hood 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 in love for him. It
is very likely that this worthy couple never absolutely con-
spired 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-humor.

George was so occupied with his new acquaintances that he
and William Dobbin were by no means so much together as
294 VANITY FAIR.

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 con-
duct 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 school-boy? 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 lis-
ten: and so, as Dobbin, upon those days when he visited the
Osborne house, seldom had the advantage of meeting his old
friend, much painful and unavailing talk between them was
spared. Our friend George was in the full career of the pleas-
ures of Vanity Fair.

There never was, since the days of Darius, such a brilliant
train of camp-followers as hung round the train of 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 bat-
tle. 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 regard-
ing the ball was much greater even than in respect of the en-
emy 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 cir-
cumstance greatly elated him. Dobbin, who was a friend of
the General commanding the division in which their regi-
ment was, came laughing one day to Mrs. Osborne, and dis-
played a similar invitation, which made Jos envious, and
George wonder how the deuce he should be getting into so-
ciety. 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
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO, 295

dresses and ornaments of all sorts for Amelia, drove to the
famous ball, where his wife did not know a single soul. Af-
ter 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 hus-
band felt with a sort of rage), Mrs. Rawdon Crawley’s début
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. Num-
bers 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 distingué. Fifty would-be partners thronged round
her at once, and pressed to have the honor 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
sat quite unnoticed, and dismally unhappy. And s0, to finish
the poor child at once, Mrs. Rawdon ran and greeted affection-
ately her dearest Amelia, and began forthwith to patronize
her. She found fault with her friend’s dress, and her hair-
dresser, and wondered how she could be so chaussée, and
vowed that she must send her corsetiére the next morning.
She vowed that it was a delightful ball; that there was every-
body 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, Os-
296 VANITY FAIR.

borne 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 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 érés aimable; but
how could one love a man with feet of such size? Your hus-
band’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 en-
emy.

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 be-
side 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 some-
thing 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 hus-
band come and go without saying a word, and her head fell
on her breast. Dobbin had been called away, and was whisper-
ing 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. Re-
becca’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 nose-
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 29T

gay. 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 courtesy 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—l’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 horse-
men, was incessant, she never heard any of these noises, hav-
ing 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 a while, 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, laugh-
ing 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.
298 VANITY FAIR.

“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 thou-
sand 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. O, 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 mar-
riage. Why had he disobeyed his father, who had been al-
ways so generous to him? Hope, remorse, ambition, tender-
ness, and selfish regret filled his heart. He sat down and
wrote to his father, remembering what he had said once be-
fore, 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 kind-
nesses which the stern old man had done him.

THe had looked into Amelia’s bed-room 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.
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 299

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 stepped 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 pur-
ple 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 friend-
less! 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 noise-
lessly 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 mo-
ment 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 maneuvers 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 fig-
300 VANITY FAIR.

ured, 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. Peg-
gy, 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.

“T’d like ye wake me about half an hour before the as-
sembly beats,” the Major said to his lady. “Call me at half
past one, Peggy dear, and see me things is ready. Maybe 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 traveling-valise ready for
the march, brushed his cloak, his cap, and other warlike habili-
ments, set them out in order for him, and stowed away in the
cloak-pockets a light package of portable refreshments, and a
wicker-covered flask or pocket-pistol, containing nearly 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 ar-
rangements (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 sup 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 turnout, 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 sat on horseback, giving cheer-
fulness and confidence to the whole corps. All the officers
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO, 301

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 dare say 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 com-
fort 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 else-
where; 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 ig 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 lit-
tle woman to whom he bade farewell. She had mastered
this rude coarse nature; and he loved and worshiped her with
all his faculties of regard and admiration. In all his life he
had never been so happy, as, during the few past months, his
wife had made him. AlJl former delights of turf, mess, hunt-
ing-field, and gambling-table; all previous loves and court-
ships 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 en-
joyed. 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 fre-
quented from his childhood until now. And he cursed is
past follies and extravagances, and bemoaned his vast outly-
ing debts above all, which must remain forever as obstacles
to prevent his wife’s advancement in the world. He had
often groaned over these in midnight conversations with Re-
becca, although as a bachelor they had never given him any
802 VANITY FAIR,

disquiet. He himself was struck with this phenomenon,
“Hang it,” he would say (or perhaps use a still stronger ex-
pression out of his simple vocabulary), “before I was mar-
ried J didn’t care what bills I put my name to, and so Jong
as Moses would wait or Levy would renew for three months,
I kept on, never minding. But since ’m married, except re-
newing, of course, I give you my honor 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 bygone days and talk. When the
final news arrived that the campaign was opened, and the
troops were to march, Rawdon’s gravity became such that
Becky rallied him about it in a manner which rather hurt the
feelings of the Guardsman. “You don’t suppose I’m afraid,
Becky, I should think,” he said, with a tremor in his voice.
“But I’m a pretty good mark for a shot, and you see if it
brings me down, why I leave one and perhaps two behind me
whom I should wish to provide for as I brought ’em into the
scrape. Itis 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 humor got the better of this spright-
ly 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 some-
oe 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 Na-
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO, 303

poleons in my pocket. That is as much as I shall want;
for the General pays everything like a prince; and if ’'m hit,
why, you know, I cost nothing. Don’t ery, little woman; I
may live to vex you yet. Well, I sha’n’t take either of my
horses, but shall ride the General’s gray charger; it’s cheaper,
and I told him mine was lame. If ?’m done, those two ought
to fetch you something. Griggs offered ninety for the mare
yesterday, before this confounded news came, and, like a fool,
I wouldn’t let her go under the two 0’s. Bulfinch 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 V'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
bootjack, 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 mas-
tery 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 school-boy 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;
my dueling pistols in rosewood case (same which I shot Cap-
tain Marker), £20; 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 him-
self in his oldest and shabbiest uniform and epaulets, leaving
the newest behind, under his wife’s (or it might be his wid-
304 VANITY FAIR.

ow’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 pre-
ceded them; and it was not until they were some miles on
their way that he left off twirling his mustache and broke
silence.

And Rebecca, as we have said, wisely determined not to
give way to unavailing sentimentality on her husband’s de-
parture. 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 bou-
quet 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 comfortable 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 gen-
erosity, when they were first married, has already been de-
scribed and lauded. Besides these, and the little mare, the
General, her slave and worshiper, 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 nu-
merous tributes from the jewelers’ shops, all of which be-
cokened her admirer’s taste and wealth. As for “tickers,” as
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 306

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 work-
manship, and went ill, on the very next morning there came
to her a little bijou marked Leroy, with a chain and cover
charmingly set with turquoises, and another signed Breguet,
which was covered with pearls, and yet scarcely bigger than
a half-crown. General Tufto had bought one, and Captain
Osborne had gallantly presented the other. Mrs. Osborne had
no watch, though, to do George justice, she might have had
one for the asking, and the Honorable 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 pur-
chasers 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
jewelry 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 reck-
on on six or seven hundred pounds at the very least, to begin
the world with; and she passed the morning disposing, order-
ing, 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. “TI 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,
chan 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
behavior 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 inter-

»
806 VANITY FAIR,

ruption, 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.

“J—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 listen-
ing with all his might in the direction of George’s apart-
ments, 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,
aud now began to think his courage was somewhat equivocal.
“What is it I can do for.you, Dobbin?” he said, in a sar-
castic tone.

“T 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,
yow’ll see her safe back to England; and you will promise me
on your word that you will never desert her. I know you
won't: as far as money goes, you were always free enough with
that. Do you want any? I mean, have you enough gold to
take you back to England in case of a misfortune?”

“Sir,” said Jos, majestically, “when I want money, I know
where to ask for it. And as for my sister, you needn’t tell
me how I ought to behave to her.”

“You speak like a man of spirit, Jos,” the other answered,
good-naturedly, “and I am glad that George can leave her in
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO, 307

such good hands. So I may give him your word of honor,
may I, that in case of extremity you will stand by her?”
Of course, of course,” answered Mr. J os, whose generosity
in money matters Dobbin estimated quite correctly.

And you'll see her safe out of Brussels in the event of a
defeat ?”

“A defeat! D. it, sir, it?s impossible. Don’t try and
frighten me,” the hero cried from his bed; and Dobbin’s
mind was thus perfectly set at ease now that Jos had spoken
out so resolutely respecting his conduct to his sister. “At
least,” thought the Captain, “there will be a retreat secured
for her in case the worst should ensue.”

If Captain Dobbin expected to get any personal comfort
and satisfaction from having one more view of Amelia before
the regiment marched away, his selfishness was punished just
as such odious egotism deserved to be. The door of Jos’s
bedroom opened into the sitting-room which was common to
the family party, and opposite this door was that of Amelia’s
chamber. The bugles had wakened everybody; there was no
use in concealment now. George’s servant was packing in
this room; Osborne coming in and out of the contiguous bed-
room, flinging to the man such articles as he thought fit to
carry on the campaign. And presently Dobbin had the op-
portunity which his heart coveted, and he got sight of Ame-
lia’s face once more. But what a face it was! So white, so
wild and despair-stricken, that the remembrance of it haunted
him afterwards like a crime, and the sight smote him with in-
expressible pangs of longing and pity.

She was wrapped in a white morning-dress, her hair falling
on her shoulders, and her large eyes fixed and without light.
By way of helping on the preparations for the departure,
and showing that she too could be useful at a moment so
critical, this poor soul had taken up a sash of George’s from
the drawers whereon it lay, and followed him to and fro with
the sash in her hand, looking on mutely as his packing pro-
ceeded. She came out and stood, leaning at the wall, holding
this sash against her bosom, from which the heavy net of
crimson dropped like a large stain of blood. Our gentle-
hearted Captain felt a guilty shock as he looked at her.
“Good God,” thought he, “and is it grief like this I dared to
pry into?” And there was no help; no means to soothe and
comfort this helpless, speechless misery. He stood for a mo-

 

'
208 VANITY FAIR.

ment and looked at her, powerless and torn with pity, as a
parent regards an infant in pain.

At last George took Emmy’s hand, and led her back into
the bedroom, from whence he came out alone. The parting
had taken place in that moment, and he was gone.

“Thank Heaven that is over,” George thought, bounding
down the stair, his sword under his arm, and as he ran swiftly
to the alarm-ground, where the regiment was mustered, and
whither trooped men and officers hurrying from their billets,
his pulse was throbbing and his cheeks flushed; the great
game of war was going to be played, and he one of the play-
ers. What a fierce excitement of doubt, hope, and pleasure!
What tremendous hazards of loss or gain! What were all
the games of chance he had ever played compared to this one?
Into all contests requiring athletic skill and courage, the
young man, from his boyhood upwards, had flung himself
with all his might. The champion of his school and his regi-
ment, the bravos of his companions had followed him every-
where; from the boys’ cricket-match to the garrison-races he
had won a hundred of triumphs; and wherever he went, wo-
men and men had admired and envied him. What qualities
are there for which a man gets so speedy a return of applause
as those of bodily superiority, activity, and valor? Time out
of mind strength and courage have been the theme of bards
and romances; and from the story of Troy down to to-day,
poetry has always chosen a soldier for a hero. I wonder is it
because men are cowards in heart that they admire bravery so
much, and place military valor so far beyond every other
quality for reward and worship?

So at the sound of that stirring call to battle, George jump-
ed away from the gentle arms in which he had been dally-
ing; not without a feeling of shame (although his wife’s hold
on him had been but feeble), that he should have been de-
tained there so long. The same feeling of eagerness and ex-
citement was amongst all those friends of his of whom we
have had occasional glimpses, from the stout senior Major,
who led the regiment into action, to little Stubble, the En-
sign, who was to bear its colors on that day.

The sun was just rising as the march began,—it was a gal-
lant sight,—the band Jed the column, playing the regimental
march,—then came the Major in command, riding upon Py-
ramus, his stout charger,—then marched the grenadiers, their
captain at their head; in the center were the colors, borne
A) NOVEL WITHOUT A HERQ. 309

by the senior and junior Ensigns,—then George came march-
ing at the head of his company. He looked up, and smiled

at Amelia, and passed on; and even the sound of the music
died away.

CHAPTER XXXI.

IN WHICH JOS SEDLEY TAKES CARE OF HIS SISTER.

Thus, all the superior officers being summoned on duty
elsewhere, Jos Sedley was left in command of the little colony
at Brussels, with Amelia invalided, Isidor, his Belgian servant,
and the donne, who was maid-of-all-work for the establish-
ment, as a garrison under him. Though he was disturbed
in spirit, and his rest destroyed by Dobbin’s interruption and
the occurrences of the morning, Jos nevertheless remained
for many hours in bed, wakeful and rolling about there until
his usual hour of rising had arrived. The sun was high in
the heavens, and our gallant friends of the —th miles on their
march, before the civilian appeared in his flowered dressing-
gown at breakfast.

About George’s absence his brother-in-law was very easy in
mind. Perhaps Jos was rather pleased in his heart that Os-
borne was gone, for, during George’s presence, the other had
played but a very secondary part in the household, and Os-
borne did not scruple to show his contempt for the stout
civilian. But Emmy had always been good and attentive to
him. It was she who ministered to his comforts, who super-
intended the dishes that he liked, who walked or rode with
him (as she had many, too many, opportunities of doing. for
where was George?) and who interposed her sweet face he-
tween his anger and her husband’s scorn. Many timid re-
monstrances had she uttered to George in behalf of her broth-
er, but the latter, in his trenchant way, cut these entreaties
short. “I’m an honest man,” he said, “and if I have a feel-
ing, I show it, as an honest man will. How the deuce, my
dear, would you have me behave respectfully to such a fool
as your brother?” So Jos was pleased with George’s absence.
His plain hat, and gloves on a sideboard, and the idea that
the owner was away, caused Jos I don’t know what secret
thrill of pleasure. ‘He won’t be troubling me this morn-
310 VANITY FAIR.

ing,” Jog thought, “with his dandified airs and his impu-
dence.”

“Put the Captain’s hat into the anteroom,” he said to
Isidor, the servant. :

“Perhaps he won’t want it again,” replied the lackey, look-
ing knowingly at his master. He hated George, too, whose
insolence towards him was quite of the English sort.

“And ask if madam is coming to breakfast,” Mr. Sedley
said with great majesty, ashamed to enter with a servant upon
the subject: of his dislike for George. The truth is, he had
abused his brother to the valet a score of times before.

Alas! madam could not come to breakfast, and cut the
tartines that Mr. Jos liked. Madam was a great deal too ill,
and had been in a frightful state ever since her husband’s de-
parture, so her bonne said. Jos showed his sympathy by
pouring her out a large cup of tea. It was his way of ex-
hibiting kindness; and he improved on this; he not only
sent her breakfast, but he bethought him what delicacies she
would most like for dinner.

Isidor, the valet, had looked on very sulkily, while Os-
borne’s servant was disposing of his master’s baggage previous
to the Captain’s departure; for, in the first place, he hated
Mr. Osborne, whose conduct to him, and to all inferiors, was
generally overbearing (nor does the continental domestic like
to be treated with insolence as our own better-tempered serv-
ants do); and secondly, he was angry that so many valuables
should be removed from under his hands, to fall into other
people’s possession when the English discomfiture should ar-
rive. Of this defeat he and a vast number of other persons
in Brussels and Belgium did not make the slightest doubt.
The almost universal belief was, that the Emperor would di-
vide the Prussian and English armies, annihilate one after the
other, and march into Brussels before three days were over;
when all the movables of his present masters, who would be
killed, or fugitives, or prisoners, would lawfully become the
property of Monsieur Isidor.

As he helped Jos through his toilsome and complicated
toilet, this faithful servant would calculate what he should
do with the very articles with which he was decorating his
master’s person. He would make a present of the silver es-
sence-bottles and toilet knicknacks to a young lady of whom
he was fond; and keep the English cutlery and the large ruby
pin for himself. It would look very smart upon one of the
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 311

fine frilled shirts, which, with the gold-laced cap and the
frogged frock coat, that might easily be cut down to suit his
shape, and the Captain’s gold-headed cane, and the great
double ring with the rubies, which he would have made into
a pair of beautiful ear-rings, he calculated would make a per-
fect Adonis of himself, and render Mademoiselle Reine an
easy prey. “How those sleeve-buttons will suit me,” thought
he, as he fixed a pair on the fat, pudgy wrists of Mr. Sedley.
“I long for sleeve-buttons; and the Captain’s boots with brass
spurs, in the next room, corblew! what an effect they will
make in the Allée Verte!” So while Monsieur Isidor with
bodily fingers was holding on to his master’s nose, and shay-
ing the lower part of Jos’s face, his imagination was rambling
along the Green Avenue, dressed out in a frogged coat and
lace, and in company with Mademoiselle Reine; he was loit-
ering in spirit on the banks, and examining the barges sail-
ing under the cool shadows of the trees by the canal, or re-
freshing himself with a mug of Faro at the bench of a beer-
house on the road to Laeken.

But Mr. Joseph Sedley, luckily for his own peace, no more
knew what was passing in his domestic’s mind than the re-
spected reader and I suspect what John or Mary, whose wages
we pay, think of ourselves. What our servants think of us!
—Did we know what our intimates and dear relations thought
of us, we should live in a world that we should be glad to quit,
and in a frame of mind and a constant terror that would be
perfectly unbearable. So Jos’s man was marking his victim
down, as you see one of Mr. Paynter’s assistants in Leaden-
hall Street ornament an unconscious turtle with a placard on
which is written, “Soup to-morrow.”

Amelia’s attendant was much less selfishly disposed. Few
dependents. could come near that kind and gentle creature
without paying their usual tribute of loyalty and affection to
her sweet and affectionate nature. And it isa fact that Paul-
ine, the cook, consoled her mistress more than anybody whom
she saw on this wretched morning; for when she found how
Amelia remained for hours, silent, motionless, and haggard,
by the windows in which she had placed herself to watch the
last bayonets of the column as it marched away, the honest
girl took the lady’s hand, and said, “‘Tenez, madame, est-ce
qwil west pas aussi & Parmée, mon homme & moi?” with
which she burst into tears, and Amelia, falling into her arms,
did likewise, and so each pitied and soothed the other.
312 VANITY FAIR.

Several times during the forenoon Mr. Jos’s Isidor went
from his lodgings into the town, and to the gates of the ho-
tels and lodging-houses round about the Parc, where the
English were congregated, and there mingled with other
valets, couriers, and lackeys, gathered such news as was
abroad, and brought back bulletins for his master’s informa-
tion. Almost all these gentlemen were in heart partisans
of the Emperor, and had their opinions about the speedy end
of the campaign. The Emperor’s proclamation from Aves-
nes had been distributed everywhere plentifully in Brussels.
“Soldiers!” it said, “this is the anniversary of Marengo and
Friedland, by which the destinies of Europe were twice de-
cided. Then, as after Austerlitz, as after Wagram, we were
too generous. We believed in the oaths and promises of
princes whom we suffered to remain upon their thrones. Let
us march once more to meet them. We and they, are we
not stili the same men? Soldiers! these same Prussians, who
are so arrogant to-day, were three to one against you at Jena,
and six to one at Montmirail. Those among you who were
prisoners in England can tell their comrades what frightful
torments they suffered on board the English hulks. Mad-
men! a moment of prosperity has blinded them, and if they
enter into France it will be to find a grave there!” But the
partisans of the French prophesied a more speedy exter-
mination of the Emperor’s enemies than this; and it was
agreed on all hands that Prussians and British would never
return except as prisoners in the rear of the conquering army.

These opinions in the course of the day were brought to
operate upon Mr. Sedley. He was told that the Duke of
Wellington had gone to try and rally his army, the advance of
which had been utterly crushed the night before.

“Crushed, psha!” said Jos, whose heart was pretty stout
at breakfast-time. “The Duke has gone to beat the Em-
peror as he has beaten all his generals before.”

“His papers were burned, his effects are removed, and his
quarters are being got ready for the Duke of Dalmatia,” Jos’s
informant replied. “I had it from his own maitre d’hétel.
Milor Duc de Richemont’s people are packing up everything.
His Grace has fled already, and the Duchess is only waiting
to see the plate packed to join the King of France at Ostend.”

“The King of France is at Ghent, fellow,” replied Jos, af-
fecting incredulity.

“He fled last night to Bruges, and embarks to-day from
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 313

Ostend. The Duke de Berri is taken prisoner. Those who
wish to be safe had better go soon, for the dikes will be opened
to-morrow, and who can fly when the whole country is under
water?”

“Nonsense, sir, we are three to one, sir, against any force
Bony can bring in the field,” Mr. Sedley objected; “the Aus-
trians and the Russians are on their march. He must, he
shall be crushed,” Jos said, slapping his hand on the table.

“The Prussians were three to one at Jena, and he took
their army and kingdom in a week. They were six to one
at Montmirail, and he scattered them like sheep. The Aus-
trian army is coming, but with the Empress and the King of
Rome at its head; and the Russians, bah! the Russians will
withdraw. No quarter is to be given to the English, on ac-
count of their cruelty to our braves on board the infamous
pontoons. Look here, here it is in black and white. Here’s
the proclamation of his Majesty the Emperor and King,”
said the now declared partisan of Napoleon, and, taking the
document from his pocket, Isidor sternly thrust it into his
master’s face, and already looked upon the frogged coat and
valuables as his own spoil.

Jos was, if not seriously alarmed as yet, at least considerably
disturbed in mind. “Give me my coat and cap, sir,” said he,
“and follow me. I will go myself and learn the truth of these
reports.” Isidor was furious as Jos put on the braided frock.
“Milor had better not wear that military coat,” said he; “the
Frenchmen have sworn not to give quarter to a single British
soldier.”

“Silence, sirrah!” said Jos, with a resolute countenance
still, and thrust his arm into the sleeve with indomitable reso-
lution, in the performance of which heroic act he was found
by Mrs. Rawdon Crawley, who at this juncture came up to
visit Amelia, and entered without ringing at the ante-chamber
door.

Rebecca was dressed very neatly and smartly as usual: her
quiet sleep after Rawdon’s departure had refreshed her, and
her pink smiling cheeks were quite pleasant to look at, in a
town and on a day when everybody else’s countenance wore
the appearance of the deepest anxiety and gloom. She laughed
at the attitude in which Jos was discovered, and the struggles
and convulsions with which the stout gentleman thrust him-
self into the braided coat.

“Are you preparing to join the army, Mr. Joseph?” she
314 VANITY FAIR.

said. “Is there to be nobody left in Brussels to protect us
poor women?” Jos succeeded in plunging into the coat, and
came forward blushing and stuttering out excuses to his fair
visitor. “How was she after the events of the morning,—
after the fatigues of the ball the night before?” Monsieur
Isidor disappeared into his master’s adjacent bedroom bearing
off the flowered dressing-gown.

“Wow good of you to ask,” said she, pressing one of his
hands in both her own. “How cool and collected you look
when everybody else is frightened! How is our dear little
Emmy? It must have been an awful, awful parting.”

“Tremendous,” Jos said.

“You men can bear anything,” replied the lady. “Parting
or danger are nothing to you. Own now that you were go-
ing to join the army and leave us to our fate. J know you
were,—something tells me you were. I was so frightened,
when the thought came into my head (for I do sometimes
think of you when I am alone, Mr. Joseph), that I ran off im-
mediately to beg and entreat you not to fly from us.”

This speech might be interpreted, “My dear sir, should an
accident befall the army, and a retreat be necessary, you have
a very comfortable carriage, in which I propose to take a
seat.” I don’t know whether Jos understood the words in this
sense. But he was profoundly mortified by the lady’s inat-
tention to him during their stay at Brussels. He had never
been presented to any of Rawdon Crawley’s great acquaint-
ances: he had scarcely been invited to Rebecca’s parties; for
he was too timid to play much, and his presence bored George
and Rawdon equally, who neither of them, perhaps, liked to
have a witness of the amusements in which the pair chose to
indulge. “Ah!” thought Jos, “now she wants me she comes
to me. When there is nobody else in the way she can think
about old Joseph Sedley!” But besides these doubts he felt
flattered at the idea Rebecca expressed of his courage.

He blushed a good deal, and put on an air of importance.
“T should like to see the action,” he said. “Every man of
any spirit would you know. I’ve seen a little service in India,
but nothing on this grand scale.”

“You men would sacrifice anything for a pleasure,” Re-
becca answered. “Captain Crawley left me this morning as
gay as if he were going to a hunting party. What does he
care? What do any of you care for the agonies and tortures
of a poor forsaken woman? (I wonder whether he could
A NGVEL WITHOUT A HERO, 315

really have been going to the troops, this great lazy gour-
mand?) Oh! dear Mr. Sedley, I have come to you for com-
fort,—for consolation. I have been on my knees all the
morning. I tremble at the frightful danger into which our
husbands, our friends, our brave troops and allies, are rush-
ing. And I come here for shelter, and find another of my
friends—the last remaining to me—bent upon plunging into
the dreadful scene!”

“My dear madam,” Jos replied, now beginning to be quite
soothed, “don’t be alarmed. I only said I should like to go,—
what Briton would not? But my duty keeps me here: I
can’t leave that poor creature in the next room.” And he
pointed with his finger to the door of the chamber in which
Amelia was.

“Good, noble brother!” Rebecea said, putting her handker-
chief to her eyes, and smelling the eau-de-cologne with which
it was scented. “I have done you injustice: you have got a
heart. I thought you had not.”

“O, upon my honor!” Jos said, making a motion as if he
would lay his hand upon the spot in question. “You do me
injustice, indeed you do,—my dear Mrs. Crawley.”

“T do, now your heart is true to your sister. But I re-
member two years ago,—when it was false to me!” Rebecca
said, fixing her eyes upon him for an instant, and then turn-
ing away into the window.

Jos blushed violently. That organ which he was accused
by Rebecca of not possessing began to thump tumultuously.
He recalled the days when he had fled from her, and the
passion which had once inflamed him,—the days when he had
driven her in his curricle: when she had knit the green purse
for him: when he had sat enraptured gazing at her white
arms and bright eyes.

“I know you think me ungrateful,” Rebecca continued,
coming out of the window, and once more looking at him
and addressing him in a low, tremulous voice. “Your cold-
ness, your averted looks, your manner when we have met of
late,—when I came in just now, all proved it to me. But
were there no reasons why I should avoid you? Let your
own heart answer that question. Do you think my husband
was too much inclined to welcome you? The only unkind
words I have ever had from him (I will do Captain Crawley
that justice) have been about you,—and most cruel, cruel
words they were.”
316 ' VANITY FAIR.

“Good gracious! what have I done?” asked Jos, in a flurry
of pleasure and perplexity,—“what have I done—to—to—”

“Is jealousy nothing?” said Rebecca. “He makes me mis-
erable about you. And whatever it might have been once—
my heart is all his. Iam innocent now. Am I not, Mr. Sed-
ley?”

YA Jos’s blood tingled with delight, as he surveyed this
victim to his attractions. A few adroit words, one or two
knowing tender glances of the eyes, and his heart was in-
flamed again and his doubts and suspicions forgotten. From
Solomon downwards, have not wiser men than he been ca-
joled and befooled by women? “If the worst comes to the
worst,” Becky thought, “my retreat is secure; and I have a
tight-hand seat in the barouche.”

There is no knowing into what declarations of love and
ardor the tumultuous passions of Mr. Joseph might have led
him, if Isidor the valet had not made his reappearance at
this minute, and begun to busy himself about the domestic
affairs. Jos, who was just going to gasp out an avowal,
choked almost with the emotion that he was obliged to re-
strain. Rebecca too bethought her that it was time she
should go in and comfort her dearest Amelia. “Au revoir,”
she said, kissing her hand to Mr. Joseph, and tapped gently
at the door of his sister’s apartment. As she entered and
closed the door on herself, he sank down in a chair, and gazed
and sighed and puffed portentously. “That coat is very tight
for Milor,” Isidor said, still having his eye on the frogs; but
his master heard him not: his thoughts were elsewhere: now
glowing, maddening, upon the contemplation of the enchant-
ing Rebecca: anon shrinking guiltily before the vision of the
jealous Rawdon Crawley, with his curling, fierce mustachios,
and his terrible dueling pistols loaded and cocked.

Rebecca’s appearance struck Amelia with terror, and made
her shrink back. It recalled her to the world and the re-
membrance of yesterday. In the overpowering fears about
to-morrow she had forgotten Rebecca—jealousy—-everything
except that her husband was gone and was in danger. Until
this dauntless worldling came in and broke the spell, and lift-
ed the latch, we too have forborne to enter into that sad cham-
ber. How long had that poor girl been on her knees! what
hours of speechless prayer and bitter prostration had she
passed there! The war-chroniclers who write brilliant stories
of fight and triumph scarcely tell us of these, These are too
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 317

mean parts of the pageant: and you don’t hear widows’ cries
or mothers’ sobs in the midst of the shouts and jubilation in
the great Chorus of Victory. And yet when was the time
that such have not cried out; heart-broken, humble pro-
testants, unheard in the uproar of the triumph!

After the first movement of terror in Amelia’s mind,—
when Rebecca’s green eyes lighted upon her, and, rustling in
her fresh silks and brilliant ornaments, the latter tripped up
with extended arms to embrace her,—a feeling of anger suc-
ceeded, and, from being deadly pale before, her face flushed
up red, and she returned Rebecca’s look after a moment with
a steadiness which surprised and somewhat abashed her rival.

“Dearest Amelia, you are very unwell,” the visitor said,
putting forth her hand to take Amelia’s. “What is it? I
could not rest until I knew how you were.”

Amelia drew back her hand,—never since her life began
had that gentle soul refused to believe or to answer any de-
monstration of good-will or affection. But she drew back her
hand, and trembled all over. “Why are you here, Rebecca?”
she said, still looking at her solemnly with her large eyes.
These glances troubled her visitor.

“She must have seen him give me the letter at the ball,”
Rebecca thought. “Don’t be agitated, dear Amelia,” she
said, looking down. “I came but to see if I could—if you
were well.”

“Are you well?” said Amelia. “I dare say you are. You
don’t love your husband. You would not be here if you did.
Tell me, Rebecca, did I ever do you anything but kindness?”

“Indeed, Amelia, no,” the other said, still hanging down
her head.

“When you were quite poor, who was it that befriended
you? Was I nota sister to you? You saw us all in happier
days before he married me. I was all in all then to him;
or would he have given up his fortune, his family, as he nobly
did, to make me happy? Why did you come between my
love and me? Who sent you to separate those whom God
joined, and take my darling’s heart from me,—my own hus-
band? Do you think you could love him asI did? His love
was everything tome. You knew it, and wanted to rob me of
it. For shame, Rebecca; bad and wicked woman, — false
friend and false wife.”

“Amelia, I protest before God, I have done my husband no
wrong,” Rebecca said, turning from her.
318 VANITY FAIR.

“Have you done me no wrong, Rebecca? You did not
succeed, but you tried. Ask your heart if you did not?”

She knows nothing, Rebecca thought.

“He came back to me. I knew he would. I knew that no
falsehood, no flattery, could keep him from me long. I knew
he would come. I prayed so that he should.”

The poor girl spoke these words with a spirit and volubil-
ity which Rebecca had never before seen in her, and before
which the latter was quite dumb. “But what have I done to
you,” she continued, in a more pitiful tone, “that you should
try and take him from me? I had him but for six weeks.
You might have spared me those, Rebecca. And yet, from
the very first day of our wedding, you came and blighted it.
Now he is gone, are you come to see how unhappy I am?”
She continued, “You made me wretched enough for the past
fortnight; you might have spared me to-day.”

“T—TI never came here,’ interposed Rebecca, with un-
lucky truth. ;

“No. You didn’t come. You took him away. Are you
come to fetch him from me?” she continued in a wilder tone.
“He was here, but he is gone now. There on that very sofa
he sat. Don’t touch it. We sat and talked there. I was on
his knee, and my arms round his neck and we said, ‘Our
Father.” Yes, he was here; and they came and took him
away, but he promised me to come back.”

“We will come back, my dear,” said Rebecca, touched in
spite of herself.

“Look,” said Amelia, “this is his sash,—isn’t it a pretty
color?” and she took up the fringe and kissed it. She had
tied it round her waist at some part of the day. She had for-
gotten her anger, her jealousy, the very presence of her rival
seemingly. For she walked silently and almost with a smile
on her face, towards the bed, and began to smooth down
George’s pillow. ;

Rebecca walked, too, silently away. “How is Amelia?”
asked Jos, who still held his position in the chair.

“There should be somebody with her,” said Rebecca. “I
think she is very unwell.” And she went away with a very
grave face, refusing Mr. Sedley’s entreaties that she would stay
and partake of the early dinner which he had ordered.

Rebecca was of a good-natured and obliging disposition;
and she liked Amelia rather than otherwise. Even her hard
words, reproachful as they were, were complimentary,—the
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 319

groans of a person stinging under defeat. Meeting Mrs.
O’Dowd, whom the Dean’s sermons had by no means com-
forted, and who was walking very disconsolately in the Pare,
Rebecca accosted the latter, rather to the surprise of the Ma-
jor’s wife, who was not accustomed to such marks of polite-
ness from Mrs. Rawdon Crawley, and informing her that poor
little Mrs. Osborne was in a desperate condition, and almost
mad with gricf, sent off the good-natured Irishwoman straight
to see if she could console her young favorite.

“Pve cares of my own enough,” Mrs. O’Dowd said, gravely,
“and I thought poor Amelia would be little wanting for com-
pany this day. But if she’s so bad as you say, and you can’t
attend to her, who used to be so fond of her, faith I'll see if
I can be of service. And so good marning to ye, madam;”
with which speech and a toss of her head, the lady of the
repayther took a farewell of Mrs. Crawley, whose company she
by no means courted.

Becky watched her marching off, with a smile on her lip.
She had the keenest sense of humor, and the Parthian look
which the retreating Mrs. O’Dowd flung over her shoulder al-
most upset Mrs. Crawley’s gravity. “My service to ye, me fine
madam, and I’m glad to see ye so cheerful,” thought Peggy.
“Tt’s not you that will ery your eyes out with grief any way.”
And with this she passed on, and speedily found her way to.
Mrs. Osborne’s lodgings.

The poor soul was still at the bed-side, where Rebecca had
left her, and stood almost crazy with grief. The Major’s
wife, a stronger-minded woman, endeavored her best to com-
fort her young friend. “You must bear up, Amelia, dear,”
she said kindly, “for he mustn’t find you ill when he sends
for you after the victory. It’s not you are the only woman
that are in the hands of God this day.”

“I know that. I am very wicked, very weak,” Amclia said.
She knew her own weakness well enough. The presence of
the more resolute friend checked it, however; and she was
the better of this control and company. They went on till
two o’clock; their hearts were with the column as it marched
farther and farther away. Dreadful doubt and anguish—
prayers and fears and griefs unspeakable—followed the regi-
ment. It was the women’s tribute to the war. It taxes both
alike, and takes the blood of the men, and the tears of the

women. ee
At half past two, an event occurred of daily importance to
320 VANITY FAIR.

Mr. Joseph: the dinner-hour arrived. Warriors may fight
and perish, but he must dine. He came into Amelia’s room
to see if he could coax her to share that meal. “Try,” said
he; “the soup is very good. Do try, Emmy;” and he kissed
her hand. Except when she was married, he had not done so
much for years before. “You are very good and kind, Jo-
seph,” she said. “Everybody is, but, if you please, I will
stay in my room to-day.”

The savor of the soup, however, was agreeable to Mrs.
O’Dowd’s nostrils: and she thought she would bear Mr. Jos
company. So the two sat down to their meal. “God bless
the meat,” said the Major’s wife, solemnly: she was thinking
of her honest Mick, riding at the head of hisregiment: “’Tis
but a bad dinner those poor boys will get to-day,” she said,
with a sigh, and then, like a philosopher, fell to.

Jos’s spirits rose with his meal. He would drink the regi-
ment’s health; or, indeed, take any other excuse to indulge
in a glass of champagne. “We'll drink to O’Dowd and the
brave —th,” said he, bowing gallantly to his guest. “Hey,
Mrs. O’Dowd? Fill Mrs. O’Dowd’s glass, Isidor.”

But all of a sudden Isidor started, and the Major’s wife
laid down her knife and fork. The windows of the room
were open, and looked southward, and a dull distant sound
came over the sun-lighted roofs from that direction. “What
is it?” said Jos. “Why don’t you pour, you rascal?”

‘C'est le feu!” said Isidor, running to the balcony.

“God defend us; it’s cannon!” Mrs. O’Dowd cried, starting
up, and followed too to the window. A thousand pale and
anxious faces might have been seen looking from other case-
ments. And presently it seemed as if the whole population
of the city rushed into the streets.

CHAPTER XXXII.

IN WHICH JOS TAKES FLIGHT, AND THE WAR IS
BROUGHT TO A CLOSE.

We of peaceful London City have never beheld—and please
God never shall witness—such a scene of hurry and alarm, as
that which Brussels presented. Crowds rushed to the Namur
gate, from which direction the noise proceeded, and many
rode along the level chaussée, to be in advance of any intel-
ligence from the army. Each man asked his neighbor for
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 321

news; and even great English lords and ladies condescended
to speak to persons whom they did not know. The friends
of the French went abroad, wild with excitement, and proph-
esying the triumph of their Emperor. The merchants closed
their shops, and came out to swell the general chorus of
alarm and clamor. Women rushed to the churches, and
crowded the chapels, and knelt and prayed on the flags and
steps. The dull sound of the cannon went on rolling, roll-
ing. Presently carriages with travelers began to leave the
town, galloping away by the Ghent barrier. The prophecies
of the French partisans began to pass for facts. “He has cut
the armies in two,” it was said. “He is marching straight on
Brussels. He will overpower the English, and be here to-
night.” “He will overpower the English,” shrieked Isidor to
his master, “and will be here to-night.’ The man bounded
in and out from the lodgings to the street, always returning
with some fresh particulars of disaster. Jos’s face grew
paler and paler. Alarm began to take entire possession of
the stout civilian. All the champagne he drank brought no
courage to him. Before sunset he was worked up to such a
pitch of nervousness as gratified his friend Isidor to behold,
who now counted surely upon the spoils of the owner of the
laced coat. |

The women were away all this time. After hearing the fir-
ing for a moment, the stout Major’s wife bethought her of her
friend in the next chamber, and ran in to watch, and if possi-
ble to console, Amelia. The idea that she had that helpless
and genile creature to protect, gave additional strength to the
natural courage of the honest Irishwoman. She passed five
hours by her friend’s side, sometimes in remonstrance, some-
times talking cheerfully, oftener in silence, and terrified
mental supplication. “I never let go her hand once,” said
the stout lady afterwards, “until after sunset, when the firing
was over.” Pauline, the donne, was on her knees at church
hard by, praying for son homme @ elle.

When the noise of the cannonading was over, Mrs. O’Dowd
issued out of Amelia’s room into the parlor adjoining, where
Jos sat with two emptied flasks, and courage entirely gone.
Once or twice he had ventured into his sister’s bedroom, look-
ing very much alarmed, and as if he would say something.
But the Major’s wife kept her place, and he went away with-
out disburdening himself of his speech. He was ashamed
to tell her that he wanted to fly.

21
822 VANITY FAIR.

But when she made her appearance in the dining-room,
where he sat in the twilight in the cheerless company of his
empty champagne-bottles, he began to open his mind to her.

“Mrs. O’Dowd,” he said, “hadn’t you better get Amelia
ready?”

“Are you going to take her out a walk?” said the Major’s
lady, “sure she’s too weak to stir.”

“T—T’ve ordered the carriage,” he said, “and—and post-
horses; Isidor is gone for them,” Jos continued.

“What do you want with driving to-night?” answered the
lady. “Isn’t she better on her bed? I’ve just got her to lie
down.”

“Get her up,” said Jos; “she must get up, I say”; and he
stamped his foot energetically. “I say the horses are ordered,
yes, the horses are ordered. It’s all over, and a

“And what?” asked Mrs. O’Dowd.

“T’m off for Ghent,” Jos answered. “Everybody is going;
there’s a place for you! We shall start in half an hour.”

The Major’s wife looked at him with infinite scorn. “I
don’t move till O’Dowd gives me the route,” said she. “You
tea go if you like, Mr. Sedley; but, faith, Amelia and I stop

ere.”

“She shall go,” said Jos, with another stamp of his foot.
Mrs. O’Dowd put herself with arms akimbo before the bed-
room door.

“Ts it her mother yow’re going to take her to?” she said;
“or do you want to go to mamma yourself, Mr. Sedley? Good
marning,—a pleasant journey to ye, sir. Bon voyage, as they
say, and take my counsel, and shave off them mustachios, or
they'll bring you into mischief.”

“D——n!” yelled out Jos, wild with fear, rage, and morti-
fication; and Isidor came in at this juncture, swearing in his
turn. ‘“‘Pas de chevauz, sacreblew!” hissed out the furious
domestic. All the horses were gone. Jos was not the only
man in Brussels seized with panic that day.

But Jos’s fears, great and cruel as they were already, were
destined to increase to an almost frantic pitch before the
night was over. It has been mentioned how Pauline, the
bonne, had son homme @ elle also in the ranks of the army
that had gone out to meet the Emperor Napoleon. This lover
was a native of Brussels, and a Belgian hussar. The troops
of his nation signalized themselves in this war for anything
but courage, and young Van Cutsum, Pauline’s admirer, was

 
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 323

too good a soldier to disobey his Colonel’s orders to run away.
Whilst in garrison at Brussels young Regulus (he had been
born in the revolutionary times) found his great comfort, and
passed almost all his leisure moments, in Pauline’s kitchen;
and it was with pockets and holsters crammed full of good
things from her larder, that he had taken leave of his weep-
mg sweetheart, to proceed upon the campaign a few days be-
ore.

As far ag his regiment was concerned, this campaign was
over now. They had formed a part of the division under the
command of his Sovereign apparent, the Prince of Orange,
and as respected length of swords and mustachios, and the
richness of uniform and equipments, Regulus and his com-
rades looked to be as gallant a body of men as ever trumpet
sounded for.

When Ney dashed upon the advance of the allied troops,
carrying one position after the other, until the arrival of the
great body of the British army from Brussels changed the
aspect of the combat of Quatre Bras, the squadrons among
which Regulus rode showed the greatest activity in retreating
before the French, and were dislodged from one post and an-
other which they occupied with perfect alacrity on their
part. Their movements were only checked by the advance
of the British in their rear. Thus forced to halt, the en-
emy’s cavalry (whose bloodthirsty obstinacy cannot be too
severely reprehended) had at length an opportunity of com-
ing to close quarters with the brave Belgians before them;
who preferred to encounter the British rather than the French,
and at once turning tail rode through the English regiments
that were behind them, and scattered in all directions. The
regiment in fact did not exist any more. It was nowhere. It
had no head-quarters. Regulus found himself galloping many
miles from the field of action, entirely alone; and whither
should he fly for refuge so naturally as to that kitchen and
those faithful arms in which Pauline had so often welcomed
him?

At some ten o’clock the clinking of a saber might have
been heard up the stair of the house where the Osbornes oc-
cupied a story in the continental fashion. A knock might
have been heard at the kitchen door; and poor Pauline, come
back from church, fainted almost with terror as she opened
it and saw before her her haggard hussar. He looked as paie
as the midnight dragoon who came to disturb Leonora. Pau-
324 VANITY FAIR.

line would have screamed, but that her cry would have called
her masters, and discovered her friend. She stifled her scream,
then, and, leading her hero into the kitchen, gave him beer,
and the choice bits from the dinner, which Jos had not had
the heart to taste. 'The hussar showed he was no ghost by the
prodigious quantity of flesh and beer which he devoured,—
and during the mouthfuls he told his tale of disaster.

His regiment had performed prodigies of courage, and
had withstood for a while the onset of the whole French
army. But they were overwhelmed at last, as was the whole
British army at this time. Ney destroyed each regiment as
it came up. The Belgians in vain interposed to prevent the
butchery of the English. The Brunswickers were routed and
had fled,—their Duke was killed. It was a general debdele.
He sought to drown his sorrow for the defeat in floods of
beer.

Isidor, who had come into the kitchen, heard the conver-
sation and rushed out to inform his master. “It is all over,”
he shrieked to Jos. “Milor Duke is a prisoner; the Dake of
Brunswick is killed; the British army is in full flight; there
is only one man escaped, and he is in the kitchen now,—come
and hear him.” So Jos tottered into that apartment where
Regulus still sat on the kitchen table, and clung fast to his
flagon of beer. In the best French which he could muster,
and which was in sooth of a very ungrammatical sort, Jos
besought the hussar to tell his tale. The disasters deepened
as Regulus spoke. He was the only man of his regiment not,
slain on the field. He had seen the Duke of Brunswick fall,
the black hussars fly, the Ecossais pounded down by the can-
non.

“And the —th?” gasped Jos.

“Cut in pieces,” said the hussar: upon which Pauline cried
out, “O my mistress, ma bonne petite dame,” went off fairly
into hysterics, and filled the house with her screams.

Wild with terror, Mr. Sedley knew not how or where to
seek for safety. He rushed from the kitchen back to the
sitting-room, and cast an appealing look at Amelia’s door,
which Mrs. O’Dowd had closed and locked in his face; but
he remembered how scornfully the latter had received him,
and, after pausing and listening for a brief space at the door,
he left it, and resolved to go into the street, for the first time
that day. So seizing a candle, he looked about for his gold-
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO, 825

laced cap, and found it lying in its usual place, on a console-
table, in the anteroom, placed before a mirror at which Jos
used to coquet, always giving his side-locks a twirl, and his
cap the proper cock over his eye, before he went forth to
make appearance in public. Such is the force of habit, that
even in the midst of his terror he began mechanically to twid-
dle with his hair, and arrange the cock of his hat. Then
he looked amazed at the pale face in the glass before him, and
especially at his mustachios, which had attained a rich growth
in the course of near seven weeks, since they had come into
the world. They will mistake me for a military man, thought
he, remembering Isidor’s warning as to the massacre with
which all the defeated British army was threatened; and,
staggering back to his bedchamber, he began wildly pulling
the bell which summoned his valet.

Isidor answered that summons. Jog had sunk in a chair,—
he had torn off his neckcloths, and turned down his collars,
and was sitting with both hands lifted to his throat.

“*Cowpez-mot, Isidor,” shouted he; ‘‘wite! Coupez-mot!”

Isidor thought for a moment he had gone mad, and that
he wished his valet to cut his throat.

“Les moustaches,” gasped Jos; ‘les moustaches—coupy,
rasy, vite!”—his French was of this sort—voluble, as we have
said, but not remarkable for grammar.

Isidor swept off the mustachios in no time with the razor,
and heard with inexpressible delight his master’s orders that
he should fetch a hat and a plain coat. ‘“‘Ne porty ploo—
habit militair—bonny—bonny a voo, prenny dehors’—were
Jos’s words,—the coat and cap were at last his property.

This gift being made, Jos selected a plain black coat and
waistcoat from his stock, and put on a large white neckcloth,
and a plain beaver. If he could have got a shovel-hat he
would have worn it. As it was, you would have fancied he
was a flourishing, large parson of the Church of England.

“«Venny maintenong,” he continued, ‘‘sweevy—ally—party
—dong la roo.” And so having said, he plunged swiftly
down the stairs of the house, and passed into the street.

Although Regulus had vowed that he was the only man
of his regiment or of the allied army, almost, who had es-
caped being cut to pieces by Ney, it appeared that his state-
ment was incorrect, and that a good number more of the sup-
posed victims had survived the massacre. Many scores of
Reguius’s comrades had found their way back to Brussels,
326 VANITY FAIR,

and—all agreeing that they had run away—filled the whole
town with an idea of the defeat of the allies. The arrival
of the French was expected hourly; the panic continued, and
preparations for flight went on everywhere. No _ horses!
thought Jos, in terror. He made Isidor inquire of scores of
persons, whether they had any to lend or sell, and his heart
sank within him at the negative answers returned everywhere.
Should he take the journey on foot? Even fear could not
render that ponderous body so active.

Almost all the hotels occupied by the English in Brussels
face the Parc, and Jos wandered irresolutely about in this
quarter, with crowds of other people, oppressed as he was by
fear and curiosity. Some families he saw more happy than
himself, having discovered a team of horses, and rattling
through the streets in retreat; others again there were whose
case was like his own, and who could not for any bribes or
entreaties procure the necessary means of flight. Amongst
these would-be fugitives, Jos remarked the Lady Bareacres
and her daughter, who sat in their carriage in the porte-
cochére of their hotel, all their imperials packed, and the only
drawback to whose flight was the same motive power which
kept Jos stationary.

Rebecca Crawley occupied apartments in this hotel; and
had before this period had sundry hostile meetings with the
ladies of the Bareacres family. My Lady Bareacres cut Mrs.
Crawley on the stairs when they met by chance; and in all
places where the latter’s name was mentioned, spoke persever-
ingly ill of her neighbor. The Countess was shocked at the
familiarity of General Tufto with the aide-de-camp’s wife.
The Lady Blanche avoided her as if she had been an infectious
disease. Only the Earl himself kept up a sly occasional ac-
quaintance with her when out of the jurisdiction of his ladies.

Rebecca had her revenge now upon these insolent enemies.
It became known in the hotel that Captain Crawley’s horses
had been left behind, and when the panic began, Lady Bare-
acres condescended to send her maid to the Captain’s wife
with her Ladyship’s compliments, and a desire to know the
price of Mrs, Crawley’s horses. Mrs. Crawley returned a note
with her compliments, and an intimation that it was not her
custom to transact bargains with ladies’ maids.

This curt reply brought the Earl in person to Becky’s
apartment; but he could get no more success than the first
ambassador. “Send a lady’s maid to me!” Mrs, Crawley
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 327

cried, in great anger; “why didn’t my Lady Bareacres tell
me to go and saddle the horses! Is it her Ladyship that wants
to escape, or her Ladyship’s femme de chambre?” And this
was all the answer that the Earl bore back to his Countess.

What will not necessity do? The Countess herself actually
came to wait upon Mrs. Crawley on the failure of her second
envoy. She entreated her to name her own price; she even
offered to invite Becky to Bareacres House, if the latter would
but give her the means of returning to that residence. Mrs.
Crawley sneered at her.

“I don’t want to be waited on by bailiffs in livery,” she
said; “you will never get back though, most probably,—at
least not you and your diamonds together. The French will
have those. They will be here in two hours, and I ghall be
half-way to Ghent by that time. I would not sell you my
horses, no, not for the two largest diamonds that your Lady-
ship wore at the ball.” Lady Bareacres trembled with rage
and terror. The diamonds were sewed into her habit, and
secreted in my Lord’s padding and boots. “Woman, the dia-
monds are at the banker’s and I will have the horses,” she
said. Rebecca laughed in her face. The infuriate Countess
went below, and sat in her carriage; her maid, her courier,
and her husband were sent once more through the town, each
to look for cattle; and woe betide those who came last! Her
Ladyship was resolved on departing the very instant the horses
arrived from any quarter,—with her husband or without
him.

___Rebecca had the pleasure-of-seeing- her Ladyship in the
horseless carriage, and keeping her eyes fixed upon her, and
bewailing, in the loudest tone of voice, the Countess’s per-.
plexities. “Not to be able to get horses!” she said, “and to
have all those diamonds sewed-into- the carriage-cushions!
What a prize it will be for the French when they come!—the
carriage and the diamonds, I mean; not the lady!” She gave
this information to the landlord, to the servants, to the guests,
and the innumerable stragglers about the court-yard. Lady
Bareacres could have shot her from the carriage window.
~ _ It was while enjoying the humiliation of her enemy that
Rebecca caught sight of Jos, who made towards her directly
he perceived her. (

That altered, frightened, fat face told his secret well

enough. He too wanted to fly, and was on the lookout for
328 VANITY FAIR.

the means of escape. “He shall buy my horses,” thought
Rebecca, “and 1’il ride the mare.”

Jos walked up to his friend, and put the question for the
hundredth time during the past hour, “Did she know where
horses were to be had?”

“What, you fly?” said Rebecca, with a laugh. “I thought
you were the champion of all the ladies, Mr. Sedley.”

“J—I’m not a military man,” gasped he.

“And Amelia?—Who is to protect that poor little sister
of yours,” asked Rebecca. “You surely would not desert
her?”

“What good can I do her, suppose—suppose the enemy
arrive?” Jos answered. “They'll spare the women; but my
man tells me that they have taken an oath to give no quarter
to the men,—the dastardly cowards.”

“Horrid!” cried Rebecca, enjoying his perplexity.

“Besides, I don’t want to desert her,” cried the brother.
“She sha’n’t be deserted. There is a seat for her in my car-
riage, and one for you, dear Mrs. Crawley, if you will come;
and if we can get horses—” sighed he—

“T have two to sell,” the lady said. Jos could have flung
himself into her arms at the news. “Get the carriage, Isidor,”
he cried; “we’ve found them,—we have found them.”

“My horses never were in harness,” added the lady. “Bul-
finch would kick the carriage to pieces, if you put him in the
traces.”

“But he is quiet to ride?” asked the civilian.

“As quiet as a lamb, and as fast as a hare,” answered Re-
becca.

“Do you think he is up to my weight?” Jos said. He was
already on his back, in imagination, without ever so much as
a thought for poor Amelia. What person who loved a horse
speculation could resist such a temptation?

In reply, Rebecca asked him to come into her room, whither
he followed her quite breathless to conclude the bargain.
Jos seldom spent a half-hour in his life which cost him so
much money. Rebecca, measuring the value of the goods
which she had for sale by Jos’s eagerness to purchase, as well
as by the scarcity of the article, put upon her horses a price
so prodigious as to make even the civilian draw back. “She
would sell both or neither,” she said, resolutely. Rawdon
had ordered her not to part with them for a price less than
that which she specified. Lord Bareacres below would give
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 329

her the same money—and, with all her love and regard for the
Sedley family, her dear Mr. Joseph must conceive that poor
people must live,—nobody, in a word, could be more affection-
ate, but more firm about the matter of business.

Jos ended by agreeing, as might be supposed of him. The
sum he had to give her was so large that he was obliged to
ask for time; so large as to be a little fortune to Rebecca,
who rapidly calculated that with this sum, and the sale of the
residue of Rawdon’s effects, and her pension as a widow
should he fall, she would now be absolutely independent of
the world, and might look her weeds steadily in the face.

Once or twice in the day she certainly had herself thought
about flying. But her reason gave her better counsel. “Sup-
pose the French do come,” thought Becky, “what can they
do to a poor officer’s widow? Bah! the times of sacks and
sieges are over. We shall be let to go home quietly, or I may
live pleasantly abroad with a snug little income.” ;

Meanwhile Jos and Isidor went off to the stables to inspect
the newly purchased cattle. Jos bade his man saddle the
horses at once. He would ride away that very night, that
very hour. And he left the valet busy in getting the horses
ready, and went homewards himself to prepare for his depart-
ure. It must be secret. He would go to his chamber by the
back entrance. He did not care to face Mrs. O’Dowd and
Amelia, and own to them that he was about to run.

By the time Jos’s bargain with Rebecca was completed, and
his horses had been visited and examined, it was almost
morning once more. But though midnight was long passed,
there was no rest for the city; the people were up, the lights
in the houses flamed, crowds were still about the doors, and
the streets were busy. Rumors of various natures went still
from mouth to mouth: one report averred that the Prus-
sians had been utterly defeated: another that it was the Eng-
lish who had been attacked and conquered: a third that the
latter had held their ground. This last rumor gradually got
strength. No Frenchmen had made their appearance. Strag-
glers had come in from the army bringing reports more and
more favorable: at last an aide-de-camp actually reached
Brussels with despatches for the Commandant of the place,
who placarded presently through the town an official an-
nouncement of the success of the allies at Quatre Bras, and
the entire repulse of the French under Ney after a six hours’
battle. The aide-de-camp must have arrived some time while
330 VANITY FAIR.

Jos and Rebecca were making their bargain together, or the
latter was inspecting his purchase. When he reached his own
hotel, he found a score of its numerous inhabitants on the
threshold discoursing of the news; there was no doubt as to
its truth. And he went up to communicate it to the ladies
under his charge. He did not think it was necessary to tell
them how he had intended to take leave of them, how he had
bought horses, and what a price he had paid for them.

But success or defeat was a minor matter to them, who
had only thought for the safety of those they loved. Amelia,
at the news of the victory, became still more agitated even
than before. She was for going that moment to the army. She
besought her brother with tears to conduct her thither. Her
doubts and terrors reached their paroxysm; and the poor girl,
who for many hours had been plunged into stupor, raved and
ran hither and thither in hysteric insanity,—a piteous sight.
No man writhing in pain on the hard-fought field fifteen miles
off, where lay, after their struggles, so many of the brave,—
no man suffered more keenly than this poor harmless victim
of the war. Jos could not bear the sight of her pain. He
left his sister in the charge of her stouter female companion,
and descended once more to the threshold of the hotel, where
everybody still lingered, and talked, and waited for more
news.

It grew to be broad daylight as they stood here, and fresh
news began to arrive from the war, brought by men who had
been actors in the scene. Wagons and long country carts
laden with wounded came rolling into the town; ghastly
groans came from within them, and haggard faces looked up
sadly from out of the straw. Jos Sedley was looking at one of
these carriages with a painful curiosity,—the moans of the
people within were frightful,—the wearied horses could hard-
ly pull the cart. Stop! stop! a feeble voice cried from the
straw, and the carriage stopped opposite Mr. Sedley’s hotel.

“It is George, I know it is!” cried Amelia, rushing in a
moment to the balcony, with a pallid face and loose flowing
hair. It was not George, however, but it was the next best
thing; it was news of him.

It was poor Tom Stubble, who had marched out of Brussels
so gallantly twenty-fours before, bearing the colors of the
regiment, which he had defended very gallantly upon the
field. A French lancer had speared the young ensign in the
leg, who fell, still bravely holding to his flag. At the con-
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 331

clusion of the engagement, a place had been found for the
poor boy in a cart, and he had been brought back to Brussels.

“Mr. Sedley, Mr. Sedley!” cried the boy, faintly, and Jos
came up almost frightened at the appeal. He had not at first
distinguished who it was that called him.

Little Tom Stubble held out his hot and feeble hand. “I’m
to be taken in here,” he said. “Osborne—and—and Dobbin
said I was; and you are to give the man two Napoleons; my
mother will pay you.” This young fellow’s thoughts, during
the long feverish hours passed in the cart, had been wander-
ing to his father’s parsonage which he had quitted only a few
months before, and he had sometimes forgotten his pain in
that delirium.

The hotel was large, and the people kind, and all the in-
mates of the cart were taken in and placed on various couches.
The young ensign was conveyed up stairs to Osborne’s quar-
ters. Amelia and the Major’s wife had rushed down to him,
when the latter had recognized him from the balcony. You
may fancy the feelings of these women when they were told
that the day was over, and both their husbands were safe;
in what mute rapture Amelia fell on her good friend’s neck,
and embraced her; in what a grateful passion of prayers she
fell on her knees, and thanked the Power which had saved
her husband.

Our young lady, in her fevered and nervous condition, could
have had no more salutary medicine prescribed for her by
any physician than that which chance put in her way. She
and Mrs. O’Dowd watched incessantly by the wounded lad,
whose pains were very severe, and in the duty thus forced upon
her, Amelia had not time to brood over her personal anxieties,
or to give herself up to her own fears and forebodings after
her wont. The young patient told in his simple fashion the
events of the day, and the actions of our friends of the gallant
—th. They had suffered severely. They had lost very many
officers and men. The Major’s horse had been shot under him
as the regiment charged, and they all thought that O’Dowd
was gone, and that Dobbin had got his majority, until, on
their return from the charge to their old ground, the Major
was discovered seated on Pyramus’s carcass, refreshing him-
self from a case-bottle. It was Captain Osborne that cut down
the French lancer who had speared the ensign. Amelia turned
so pale at the notion, that Mrs. O’Dowd stopped the young
ensign in this story. And it was Captain Dobbin who at
$32 VANITY FAIR.

the end of the day, though wounded himself, took up the lad
in his arms and carried him to the surgeon, and thence to
the cart which was to bring him back to Brussels. And it
was he who promised the driver two louis if he would make
his way to Mr. Sedley’s hotel in the city; and tell Mrs. Cap-
tain Osborne that the action was over, and that her husband
was unhurt and well.

“Indeed, but he has a good heart that William Dobbin,”
Mrs. O’Dowd said, “though he is always laughing at me.”

Young Stubble vowed there was not such another officer
in the army, and never ceased his praises of the senior cap-
tain, his modesty, his kindness, and his admirable coolness in
the field. To these parts of the conversation, Amelia lent a
very distracted attention; it was only when George was spoken
of that she listened, and when he was not mentioned, she
thought about him.

In tending her patient, and in thinking of the wonderful
escapes of the day before, her second day passed away not too
slowly with Amelia. There was only one man in the army for
her; and as long as he was well, it must be owned that its
movements interested her little. All the reports which Jos
brought from the streets fell very vaguely on her ears; though
they were sufficient to give that timorous gentleman, and
many other people then in Brussels, every disquiet. The
French had been repulsed certainly, but it was after a severe
and doubtful struggle, and with only a division of the French
army. The Emperor, with the main body, was away at Ligny,
where he had utterly annihilated the Prussians, and was now
free to bring his whole force to bear upon the allies. The
Duke of Wellington was retreating upon the capital, and a
great battle must be fought under its walls probably, of which
the chances were more than doubtful. The Duke of Welling-
ton had but twenty thousand British troops on whom he
could rely, for the Germans were raw militia, the Belgians
disaffected; and with this handful his Grace had to resist a
hundred and fifty thousand men that had broken into Bel-
gium under Napoleon. Under Napoleon! What warrior was
there, however famous and skillful, that could fight at odds
with him?

Jos thought of all these things, and trembled. So did all
the rest of Brussels,—where people felt that the fight of the
day before was but the prelude to the greater combat which
was imminent. One of the armies opposed to the Emperor
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 333

Was scattered to the winds already. The few English that
could be brought to resist him would perish at their posts,
and the conqueror would pass over their bodies into the city.
Woe be to those whom he found there! Addresses were pre-
pared, public functionaries assembled and debated secretly,
apartments were got ready, and tricolored banners and tri-
umphal emblems manufactured, to welcome the arrival of his
Majesty the Emperor and King.

The emigration still continued, and wherever families could
find means of departure, they fled. When Jos, on the after-
noon of the 17th of June, went to Rebecca’s hotel, he found
that the great Bareacres’ carriage had at length rolled away
from the porte-cochére. The Earl had proeured a pair of
horses somehow, in spite of Mrs. Crawley, and was rolling on
the road to Ghent. Louis the Desired was getting ready his
portmanteau in that city, too. It seemed as if Misfortune
was never tired of worrying into motion that unwieldy exile.

Jos felt that the delay of yesterday had been only a respite,
and that his dearly bought horses must of a surety be put into
requisition. His agonies were very severe all this day. As
long as there was an English army between Brussels and
Napoleon, there was no need of immediate flight; but he had
his horses brought from their distant stables to the stables in
the court-yard of the hotel where he lived, so that they might
be under his own eyes, and beyond the risk of violent abduc-
tion. Isidor watched the stable door constantly, and had the
horses saddled, to be ready for the start. He longed intensely
for that event. Pees 3 adc

After the reception of the previous day, Rebecca did not
care to come near her dear Amelia. ‘She clipped the bow
quet which George had brought her, and gave fresh water to
the flowers, and read over the letter which he had sent her.
“Poor wretch,” she said, twirling round the little bit of pa-
per in her fingers, “how I could crush her with this!—and it
is for a thing like this that she must break her heart, for-
sooth,—for a man who is stupid,—a coxcomb,—and who does
not care for her. My poor good Rawdon is worth ten of this
creature.” And then she fell to thinking what she should
do if—if anything happened to poor good Rawdon, and what
a great piece of luck it was that he had left his horses be-
hind.‘ ‘

In the course of this day, too, Mrs. Crawley, who saw not
without anger the Bareacres party drive off, bethought her of
384 VANITY FAIR,

the precaution which the countess had taken, and did a little
needle-work for her own advantage; she stitched away the
major part of her trinkets, bills, and bank-notes about her
person, and, so prepared, was ready for any event,—to fly if
she thought fit, or to stay and welcome the conqueror, were
he Englishman or Frenchman. And I am not sure that
she did not dream that night of becoming a duchess and
Madame la Maréchale, while Rawdon wrapped in his cloak,
and making his bivouac under the rain at Mount Saint John,
was thinking, with all the force of his heart, about the little
wife whom he had left behind him.

The next day was a Sunday. And Mrs. Major O’Dowd had
the satisfaction of seeing both her patients refreshed in health
and spirits by some rest which they had taken during the
night. She herself had slept on a great chair in Amelia’s
room, ready to wait upon her poor friend or the ensign, should
either need her nursing. When morning came, this robust
woman went back to the house where she and her Major had
their billet; and here performed an elaborate and splendid
toilet befitting the day. And it is very possible that whilst
alone in that chamber, which her husband had inhabited, and
where his cap still lay on the pillow, and his cane stood in
the corner, one prayer at least was sent up to Heaven for the
welfare of the brave soldier, Michael O’Dowd.

When she returned she brought her prayer-book with her,
and her uncle the Dean’s famous book of sermons, out of
which she never failed to read every Sabbath; not under-
standing all, haply, not pronouncing many of the words aright, |
which were long and abstruse,—for the Dean was a learned
man, and loved long Latin words,—but with great gravity,
vast emphasis, and with tolerable correctness in the main.
“How often has my Mick listened to these sermons,” she
thought, “and me reading in the cabin of a calm!’ She pro-
posed to resume this exercise on the present day, with Amelia
and the wounded ensign for a congregation. The same ser-
vice was read on that day in twenty thousand churches at the
same hour; and millions of British men and women, on their
knees, implored protection of the Father of all.

They did not hear the noise which disturbed our little con-
gregation at Brussels. Much louder than that which had in-
terrupted them two days previously, as Mrs. O’Dowd was
reading the service in her best voice, the cannon of Waterloo
began to roar.
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO, 386

When Jos heard that dreadful sound, he made up his mind

that he would bear this perpetual recurrence of terrors no
longer, and would fly at once. He rushed into the sick man’s
toom, where our three friends had paused in their prayers,
and further interrupted them by a passionate appeal to
Amelia.
_ “T can’t stand it any more, Emmy,” he said; “I won’t stand
it; and you must come with me. I have bought a horse for
you,—never mind at what price,—and you must dress and
come with me, and ride behind Isidor.”

“God forgive me, Mr. Sedley, but you are no better than a
coward,” Mrs. O’Dowd said, laying down the book.

“T say come, Amelia,” the civilian went on; “never mind
what she says; why are we to stop here and be butchered by
the Frenchmen?”

“You forget the —th, my boy,” said the little Stubble, the
wounded hero, from his bed; “and—and you won’t leave
me, will you, Mrs. O’Dowd?”

“No, my dear fellow,” said she, going up and kissing the
boy. “No harm shall come to you while I stand by. I don’t
budge till I get the word from Mick. A pretty figure I’d be,
wouldn’t I, stuck behind that chap on a pillion?”

This image caused the young patient to burst out laughing
in his bed, and even made Amelia smile. “I don’t ask her,”
Jos shouted out,—“I don’t ask that—that Irishwoman, but
you, Amelia; once for all, will you come?”

“Without my husband, Joseph?” Amelia said, with a look
of wonder, and gave her hand to the Major’s wife. Jos’s pa-
tience was exhausted.

“Good-bye, then,” he said, shaking his fist in a rage, and
slamming the door by which he retreated. And this time he
really gave his order for march; and mounted in the court-
yard. Mrs. O’Dowd heard the clattering hoofs of the horses
as they issued from the gate; and, looking on, made many
scornful remarks on poor Joseph as he rode down the street
with Isidor after him in the laced cap. The horses, which
had not been exercised for some days, were lively, and sprang
about the street. Jos, a clumsy and timid horseman, did not
look to advantage in the saddle. “Look at him, Amelia dear,
driving into the parlor window. Such a bull in a china-shop
I never saw.” And presently the pair of riders disappeare
at a canter down the street leading in the direction of the
336 VANITY FAIR.

Ghent road, Mrs. O’Dowd pursuing them with a fire of sar-
casm so long as they were in sight.

All that day, from morning until past sunset, the cannon
never ceased to roar. It was dark when the cannonading
stopped all of a sudden.

All of us have read of what occurred during that interval.
The tale is in every Englishman’s mouth; and you and I,
who were children when the great battle was won and lost,
are never tired of hearing and recounting the history of that
famous action. Its remembrance rankles still in the bosoms
of millions of the countrymen of those brave men who lost
the day. They pant for an opportunity of revenging that
humiliation; and if a contest, ending in a victory on their
part, should ensue, elating them in their turn, and leaving
its cursed legacy of hatred and rage behind to us, there is
no end to the so-called glory and shame, and to the alterna-
tions of successful and unsuccessful murder, in which two
high-spirited nations might engage. Centuries hence, we
Frenchmen and Englishmen might be boasting and killing
each other still, carrying out bravely the Devil’s code of
honor.

All our friends took their share, and fought like men in the
great field. All day long, whilst the women were praying ten
miles away, the lines of the dauntless English infantry were
receiving and repelling the furious charges of the French
horsemen. Guns which were heard at Brussels were plough-
ing up their ranks, and comrades falling, and the resolute
survivors closing in. Towards evening, the attack of the
French, repeated and resisted so bravely, slackened in its fury.
They had other foes besides the British to engage, or were
preparing for a final onset. It came at last; the columns of
the Imperial Guard marched up the hill of Saint Jean, at
length and at once to sweep the English from the height
which they had maintained all day and spite of all; unscared
by the thunder of the artillery, which hurled death from the
English line,—the dark rolling column pressed on and up the
hill. It seemed almost to-crest the eminence, when it began
to wave and falter. Then it stopped still facing the shot.
Then, at last, the English troops rushed from the post from
which no enemy had been able to dislodge them, and the
Guard turned and fled.

No more firing was heard at Brussels,—the pursuit rolled
miles away. Darkness came down on the field and city; and
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO, 337

Amelia was praying for George, who was lying on his face,
dead, with a bullet through his heart.

CHAPTER XXXIII.

IN WHICH MISS CRAWLEY’S RELATIONS ARE VERY
ANXIOUS ABOUT HER.

_ The kind reader must please to remember—while the army
is marching from Flanders, and, after its heroic actions there,
is advancing to take the fortifications on the frontiers of
France, previous to an occupation of that country—that there
are a number of persons living peaceably in England, who
have to do with the history at present in hand, and must
come in for their share of the chronicle. During the time of
these battles and dangers, old Miss Crawley was living at
Brighton, very moderately moved by the great events that were
going on. The great events rendered the newspapers rather
interesting, to be sure, and Briggs read out the Gazette, in
which Rawdon Crawley’s gallantry was mentioned with honor,
and his promotion was presently recorded.

“What a pity that young man has taken such an irretriev-
able step in the world!” his aunt said; “with his rank and dis-
tinction he might have married a brewer’s daughter, with a
quarter of a million,—like Miss Grains; or have looked to
ally himself with the best families in England. He would
have had my money some day or other; or his children would,
—for I’m not in a hurry to go, Miss Briggs, although you
may be in a hurry to be rid of me; and instead of that, he
is a doomed pauper, with a dancing-girl for a wife.”

“Will my dear Miss Crawley not cast an eye of compassion
upon the heroic soldier, whose name is inscribed in the annals
of his country’s glory?” said Miss Briggs, who was greatly
excited by the Waterloo proceedings, and loved speaking ro-
mantically when there was an occasion. “Has not the Cap-
tain—or the Colonel as I may now style him—done deeds
which make the name of Crawley illustrious?”

“Briggs, you are a fool,” said Miss Crawley: “Colonel Craw-
ley has dragged the name of Crawley through the mud, Miss
Briggs. Marry a drawing-master’s daughter, indeed!—marry
a dame de compagnie,—tor she was no better, Briggs; no,

22
588 VANITY FAIR.

she was just what you are,—only younger, and a great deal
prettier and cleverer. Were you an accomplice of that aban-
doned wretch, I wonder, of whose vile arts he became a vic-
tim, and of whom you used to be such an admirer? Yes, I
dare say you were an accomplice. But you will find yourself
disappointed in my will, I can tell you; and you will have the
goodness to write to Mr. Waxy, and say that I desire to see
him immediately.” Miss Crawley was now in the habit of
writing to Mr. Waxy her solicitor almost every day in the
week, for her arrangements respecting her property were all
revoked, and her perplexity was great as to the future disposi-
tion of her money.

The spinster had, however, rallied considerably; as was
proved by the increased vigor and frequency of her sarcasms
upon Miss Briggs, all which attacks the poor companion bore
with meekness, with cowardice, with a resignation that was
half generous and half hypocritical,—with the slavish sub-
mission, in a word, that women of her disposition and station
are compelled to show. Who has not seen how women bully
women? What tortures have men to endure, comparable to
those daily repeated shafts of scorn and cruelty with which
poor women are riddled by the tyrants of their sex? Poor
victims! But we are starting from our proposition, which is,
that Miss Crawley was always particularly annoying and sav-
age when she was rallying from illness,—as they say wounds
tingle most when they are about to heal.

While thus approaching, as all hoped, to convalescence, Miss
Briggs was the only victim admitted into the presence of the
invalid; yet Miss Crawley’s relatives afar off did not forget
their beloved kinswoman, and by a number of tokens, presents,
and kind affectionate messages, strove to keep themselves alive
in her recollection.

In the first place, let us mention her nephew, Rawdon Craw-
ley. A few weeks after the famous fight of Waterloo, and
aiter the Gazette had made known to her the promotion and
gallantry of that distinguished officer, the Dieppe packet
brought over to Miss Crawley at Brighton a box containing
presents, and a dutiful letter, from the Colonel, her nephew.
In the box were a pair of French epaulets, a Cross of the
Legion of Honor, and the hilt of a sword,—relics from the
field of battle; and the letter described with a good deal of
humor how the latter belonged to a commanding officer of
the Guard, who having sworn that “the Guard died, but never
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 339

surrendered,” was taken prisoner the next minute by a private
soldier, who broke the Frenchman’s sword with the butt of
his musket, when Rawdon made himself master of the shat-
tered weapon. As for the cross and epaulets, they came from
a Colonel of French cavalry, who had fallen under the aide-
de-camp’s arm in the battle: and Rawdon Crawley did not
know what better to do with the spoils than to send them to
his kindest and most affectionate old friend. Should he con-
tinue to write to her from Paris, whither the army was march-
ing? He might be able to give her interesting news from that
capital, and of some of Miss Crawley’s old friends of the
emigration, to whom she had shown so much kindness during
their distress.

The spinster caused Briggs to write back to the Colonel a
gracious and complimentary letter, encouraging him to con-
tinue his correspondence. His first letter was so excessively
lively and amusing that she should look with pleasure for its
successors.—“Of course, I know,” she explained to Miss
Briggs, “that Rawdon could not write such a good letter
any more than you could, my poor Briggs, and that it is that
clever little wretch of a Rebecca, who dictates every word te
him; but that is no reason why my nephew should not amuse
me; and so I wish to let him understand that I am in high
good-humor.”

I wonder whether she knew that it was not only Becky who
wrote the letters, but that Mrs. Rawden actually took and
sent home the trophies,—which she bought for a few francs,
from one of the innumerable peddlers who immediately be-
gan to deal in relics of the war. The novelist, who knows
everything, knows this also. Be this, however, as it may,
Miss Crawley’s gracious reply greatly encouraged our young
friends, Rawdon and his lady, who hoped for the best from
their aunt’s evidently pacified humor; and they took care to
entertain her with many delightful letters from Paris, whither,
as Rawdon said, they had the good luck to go in the track of
the conquering army.

To the Rector’s lady, who went off to tend her husband’s
broken collar-bone at the Rectory at Queen’s Crawley, the
spinster’s communications were by no means so gracious.
Mrs. Bute, that brisk, managing, lively, imperious woman,
had committed the most fatal of all errors with regard to her
sister-in-law. She had not merely oppressed her and_ her
household,—she had bored Miss Crawley; and if poor Miss
840 VANITY FAIR.

Briggs had been a woman of any spirit, she might have been
made happy by the commission which her principal gave her
to write a letter to Mrs. Bute Crawley, saying that Miss Craw-
ley’s health was greatly improved since Mrs. Bute had left
her, and begging the latter on no account to put herself to
trouble, or quit her family for Miss Crawley’s sake. This
triumph over a lady who had been very haughty and cruel in
her behavior to Miss Briggs would have rejoiced most women;
but the truth is, Briggs was a woman of no spirit at all, and
the moment her enemy was discomfited, she began to feel
compassion in her favor.

“How silly I was,” Mrs. Bute thought, and with reason,
“ever to hint that I was coming, as I did, in that foolish
letter, when we sent Miss Crawley the guinea-fowls. I ought
to have gone without a word to the poor, dear, doting old
creature, and taken her out of the hands of that ninny Briggs,
and that harpy of a femme de chambre. O Bute, Bute, why
did you break your collar-bone?”

Why, indeed? We have seen how Mrs. Bute, having the
game in her hands, had really played her cards too well. She
had ruled over Miss Crawley’s household utterly and com-
pletely, to be utterly and completely routed when a favorable
opportunity for rebellion came. She and her household,
however, considered that she had been the victim of horrible
selfishness and treason, and that her sacrifices in Miss Craw-
ley’s behalf had met with the most savage ingratitude. Raw-
don’s promotion, and the honorable mention made of his
name in the Gazette, filled this good Christian lady also with
alarm. Would his aunt relent towards him now that he was
a Lieutenant-Colonel and a C. B.? and would that odious
Rebecca once more get into favor? The Rector’s wife wrote a
sermon for her husband about the vanity of military glory
and the prosperity of the wicked, which the worthy parson
read in his best voice and without understanding one syllable
of it. He had Pitt Crawley for one of his auditors,—Pitt,
who had come with his two half-sisters to church, which the
old Baronet could now by no means be brought to frequent.

Since the departure of Becky Sharp, that old wretch had
given himself up entirely to his bad courses, to the great
scandal of the county and the mute horror of his son. The
ribbons in Miss Horrocks’s cap became more splendid than
ever. The polite families fled the hall and its owner in ter-
ror. Sir Pitt went about tippling at his tenants’ houses; and
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 341

drank rum-and-water with the farmers at Mudbury and the
neighboring places on market-days. He drove the family
coach-and-four to Southampton with Miss Horrocks inside;
and the county people expected, every week as his son did in
speechless agony, that his marriage with her would be an-
nounced in the provincial paper. It was indeed a rude bur-
den for Mr. Crawley to bear. His eloquence was palsied at the
missionary meetings, and other religious assemblies in the
neighborhood, where he had been in the habit of presiding,
and of speaking for hours; for he felt, when he rose, that the
audience said, “That is the son of the old reprobate Sir Pitt,
who is very likely drinking at the public-house at this very
moment.” And once when he was speaking of the benighted
condition of the king of Timbuctoo, and the number of his
wives who were likewise in darkness, some gypsy miscreant
from the crowd asked, “How many is there at Queen’s Craw-
ley, Young Squaretoes?” to the surprise of the platform,
and the ruin of Mr. Pitt’s speech. And the two daughters of
the house of Queen’s Crawley would have been allowed to
run utterly wild (for Sir Pitt swore that no governess should
ever enter into his doors again), had not Mr. Crawley, by
threatening the old gentleman, forced the latter to send them
to school.

Meanwhile, as we have said, whatever individual differences
there might be between them all, Miss Crawley’s dear nephews
and nieces were unanimous in loving her and sending her
tokens of affection. Thus Mrs. Bute sent guinea-fowls, and
some remarkably fine cauliflowers, and a pretty purse or pin-
cushion worked by her darling girls, who begged to keep a
little place in the recollection of their dear aunt, while Mr.
Pitt sent peaches and grapes and venison from the Hall. The
Southampton coach used to carry these tokens of affection
to Miss Crawley at Brighton: it used sometimes to convey
Mr. Pitt thither too; for his differences with Sir Pitt caused
Mr. Crawley to absent himself a good deal from home now:
and besides, he had an attraction at Brighton in the person of
the Lady Jane Sheepshanks, whose engagement to Mr. Craw-
ley has been formerly mentioned in this history. Her Lady-
ship and her sisters lived at Brighton with their mamma, the
Countess Southdown, that strong-minded woman so favorably
known in the serious world.

A few words ought to be said regarding her Ladyship and
her noble family, who are bound by ties of present and future
342 VANITY FAIR.

relationship to the house of Crawley. Respecting the chief
of the Southdown family, Clement William, fourth Earl of
Southdown, little need be told, except that his Lordship
came into Parliament (as Lord Wolsey) under the auspices of
Mr. Wilberforce, and for a time was a credit to his political
sponsor, and decidedly a serious young man. But words
cannot describe the feelings of his admirable mother, when
she learned, very shortly after her noble husband’s demise,
that her son was a member of several worldly clubs, had lost
largely at play at Wattier’s and the Cocoa-Tree; that he had
raised money on post-obits, and encumbered the family estate;
that he drove four-in-hand, and patronized the ring; and that
he actually had an opera-box, where he entertained the most
dangerous bachelor company. His name was only mentioned
with groans in the dowager’s circle. :

The Lady Emily was her brother’s senior by many years;
and took considerable rank in the serious world as author of
some of the delightful tracts before mentioned, and of many
hymns and spiritual pieces. A mature spinster, and having
but faint ideas of marriage, her love for the blacks occupied
almost all her feelings. It is to her, I believe, we owe that
beautiful poem,

“Lead us to some sunny isle,
Yonder in the western deep;
Where the skies forever smile,
And the blacks forever weep,” etc.

She had correspondences with clerical gentlemen in most
of our East and West India possessions; and was secretly at-
tached to the Reverend Silas Hornblower, who was tattooed
in the South Sea Islands.

As for the Lady Jane, on whom, as it has been said, Mr.
Pitt Crawley’s affection had been placed, she was gentle,
blushing, silent, and timid. In spite of his falling away, she
wept for her brother, and was quite ashamed of loving him
still. Even yet she used to send him little hurried smuggled
notes, and pop them in the post in private. ‘The one dreadful
secret which weighed upon her life was, that she and the old
housekeeper had been to pay Southdown a furtive visit at his
chambers in the Albany; and found him—O the naughty dear
abandoned wretch!—smoking a cigar with a bottle of cu-
ragoa before him. She admired her sister, she adored her
mother, she thought Mr. Crawley the most delightful and ac-
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 343

complished of men, after Southdown, that fallen angel; and
her mamma and sister, who were ladies of the most superior
sort, managed everything for her, and regarded her with
that amiable pity of which your really superior woman always
has such a share to give away. Her mamma ordered her
dresses, her books, her bonnets, and her ideas for her. She
was made to take pony-riding, or piano-exercise, or any other
sort of bodily medicament, according as my Lady Southdown
saw meet; and her Ladyship would have kept her daughter
in pinafores up to her present age of six-and-twenty, but that
they were thrown off when Lady Jane was presented to Queen
Charlotte.

When these ladies first came to their house at Brighton, it
was to them alone that Mr. Crawley paid his personal visits,
contenting himself by leaving a card at his aunt’s house, and
making a modest inquiry of Mr. Bowls or his assistant foot-
man, with respect to the health of the invalid. When he met
Miss Briggs coming home from the library with a cargo of
novels under her arm, Mr. Crawley blushed in a manner quite
unusual to him, as he stepped forward and shook Miss Craw-
ley’s companion by the hand. He introduced Miss Briggs
to the lady with whom he happened to be walking, the Lady
Jane Sheepshanks, saying, “Lady Jane, permit me to intro~
duce to you my aunt’s kindest friend and most affectionate
companion, Miss Briggs, whom you know under another title,
as authoress of the delightful ‘Lyrics of the Heart, of which
you are so fond.” Lady Jane blushed too as she held out a
kind little hand to Miss Briggs, and said something very civil
and incoherent about mamma, and proposing to call on Miss
Crawley, and being glad to be made known to the friends and
relatives of Mr. Crawley; and with soft dove-like eyes saluted
Miss Briggs as they separated, while Pitt Crawley treated her
to a profound courtly bow, such as he had used to H. H. the
Duchess of Pumpernickel, when he was attaché at that court.

The artful diplomatist and disciple of the Machiavellian
Binkie! It was he who had given Lady Jane that copy of poor
Briggs’s early poems, which he remembered to have seen at
Queen’s Crawley, with a dedication from the poetess to his
father’s late wife; and he brought the volume with him to
Brighton, reading it in the Southampton coach and marking
it with his own pencil, before he presented it to the gentle

Lady Jane.
It was he, too, who laid before Lady Southdown the great
344 VANITY FAIR.

advantages which might occur from an intimacy between her
family and Miss Crawley,—advantages both worldly and
spiritual, he said; for Miss Crawley was now quite alone; the
monstrous dissipation and alliance of his brother Rawdon had
estranged her affections from that reprobate young man; the
greedy tyranny and avarice of Mrs. Bute Crawley had caused
the old lady to revolt against the exorbitant pretensions of that
part of the family; and though he himself had held off all
his life from cultivating Miss Crawley’s friendship, with per-
haps an improper pride, he thought now that every becoming
means should be taken, both to save her soul from perdition,
and to secure her fortune to himself as the head of the house
of Crawley.

The strong-minded Lady Southdown quite agreed in both
proposals of her son-in-law, and was for converting Miss
Crawley off-hand. At her own home, both at Southdown
and at Trottermore Castle, this tall and awful missionary of
the truth rode about the country in her barouche with out-
riders, launched packets of tracts among the cottagers and
tenants, and would order Gaffer Jones to be converted, as she
would order Goody Hicks to take a James’s powder, without
appeal, resistance, or benefit of clergy. My Lord Southdown,
her late husband, an epileptic and simple-minded nobleman,
was in the habit of approving of everything which his Matilda
did and thought. So that whatever changes her own belief
might undergo (and it accommodated itself to a prodigious
variety of opinion, taken from all sorts of doctors among the
Dissenters), she had not the least scruple in ordering all her
tenants and inferiors to follow and believe after her. Thus,
whether she received the Reverend Saunders McNitre, the
Scotch divine; or the Reverend Luke Waters, the mild Wes-
leyan; or the Reverend Giles Jowls, the illuminated Cobbler,
who dubbed himself Reverend as Napoleon crowned himself
Emperor,—the household, children, tenantry of my Lady
Southdown were expected to go down on their knees with her
Ladyship, and say Amen to the prayers of either Doctor.
During these exercises old Southdown, on account of his in-
valid condition, was allowed to sit in his own room, and have
negus and the paper read to him. Lady Jane was the old
Earl’s favorite daughter, and tended him and loved him sin-
cerely; as for Lady Emily, the authoress of the “Washerwom-
an of Finchley Common,” her denunciation of future punish-
ments (at this period, for her opinions modified afterwards)
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 345

were so awful that they used to frighten the timid old gentle-
man, her father, and the physicians declared his fits always
occurred after one of her Ladyship’s sermons.

“I will certainly call,” said Lady Southdown then, in reply
to the exhortation of her daughter’s prétendu, Mr. Pitt Craw-
ley; “who is Miss Crawley’s medical man?”

Mr. Crawley mentioned the name of Mr. Creamer.

“A most dangerous and ignorant practitioner, my dear Pitt.
I have providentially been the means of removing him from
several houses; though in one or two instances I did not ar-
rive in time. I could not save poor dear General Glanders,
who was dying under the hands of that man,—dying. He
rallied a little under the Podgers’ pills which I administered
to him; but alas! it was too late. His death was delightful,
however; and his change was only for the better; Creamer,
my dear Pitt, must leave your aunt.”

Pitt expressed his perfect acquiescence. He, too, had been
carried along by the energy of his noble kinswoman and fu-
ture mother-in-law. He had been made to accept Saunders
MecNitre, Luke Waters, Giles Jowls, Podgers’ Pills, Rodgers’
Pills, Pokey’s Elixir, every one of her Ladyship’s remedies
spiritual or temporal. He never left her house without carry-
ing respectfully away with him piles of her quack theology
and medicine. O my dear brethren and fellow-sojourners in
Vanity Fair, which among you does not know and suffer under
such benevolent despots? It is in vain you say to them, “Dear
madam, I took Podgers’ specific at your orders last year, and
believe in it. Why, why am I to recant and accept the Rod-
gers’ articles now?” There is no help for it; the faithful
proselytizer, if she cannot convince by argument, bursts into
tears, and the recusant finds himself, at the end of the con-
test, taking down the bolus, and saying, “Well, well, Rod-
gers’ be it.”

“And as for her spiritual state,” continued the Lady, “that
of course must be looked to immediately; with Creamer about
her, she may go off any day; and in what a condition, my
dear Pitt, in what a dreadful condition! . I will send the Rev-
erend Mr. Irons to her instantly. Jane, write a line to the
Reverend Bartholomew Irons, in the third person, and say
that I desire the pleasure of his company this evening at tea
at half past six. He is an awakening man; he ought to see
Miss Crawley before she rests this night. And Emily, my
love, get ready a packet of books for Miss Crawley. Put up
346 VANITY FAIR,

‘A Voice from the Flames,’ ‘A Trumpet warning to Jericho,
and the ‘Fleshpots Broken; or, the Converted Cannibal.’ ”

“And the ‘Washerwoman of Finchley Common, mamma,”
said Lady Emily. , “It is as well to begin soothingly at first.”

“Stop, my dear ladies,” said Pitt, the diplomatist. “With
every deference to the opinion of my beloved and respected
Lady Southdown, I think it would be quite unadvisable to
commence so early upon serious topics with Miss Crawley.
Remember her delicate condition, and how little, how very
little accustomed she has hitherto been to considerations con-
nected with her immortal welfare.”

“Can we then begin too early, Pitt?” said Lady Emily, ris-
ing with six little books already in her hand.

“Tf you begin abruptly, you will frighten her altogether.
I know my aunt’s worldly nature so well as to be sure that
any abrupt attempt at conversion will be the very worst means
that can be employed for the welfare of that unfortunate lady.
You will only frighten and annoy her. She will very likely
fling the books away, and refuse all acquaintance with the
givers.”

“You are as worldly as Miss Crawley, Pitt,” said Lady
Emily, tossing out of the room, her books in her hand.

“And I need not tell you, my dear Lady Southdown,” Pitt
continued, in a low voice, and without heeding the interrup-
tion, “how fatal a little want of gentleness and caution may
be to any hopes which we may entertain with regard to the
worldly possessions of my aunt. Remember she has seventy
thousand pounds; think of her age, and her highly nervous
and delicate condition; I know that she has destroyed the
will which was made in my brother’s (Colonel Crawley’s)
favor: it is by soothing that wounded spirit that we must
lead it into the right path, and not by frightening it; and
so I think you will agree with me that—that——_”

“Of course, of course,” Lady Southdown remarked. “Jane,
my love, you need not send that note to Mr. Irons. If her
health is such that discussions fatigue her, we will wait her
amendment. I will call upon Miss Crawley to-morrow.”

“And if I might suggest, my sweet lady,” Pitt said in a
bland tone, “it would be as well not to take our precious
Emily, who is too enthusiastic; but rather that you should be
accompanied by our sweet and dear Lady Jane.”

“Most certainly, Emily would ruin everything,” Lady
Southdown said; and this time agreed to forgo her usual
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 347

practice, which was, as we have said, before she bore down
personally upon any individual whom she proposed to sub-
Jugate, to fire in a quantity of tracts upon the menaced par-
ty; (as a charge of the French was always preceded by a
furious cannonade.) Lady Southdown, we say, for the sake
of the invalid’s health, or for the sake of her soul’s ultimate
welfare, or for the sake of her money, agreed to temporize.

The next day, the great Southdown female family carriage,
with the Earl’s coronet and the lozenge (upon which the
three lambs trottant argent upon the field vert of the South-
down were quartered with sable on a bend or, three snuff-
mules gules, the cognizance of the house of Binkie), drove up
in state to Miss Crawley’s door, and the tall serious footman
handed in to Mr. Bowls her Ladyship’s cards for Miss Craw-
ley, and one likewise for Miss Briggs. By way of compromise,
Lady Emily sent in a packet in the evening for the latter lady,
containing copies of the “Washerwoman,” and other mild
and favorite tracts for Miss B.’s own perusal; and a few for
the servants’ hall, viz., “Crumbs from the Pantry,” “The Fry-
ing-Pan and the Fire,’ and “The Livery of Sin,” of a much
stronger kind.

CHAPTER XXXIV.

JAMES CRAWLEY’S PIPE IS PUT OUT.

The amiable behavior of Mr. Crawley, and Lady Jane’s
kind reception of her, highly flattered Miss Briggs, who was
enabled to speak a good word for the latter, after the cards
of the Southdown family had been presented to Miss Crawley.
A Countess’s card left personally too for her, Briggs, was not
a little pleasing to the poor friendless companion. ‘What
could Lady Southdown mean by leaving a card upon you, I
wonder, Miss Briggs?” said the republican Miss Crawley;
upon which the companion meekly said “that she hoped there
could be no harm in a lady of rank taking notice of a poor
gentlewoman,” and she put away this card in her work-box
amongst her most cherished personal treasures. Further-
more, Miss Briggs explained how she had met Mr. Crawley
walking with his cousin and long-affianced bride the day
before; and she told how kind and gentle-looking the lady
348 VANITY FAIR.

was, and what a plain, not to say common, dress she had, all
the articles of which, from the bonnet down to the boots,
she described and estimated with female accuracy.

Miss Crawley allowed Briggs to prattle on without inter-
rupting her too much. As she got well, she was pining for so-
ciety. Mr. Creamer, her medical man, would not hear of her
returning to her old haunts and dissipation in London. The
old spinster was too glad to find any companionship at Brigh-
ton, and not only were the cards acknowledged the very next
day, but Pitt Crawley was graciously invited to come and see
his aunt. He came, bringing with him Lady Southdown and
her daughter. The dowager did not say a word about the
state of Miss Crawley’s soul; but talked with much discretion
about the weather; about the war and the downfall of the
monster Bonaparte: and, above all, about doctors, quacks, and
the particular merits of Dr. Podgers, whom she then patron-
ized.

During their interview Pitt Crawley made a great stroke,
and one which showed that, had his diplomatic career not
been blighted by early neglect, he might have risen to a high
rank in his profession. When the Countess Dowager of
Southdown fell foul of the Corsican upstart, as the fashion
was in those days, and showed that he was a monster stained
with every conceivable crime, a coward and a tyrant not fit to
live, one whose fall was predicted, &c., Pitt Crawley sud-
denly took up the cudgels in favor of the man of Destiny.
He described the First Consul as he saw him at Paris at the
Peace of Amiens; when he, Pitt Crawley, had the gratification
of making the acquaintance of the great and good Mr. Fox,
a statesman whom, however much he might differ with him,
it was impossible not to admire fervently,—a statesman who
had always had the highest opinion of the Emperor Napoleon.
And he spoke in terms of the strongest indignation of the
faithless conduct of the allies towards this dethroned mon-
arch, who, after giving himself generously up to their mercy,
was consigned to an ignoble and cruel banishment, while a
bigoted Popish rabble was tyrannizing over France in his
stead.

This orthodox horror of Romish superstition saved Pitt
Crawley in Lady Southdown’s opinion, whilst his admiration
for Fox and Napoleon raised him immeasurably in Miss
Crawley’s eyes. Her friendship with that defunct British
statesman was mentioned when we first introduced her in this
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 349

history. A true Whig, Miss Crawley had been in opposition
all through the war, and though, to be sure, the downfall of
the Emperor did not very much agitate the old lady, or his
ill-treatment tend to shorten her life or natural rest, yet Pitt
spoke to her heart when he lauded both her idols; and by that
single speech made immense progress in her favor.

“And what do you think, my dear?” Miss Crawley said to
the young lady, for whom she had taken a liking at first sight,
as she always did for pretty and modest young people; though
it must be owned her affections cooled as rapidly as they rose.

Lady Jane blushed very much, and said “that she did not
understand politics, which she left to wiser heads than hers;
but though mamma was, no doubt, correct, Mr. Crawley had
spoken beautifully.” And when the ladies were retiring at
the conclusion of their visit, Miss Crawley hoped “Lady
Southdown would be so kind as to send her Lady Jane some-
times, if she could be spared to come down and console a poor
sick lonely old woman.” ‘This promise was graciously ac-
corded, and they separated upon great terms of amity.

“Don’t let Lady Southdown come again, Pitt,” said the old
lady. “She is stupid and pompous, like all your mother’s
family, whom I never could endure. But bring that nice
good-natured little Jane as often as ever you please.” Pitt
promised that he would do so. He did not tell the Countess
of Southdown what opinion his aunt had formed of her Lady-
ship, who, on the contrary, thought that she had made a most
delightful and majestic impression on Miss Crawley.

And so, nothing loath to comfort a sick lady, and perhaps
not sorry in her heart to be freed now and again from the
dreary spouting of the Reverend Bartholomew Irons, and the
serious toadies who gathered round the footstool of the pom-
pous Countess, her mamma, Lady Jane became a pretty
constant visitor to Miss Crawley, accompanied her in her
drives, and solaced many of her evenings. She was so nat-
urally good and soft, that even Firkin was not jealous of her;
and the gentle Briggs thought her friend was less cruel to her,
when kind Lady Jane was by. Towards her Ladyship Miss
Crawley’s manners were charming. The old spinster told her
a thousand anecdotes about her youth, talking to her in a very
different strain from that in which she had been accustomed
to converse with the godless little Rebecca; for there was that
in Lady Jane’s innocence which rendered light talking im-
pertinence before her, and Miss Crawley was too much of a
350 VANITY FAIR.

gentlewoman to offend such purity. The young lady her-
self had never received kindness except from this old spinster,
and her brother and father; and she repaid Miss Crawley’s
engotiment by artless sweetness and friendship.

In the autumn evenings (when Rebecca was flaunting at
Paris, the gayest among the gay conquerors there, and our
Amelia, our dear wounded Amelia, ah! where was she?) Lady
Jane would be sitting in Miss Crawley’s drawing-room singing
sweetly to her, in the twilight, her little simple songs and
hymns, while the sun was setting and the sea was roaring on
the beach. The old spinster used to wake up when these
ditties ceased, and ask for more. As for Briggs, and the
quantity of tears of happiness which she now shed as she
pretended to knit, and looked out at the splendid ocean dark-
ling before the windows, and the lamps of heaven beginning
more brightly to shine,—who, I say, can measure the happi-
ness and sensibility of Briggs?

Pitt meanwhile in the dining-room, with a pamphlet of the
Corn Laws or a Missionary Register by his side, took that kind
of recreation which suits romantic and unromantic men after
dinner. He sipped Madeira; built castles in the air; thought
himself a fine fellow; felt himself much more in love with
Jane than he had been any time these seven years, during
which their liaison had lasted without the slightest impa-
tience on Pitt’s part, and slept a good deal. When the time
for coffee came, Mr. Bowls used to enter in a noisy manner,
and summon Squire Pitt, who would be found in the dark
very busy with his pamphlet.

“I wish, my love, I could get somebody to play piquet with
me,” Miss Crawley said, one night when this functionary
made his appearance with the candles andthe coffee. “Poor
Briggs can no more play than an owl, she is so stupid” (the
spinster always took an opportunity of abusing Briggs before
the servants); “and I think I should sleep better if I had my

ame.”
: At this Lady Jane blushed to the tips of her little ears,
and down to the ends of her pretty fingers; and when Mr.
Bowls had quitted the room, and the door was quite shut, she
said :—

“Miss Crawley, I can play a little. I used to—to play a
little with poor dear papa.”

“Come and kiss me. Come and kiss me this instant, you
dear good little soul,” cried Miss Crawley, in an ecstasy; and
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 351

in this picturesque and friendly occupation Mr. Pitt found the
old lady and the young one, when he came up stairs with his

pamphlet in his hand. How she did blush all the evening,
that poor Lady Jane!

It must not be imagined that Mr. Pitt Crawley’s artifices
escaped the attention of his dear relations at the Rectory at
Queen’s Crawley. Hampshire and Sussex lie very close to-
gether, and Mrs. Bute had friends in the latter county who
took care to inform her of all, and a great deal more than all,
that passed at Miss Crawley’s house at Brighton. Pitt was
there more and more. He did not come for months together
to the Hall, where his abominable old father abandoned him-
self completely to rum-and-water, and the odious society of
the Horrocks family. Pitt’s success rendered the Rector’s
family furious, and Mrs. Bute regretted more (though she
confessed less) than ever her monstrous fault in so insulting
Miss Briggs, and in being so haughty and parsimonious to
Bowls and Firkin, that she had not a single person left in
Miss Crawley’s household to give her information of what took
place there. “It was all Bute’s collar-bone,” she persisted in
saying; “if that had not broke, I never would have left her.
I am a martyr to duty and to your odious unclerical habit of
hunting, Bute.”

“Hunting; nonsense! It was you that frightened her, Bar-
bara,” the divine interposed. “You're a clever woman, but
you’ve got a devil of a temper; and you’re a screw with your
money, Barbara.”

“You'd have been screwed in jail, Bute, if I had not kept
your money.”

“I know I would, my dear,” said the Rector, good-natured-
ly. “You are a clever woman, but you manage too well, you
know;” and the pious man consoled himself with a big glass
of port.

éWhat the deuce can she find in that spooney of a Pitt
Crawley?” he continued. “The fellow has not pluck enough
to say Bo to a goose. I remember when Rawdon, who is a
man, and be hanged to him, used to flog him round the stables
as if he was a whipping-top; and Pitt would go howling home
to his ma—ha, ha! Why, either of my boys would wap him
with one hand. Jim says he’s remembered at Oxford as
Miss Crawley still—the spooney.”

“I say, Barbara,” his reverence continued, after a pause.
w

852 VANITY FAIR.

“What!” said Barbara, who was biting her nails, and drub-
bing the table.

“T say, why not send Jim over to Brighton to see if he can
do anything with the old lady. He’s very near getting his
degree, you know. He’s only been plucked twice,—so was I,
—but he’s had the advantages of Oxford and a university edu-
cation. He knows some of the best chaps there. He pulls
stroke in the Boniface boat. He’s a handsome feller. D
it, ma’am, let’s put him on the old woman, hey? and tell him
to thrash Pitt if he says anything. Ha, ha, ha!”

“Jim might go down and see her, certainly,” the housewife
said; adding with a sigh, “If we could but get one of the girls
into the house; but she could never endure them, because they
are not pretty!” Those unfortunate and well-educated wo-
men made themselves heard from the neighboring drawing-
room, where they were thrumming away, with hard fingers,
an elaborate music-piece on the piano-forte, as their mother
spoke; and indeed, they were at music, or at backboard, or at
geography, or at history, the whole day long. But what avail
all these accomplishments, in Vanity Fair, to girls who are
short, poor, plain, and have a bad complexion? Mrs. Bute
could think of nobody but the Curate to take one of them
off her hands; and Jim coming in from the stable at this
minute, through the parlor window, with a short pipe stuck in
his oil-skin cap, he and his father fell to talking about odds on
the St. Leger, and the colloquy between the Rector and his
wife ended.

Mrs. Bute did not augur much good to the cause from the
sending of her son James as an ambassador, and saw him de-
part in rather a despairing mood. Nor did the young fellow
himself, when told what his mission was to be, expect much
pleasure or benefit from it; but he was consoled by the thought
that possibly the old lady would give him some handsome re-
membrance of her, which would pay a few of his most pressing
pills at the commencement of the ensuing Oxford term, and so
took his place by the coach from Southampton, and was
safely landed at Brighton on the same evening, with his port-
manteau, his favorite bulldog Towzer, and an immense basket
of farm and garden produce, from the dear Rectory folks to
the dear Miss Crawley. Considering it was too late to dis-
turb the invalid lady on the first night of his arrival, he put
up at an inn, and did not wait upon Miss Crawley until a late
hour in the noon of next day.

 
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 353

James Crawley, when his aunt had last beheld him, was a
gawky lad, at that uncomfortable age when the voice varies
between an unearthly treble and a preternatural bass; when
the face not uncommonly blooms out with appearances for
which Rowland’s Kalydor is said to act as a cure; when boys
are seen to shave furtively with their sister’s scissors, and the
sight of other young women produces intolerable sensations
of terror in them; when the great hands and ankles protrude
a long way from garments which have grown too tight for
them; when their presence after dinner is at once frightful to
the ladies, who are whispering in the twilight in the draw-
ing-room, and inexpressibly odious to the gentlemen over the
mahogany, who are restrained from freedom of intercourse
and delightful interchange of wit by the presence of that
gawky innocence; when, at the conclusion of the second glass,
papas say, “Jack, my boy, go out and see if the evening holds
up,” and the youth, willing to be free, yet hurt at not being
yet a man, quits the incomplete banquet. James, then a
hobbadehoy, was now become a young man, having had the
benefits of a university education, and acquired the ines-
timable polish which is gained by living in a fast set at a
small college, and contracting debts, and being rusticated, and
being plucked.

He was a handsome lad, however, when he came to present
himself to his aunt at Brighton, and good looks were always
a title to the fickle old lady’s favor. Nor did his blushes and
awkwardness take away from it; she was pleased with these
healthy tokens of the young gentleman’s ingenuousness.

He said “he had come down for a couple of days to see a
man of his college, and—and to pay my respects to you,
ma’am, and my father’s and mother’s, who hope you are well.”

Pitt was in the room with Miss Crawley when the lad was
announced, and looked very blank when his name was men-
tioned. The old lady had plenty of humor, and enjoyed her
correct nephew’s perplexity. She asked after all the people
at the Rectory with great interest; and said she was thinking
of paying them a visit. She praised the lad to his face, and
said he was well grown and very much improved, and that it
was a pity his sisters had not some of his good looks; and
finding, on inquiry, that he had taken up his quarters at an
hotel, would not hear of his stopping there, but bade Mr.
Bowls send for Mr. James Crawley’s things instantly; “And

23
354 VANITY FAIR.

hark ye, Bowls,” she added, with great graciousness, “you
will have the goodness to pay Mr. James’s bill.”

She flung Pitt a look of arch triumph, which caused that
diplomatist almost to choke with envy. Much as he had in-
gratiated himself with his aunt, she had never yet invited
him to stay under her roof, and here was a young whipper-
snapper, who at first sight was made welcome there.

“I beg your pardon, sir,” says Bowls, advancing with a pro-
found bow; “what ’otel, sir, shall Thomas fetch the luggage
from?”

“O, dam,” said young James, starting up, as if in some
alarm, “Tl go.”

“What!” said Miss Crawley.

“The Tom Cribb’s Arms,” said James, blushing deeply.

Miss Crawley burst out laughing at this title. Mr. Bowls
gave one abrupt guffaw, as a confidential servant of the fam-
ily, but choked the rest of the volley; the diplomatist only
smiled.

“J—I didn’t know any better,” said James, looking down.
“T’ve never been here before; it was the coachman told me.”
The young story-teller! The fact is, that on the Southamp-
ton coach, the day previous, James Crawley had met the Tut-
bury Pet, who was coming to Brighton to make a match with
the Rottingdean Fibber; and, enchanted by the Pet’s conver-
sation, had passed the evening in company with that scientific
man and his friends at the inn in question.

“J—I’d best go and settle the score,” James continued.
“Couldn’t think of asking you, ma’am,” he added, gener-
ously.

This delicacy made his aunt laugh the more.

“Go and settle the bill, Bowls,” she said, with a wave of her
hand, “and bring it to me.”

Poor lady, she did not know what she had done! “There,—
there’s a little dawg,” said James, looking frightfully guilty.
“Vd best go for him. He bites footmen’s calves.”

All the party cried out with laughing at this description,—
even Briggs and Lady Jane, who was sitting mute during the
interview between Miss Crawley and her nephew: and Bowls,
without a word, quitted the room.

Still, by way of punishing her elder nephew, Miss Crawley
persisted in being gracious to the young Oxonian. There
were no limits to her kindness or her compliments when they
once began. She told Pitt he might come to dinner, and
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 355

insisted that James should accompany her in her drive, and
paraded him solemnly up and down the cliff, on the back seat
of the barouche. During all this excursion, she condescended
to say civil things to him: she quoted Italian and French
poetry to the poor bewildered lad, and persisted that he was
a fine scholar, and was perfectly sure he would gain a gold
medal, and be a Senior Wrangler.

“Haw, haw,” laughed James, encouraged by these compli-
ments; “Senior Wrangler indeed; that’s at the other shop.”

“What is the other shop, my dear child?” said the lady.

“Senior Wranglers at Cambridge, not Oxford,” said the
scholar, with a knowing air; and would probably have been
more confidential, but that suddenly there appeared on the
cliff in a tax-cart, drawn by a bang-up pony, dressed in white
flannel coats, with mother-of-pearl buttons, his friends the
Tutbury Pet and the Rottingdean Fibber, with three other
gentlemen of their acquaintance, who all saluted poor James
there in the carriage as he sat. This incident damped the in-
genuous youth’s spirits, and no word of yea or nay could he
be induced to utter during the rest of the drive.

On his return he found his room prepared, and his port-
manteau ready, and might have remarked that Mr. Bowls’s
countenance, when the latter conducted him to his apart-
ments, wore a look of gravity, wonder, and compassion. But
the thought of Mr. Bowls did not enter his head. He was de-
ploring the dreadful predicament in which he found himself,
in a house full of old women, jabbering French and Italian,
and talking poetry to him. “Reg’larly up a tree, by jingo!”
exclaimed the modest boy, who could not face the gentlest
of her sex,—not even Briggs,—when she began to talk to him;
whereas, put him at Iffley Lock, and he could outslang the
boldest bargeman.

At dinner, James appeared choking in a white neckcloth,
and had the honor of handing my Lady Jane down stairs,
while Briggs and Mr. Crawley followed afterwards, conduct-
ing the old lady, with her apparatus of bundles, and shawls,
and cushions. Half of Briggs’s time at dinner was spent in
superintending the invalid’s comfort, and in cutting up
chicken for her fat spaniel. James did not talk much, but
he made a point of asking all the ladies to drink wine, and ac-
cepted Mr. Crawley’s challenge, and consumed the greater
part of a bottle of champagne which Mr. Bowls was ordered
to produce in his honor. The ladies having withdrawn, and
356 VANITY FAIR.

the two cousins being left together, Pitt, the ex-diplomatist,
became very communicative and friendly. He asked after
James’s career at college,—what his prospects in life were,—
hoped heartily he would get on; and, in a word, was frank and
amiable. James’s tongue unloosed with the port, and he told
his cousin his life, his prospects, his debts, his troubles at the
little-go, and his rows with the proctors, filling rapidly from
the bottles before him, and flying from Port to Madeira with
joyous activity.

“The chief pleasure which my aunt has,” said Mr. Crawley,
filling his glass, “is that people should do as they like in her
house. This is Liberty Hall, James, and you can’t do Miss
Crawley a greater kindness than to do as you please, and ask
for what you will. I know you have all sneered at me in the
country for being a Tory. Miss Crawley is liberal enough
to suit any fancy. She is a republican in principle, and de-
spises everything like rank or title.”

“Why are you going to marry an Earl’s daughter?” said
James.

“My dear friend, remember it is not poor Lady Jane’s
fault that she is well born,” Pitt replied, with a courtly air.
“She cannot help being a lady. Besides, I am a Tory, you
know.”

“OQ, as for that,” said Jim, “there’s nothing like old blood;
no, dammy, nothing like it. I’m none of your radicals. I
know what it is to be a gentleman, dammy. See the chaps in
a boat-race; look at the fellers in a fight; ay, look at a dawg
killing rats,—which is it wins? the good blooded ones. Get
some more port, Bowls, old boy, whilst I buzz this bottle here.
What was I a saying?”

“T think you were speaking of dogs killing rats,” Pitt re-
marked mildly, handing his cousin the decanter to “buzz.”

“Killing rats was I? Well, Pitt, are you a sporting man?
Do you want to see a dawg as can kill a rat? If you do,
come down with me to Tom Corduroy’s in Castle Street Mews,
and I'll show you such a bull-terrier as— Pooh! gammon,”
cried James, bursting out laughing at his own absurdity,
“you don’t care about a dawg or rat; it’s all nonsense. [’m
se if I think you know the difference between a dog and a

uck.”

“No; by the way,” Pitt continued with increased bland-
ness, “it was about blood you were talking, and the personal
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 357

advantages which people derive from patrician birth. Here’s
the fresh bottle.”

“Blood’s the word,” said James, gulping the ruby fluid
down. “Nothing like blood, sir, in hosses, dawgs, and men.
Why, only last term, just before I was rusticated, that is, I
mean just before I had the measles, ha, ha,—there was me and
Ringwood of Christchurch, Bob Ringwood, Lord Cingbar’s
son, having our beer at the Bell at Blenheim, when the Ban-
bury bargeman offered to fight either of us for a bowl of
punch. I couldn’t. My arm was in a sling; couldn’t even
take the drag down,—a brute of a mare of mine had fell with
me only two days before, out with the Abingdon, and I
thought my arm was broke. Well, sir, I couldn’t finish him,
but Bob had his coat off at once,—he stood up to the Ban-
bury man for three minutes, and polished him off in four
rounds easy. Gad, how he did drop, sir, and what was it?
Blood, sir, all blood.”

“You don’t drink, James,” the ex-attaché continued. “In
my time at Oxford, the men passed round the bottle a little
quicker than you young fellows seem to do.”

“Come, come,” said James, putting his hand to his nose and
winking at his cousin with a pair of vinous eyes, “no jokes,
old boy; no trying it on me. You want to trot me out, but
it’s no go. In vino veritas, old boy. Mars, Bacchus, Apollo
vivorum, hay? I wish my aunt would send down some of this
to the governor; it’s a precious good tap.”

“You had better ask her,” Machiavel continued, “or make
the best of your time now. What says the bard, ‘Nunc vino
pellite curas Cras ingens iterabimus aequor;’” and the Bac-
chanalian, quoting the above with a House of Commons air,
tossed off nearly a thimblefull of wine with an immense flour-
ish of his glass.

At the Rectory, when the bottle of port wine was opened
after dinner, the young ladies had each a glass from a bottle
of currant wine. Mrs. Bute took one glass of port, honest
James had a couple commonly, but as his father grew very
sulky if he made further inroads on the bottle, the good lad
generally refrained from trying for more, and subsided either
into the currant wine, or to some private gin-and-water in the
stables, which he enjoyed in the company of the coachman
and his pipe. At Oxford, the quantity of wine was unlimited,
but the quality was inferior; but when quantity and quality
united, as at his aunt’s house, James showed that he could
358 VANITY FAIR.

appreciate them indeed; and hardly needed any of his cousin’s
encouragement in draining off the second bottle supplied by
Mr. Bowls.

When the time for coffee came, however, and for a return to
the ladiés, of whom he stood in awe, the young gentleman’s
agreeable frankness left him, and he relapsed into his usual
surly timidity; contenting himself by saying yes and no, by
scowling at Lady Jane, and by upsetting one cup of coffee
during the evening.

If he did not speak, he yawned in a pitiable manner, and
his presence threw a damp upon the modest proceedings of
the evening, for Miss Crawley and Lady Jane at their piquet,
and Miss Briggs at her work, felt that his eyes were wildly
fixed on them, and were uneasy under that maudlin look.

“He seems a very silent, awkward, bashful lad,” said Miss
Crawley to Mr. Pitt.

“He is more communicative in men’s society than with
ladies,” Machiavel dryly replied; perhaps rather disappointed
that the port wine had not made Jim speak more.

He had spent the early part of the next morning in writing
home to his mother a most flourishing account of his reception
by Miss Crawley. But ah! he little knew what evils the day
was bringing for him, and how short his reign of favor was
destined to be. A circumstance which Jim had forgotten—a
trivial but fatal cireumstance—had taken place at the Cribb’s
Arms on the night before he had come to his aunt’s house.
It ‘was no other than this,—Jim, who was always of a gener-
ous disposition, and when in his cups especially hospitable,
had in the course of the night treated the Tutbury champion
and the Rottingdean man, and their friends, twice or thrice
to the refreshment of gin-and-water,—so that no less than
eighteen glasses of that fluid at eightpence per glass were
charged in Mr. James Crawley’s bill. It was not the amount
of eightpences, but the quantity of gin, which told fatally
against poor James’s character, when his aunt’s butler, Mr.
Bowls, went down at his mistress’s request to pay the young
gentleman’s bill. The landlord, fearing lest the account
should be refused altogether, swore solemnly that the young
gent had consumed personally every farthing’s worth of the
liquor; and Bowls paid the bill finally, and showed it on his
return home to Mrs. Firkin, who was shocked at the fright-
ful prodigality of gin; and took the bill to Miss Briggs as ac-
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 359

countant-general; who thought it her duty to mention the
circumstance to her principal, Miss Crawley.

Had he drunk a dozen bottles of claret, the old spinster
could have pardoned him. Mr. Fox and Mr. Sheridan drank
claret. Gentlemen drank claret. But eighteen glasses of gin
consumed among boxers in an ignoble pot-house,—it was an
odious crime and not to be pardoned readily. Everything
went against the lad: he came home perfumed from the sta-
bles, whither he had been to pay his dog Towzer a visit,—and
whence he was going to take his friend out for an airing, when
he met Miss Crawley and her wheezy Blenheim spaniel, which
Towzer would have eaten up had not the Blenheim fled squeal-
ing to the protection of Miss Briggs, while the atrocious mas-
ter of the bulldog stood laughing at the horrible persecution.

This day, too, the unlucky boy’s modesty had likewise for-
saken him. He was lively and facetious at dinner. During
the repast he levelled one or two jokes against Pitt Crawley:
he drank as much wine as upon the previous day; and going
quite unsuspiciously to the drawing-room, began to entertain
the ladies there with some choice Oxford stories. He de-
scribed the different pugilistic qualities of Molyneux and
Dutch Sam, offered playfully to give Lady Jane the odds upon
the Tutbury Pet against the Rottingdean man, or take them,
as her Ladyship chose: and crowned the pleasantry by pro-
posing to back himself against his cousin Pitt Crawley, either
with or without the gloves. “And that’s a fair offer, my
buck,” he said, with a loud laugh, slapping Pitt on the
shoulder, “and my father told me to make it too, and he’ll
go halves in the bet, ha, ha!” So saying, the engaging youth
nodded knowingly at poor Miss Briggs, and pointed his thumb
over his shoulder at Pitt Crawley in a jocular and exulting
manner.

Pitt was not pleased altogether perhaps, but still not un-
happy in the main. Poor Jim had his laugh out: and stag-
gered across the room with his aunt’s candle, when the old
lady moved to retire, and offered to salute her with the bland-
est tipsy smile; and he took his own leave and went up stairs
to his bedroom perfectly satisfied with himself, and with a
pleased notion that his aunt’s money would be left to him in
preference to his father and all the rest of the family.

Once up in the bedroom, one would have thought he could
not make matters worse; and yet this unlucky boy did. The
moon was shining very pleasantly out on the sea, and Jim,
360 VANITY FAIR.

attracted to the window by the romantic appearance of the
ocean and the heavens, thought he would further enjoy them
while smoking. Nobody would smell the tobacco, he thought,
if he cunningly opened the window and kept his head and
pipe in the fresh air. This he did; but being in an excited
state, poor Jim had forgotten that his door was open all this
time, so that the breeze blowing inwards, and a fine thorough
draught being established, the clouds of tobacco were car-
ried down stairs, and arrived with quite undiminished fra-
grance to Miss Crawley and Miss Briggs.

The pipe of tobacco finished the business; and the Bute
Crawleys never knew how many thousand pounds it cost them.
Firkin rushed down stairs to Bowls who was reading out the
“Fire and the Frying-Pan” to his aide-de-camp in a loud
and ghostly voice. The dreadful secret was told to him by
Firkin with so frightened a look, that for the first moment
Mr. Bowls and his young man thought that robbers were in
the house; the legs of whom had probably been discovered
by the woman under Miss Crawley’s bed. When made aware
of the fact, however,—to rush up stairs at three steps at a
time,—to enter the unconscious James’s apartment, calling
out, “Mr. James,” in a voice stifled with alarm, and to cry,
“For Gawd’s sake, sir, stop that ’are pipe,” was the work of
a minute with Mr. Bowls. “O Mr. James, what ’ave you
done!” he said in a voice of the deepest pathos, as he threw
the implement out of the window. “What ’ave you done,
sir? Missis can’t abide ’em.”

“Missis needn’t smoke,” said James with a frantic mis-
placed laugh, and thought the whole matter an excellent
joke. But his feelings were very different in the morning,
when Mr. Bowls’s young man, who operated upon Mr. James’s
boots, and brought him his hot water to shave that beard
which he was anxiously expecting, handed a note in to Mr.
James in bed, in the handwriting of Miss Briggs.

“Dear sir,” it said, “Miss Crawley has passed an exceed-
ingly disturbed night, owing to the shocking manner in which
the house has been polluted by tobacco; Miss Crawley bids me
say she regrets that she is too unwell to see you before you
go,—and above all that she ever induced you to remove from
the ale-house, where she is sure you will be much more com-
fortable during the rest of your stay at Brighton.”

And herewith honest James’s career as a candidate for his
aunt’s favor ended. He had in fact, and without knowing it,
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO, 361

done what he menaced to do. He had fought his cousin Pitt
with the gloves.

Where meanwhile was he who had been once first favorite
for this race for money? Becky and Rawdon, as we have
seen, were come together after Waterloo, and were passing
the winter of 1815 at Paris in great splendor and gayety.
Rebecca was a good economist, and the price poor Jos Sed-
ley had paid for her two horses was in itself sufficient to keep
their little establishment afloat for a year, at the least; there
was no occasion to turn into money “my pistols, the same
which I shot Captain Marker,” or the gold dressing-case, or
the cloak lined with sable. Becky had it made into a pelisse
for herself, in which she rode in the Bois de Boulogne to the
admiration of all: and you should have seen the scene between
her and her delighted husband, whom she rejoined after the
army had entered Cambray, and when she unsewed herself,
and let out of her dress all those watches, knick-knacks, bank-
notes, checks, and valuables, which she had secreted in the
wadding, previous to her meditated flight from Brussels!
Tufto was charmed, and Rawdon roared with delightful
laughter, and swore that she was better than any play he ever
saw, by Jove. And the way in which she jockeyed Jos, and
which she described with infinite fun, carried up his delight
to a pitch of quite insane enthusiasm. He believed in his
wife as much as the French soldiers in Napoleon.

Her success in Paris was remarkable. All the French la-
dies voted her charming. She spoke their language admira-
bly. She adopted at once their grace, their liveliness, their
manner. Her husband was stupid certainly,—all English are
stupid,—and, besides, a dull husband at Paris is always a
point in a lady’s favor. He was the heir of the rich and
spirituelle Miss Crawley, whose house had been open to so
many of the French noblesse during the emigration. They
received the Colonel’s wife in their own hotels. “Why,”
wrote a great lady to Miss Crawley, who had bought her lace
and trinkets at the Duchess’s own price, and given her many
a dinner during the pinching times after the Revolution,—
“why does not our dear miss come to her nephew and niece,
and her attached friends in Paris? All the world raffoles of
the charming mistress and her esptégle beauty. Yes, we see
in her the grace, the charm, the wit of our dear friend Miss
Crawley! The King took notice of her yesterday at the
362 VANITY FAIR.

Tuileries, and we are all jealous of the attention which Mon-
sieur pays her. If you could have seen the spite of a certain
stupid Miladi Bareacres (whose eagle-beak and toque and
feathers may be seen peering over the heads of all assem-
blies), when Madame, the Duchess of Angouléme, the august
daughter and companion of kings, desired especially to be
presented to Mrs. Crawley, as your dear daughter and pro-
tégée, and thanked her in the name of France for all your
benevolence towards our unfortunates during their exile! She
is of all the societies, of all the balls,—of the balls,—yes,—of
the dances, no; and yet how interesting and pretty this fair
creature looks surrounded by the homage of the men, and so
soon to be a mother! To hear her speak of you, her pro-
tectress, her mother, would bring tears to the eyes of ogres.
How she loves you! how we all love our admirable, our re-
spectable Miss Crawley!”

It is to be feared that this letter of the Parisian great lady
did not by any means advance Mrs. Becky’s interest with her
admirable, her respectable relative. On the contrary, the
fury of the old spinster was beyond bounds, when she found
what was Rebecca’s situation, and how audaciously she had
made use of Miss Crawley’s name, to get an entrée into
Parisian society. Too much shaken in mind and body to
compose a letter in the French language in reply to that of
her correspondent, she dictated to Briggs a furious answer in
her own native tongue, repudiating Mrs. Rawdon Crawley al-
together, and warning the public to beware of her as a most
artful and dangerous person. But as Madame the Duchess
of X had only been twenty years in England, she did not
understand a single word of the language, and contented her-
self by informing Mrs. Rawdon Crawley, at their next meet-
ing, that she had received a charming letter from that chérv
Mees, and that it was full of benevolent things for Mrs. Craw-
ley, who began seriously to have hopes that the spinster would
relent.

Meanwhile, she was the gayest and most admired of Eng-
lishwomen; and had a little European congress on her recep-
tion-night. Prussians and Cossacks, Spanish and English, all
the world was at Paris during this famous winter: to have
seen the stars and cordons in Rebecca’s humble saloon would
have made all Baker Street pale with envy. Famous war-
riors rode by her carriage in the Bois, or crowed her modest
little box at the opera. Rawdon was in the highest spirits,

 
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 365

There were no duns in Paris as yet: there were parties every
day at Véry’s or Beauvilliers’; play was plentiful and his
luck good. Tufto perhaps was sulky. Mrs. Tufto had come
over to Paris at her own invitation, and, besides this cun-
tretemps, there were a score of generals now round Becky’s
chair, and she might take her choice of a dozen bouquets
when she went to the play. Lady Bareacres and the chiefs
of the English society, stupid and irreproachable females,
writhed with anguish at the success of the little upstart
Becky, whose poisoned jokes quivered and rankled in their
chaste breasts. But she had all the men on her side. She
fought the women with indomitable courage, and they could
not talk scandal in any tongue but their own.

So in fétes, pleasures, and prosperity, the winter of 1815-
16, passed away with Mrs. Rawdon Crawley, who accommo.
dated herself to polite life as if her ancestors had been people
of fashion for centuries past,—and who from her wit, talent,
and energy, indeed merited a place of honor in Vanity Fair,
In the early spring of 1816, Galignani’s Journal contained
the following announcement in an interesting corner of the
paper: “On the 26th of March, the Lady of Lieutenant-Col..
onel Crawley, of the Life Guards Green,—of a son and heir.’’

This event was copied into the London papers, out of
which Miss Briggs read the statement to Miss Crawley, at;
breakfast, at Brighton. The intelligence, expected as il;
might have been, caused a crisis in the affairs of the Crawley:
family. The spinster’s rage rose to its height, and sending:
instantly for Pitt, her nephew, and for the Lady Southdown,
from Brunswick Square, she requsted an immediate celebra-
tion of the marriage which had been so long pending between
the two families. And she announced that it was her inten-
tion to allow the young couple a thousand a year during her
lifetime, at the expiration of which the bulk of her property
would be settled upon her nephew and her dear niece, Lady
Jane Crawley. Waxy came down to ratify the deeds,—Lord
Southdown gave away his sister,—she was married by a
Bishop, and not by the Rev. Bartholomew Irons,—to the dis-
appointment of the irregular prelate.

When they were married, Pitt would have liked to take a
hymeneal tour with his bride, as became people of their condi-
tion. But the affection of the old lady towards Lady Jane
had grown so strong, that she fairly owned she could not
part with her favorite. Pitt and his wife came therefore and
364 VANITY FAIR,

lived with Miss Crawley; and (greatly to the annoyance of
poor Pitt, who conceived himself a most injured character,—
being subject to the humors of his aunt on one side, and of
his mother-in-law on the other) Lady Southdown, from her
neighboring house, reigned over the whole family, — Pitt,
Lady Jane, Miss Crawley, Briggs, Bowls, Firkin, and all.
She pitilessly dosed them with her tracts and her medicine,
she dismissed Creamer, she installed Rodgers, and soon
stripped Miss Crawley of even the semblance of authority.
The poor soul grew so timid that she actually left off bully-
ing Briggs any more, and clung to her niece, more fond and
terrified every day. Peace to thee, kind and selfish, vain and
generous old heathen!—We shall see thee no more. Let us
hope that Lady Jane supported her kindly, and led her with
gentle hand out of the busy struggle of Vanity Fair.

END OF VOLUME IL
Volume II.
VANITY FAIR.
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO.

 

CHAPTER I.

WIDOW AND MOTHER.

The news of the great fights of Quatre Bras and Waterloo
reached England at the same time. The Gazette first pub-
lished the result of the two battles; at which glorious intelli-
gence all England thrilled with triumph and fear. Particu-
lars then followed; and after the announcement of the vic-
tories came the list of the wounded and the slain. Who can
tell the dread with which that catalogue was opened and read!
Fancy, at every village and homestead almost through the
three kingdoms, the great news coming of the battles of
Flanders, and the feelings of exultation and gratitude, be-
reavement and sickening dismay, when the lists of the regi-
mental losses were gone through, and it became known
whether the dear friend and relative had escaped or fallen.
Anybody who will take the trouble of looking back to a file
of the newspapers of the time, must, even now, feel at sec-
ond-hand this breathless pause of expectation. The list of
casualties are carried on from day to day: you stop in the
midst as in a story which is to be continued in our next.
Think what the feelings must have been as those papers fol-
lowed each other fresh from the press; and if such an interest
could be felt in our country, and about a battle where but
twenty thousand of our people were engaged, think of the
condition of Europe for twenty years before, where people
were fighting, not by thousands, but by millions; each one
of whom as he struck his enemy wounded horribly some other
innocent heart far away.

Vol. I1,—1
2 VANITY FAIR.

The news which that famous Gazette brought to the Os-
bornes gave a dreadful shock to the family and its chief. The
girls indulged unrestrained in their grief. The gloom-stricken
old father was still more borne down by his fate and sorrow.
He strove to think that a judgment was on the boy for his
disobedience. He dared not own that the severity of the
sentence frightened him, and that its fulfillment had come too
soon upon his curses. Sometimes a shuddering terror struck
him, as if he had been the author of the doom which he had
called down on his son. There was a chance before of recon-
ciliation. The boy’s wife might have died; or he might have
come back and said, Father, I have sinned. But there was
no hope now. He stood on the other side of the gulf impassa-
ble, haunting his parent with sad eyes. He remembered them
once before so in a fever, when every one thought the lad
was dying, and he lay on his bed speechless, and gazing with
a dreadful gloom. Good God! how the father clung to the
doctor then; and with what a sickening anxiety he followed
him: what a weight of grief was off his mind when, after the
crisis of the fever, the lad recovered, and looked at his father
once more with eyes that recognized him. But now there was
no help or cure, or chance of reconcilement; above all, there
were no humble words to soothe vanity outraged and furious,
or bring to its natural flow the poisoned, angry blood. And
it is hard to say which pang it was that tore the proud father’s
heart most keenly,—that his son should have gone out of the
reach of his forgiveness, or that the apology which his own
pride expected should have escaped him.

Whatever his sensations might have been, however, the
stern old man would have no confidant. He never mentioned
his son’s name to his daughters; but ordered the elder to
place all the females of the establishment in mourning; and
desired that the male servants should be similarly attired in
deep black. All parties and entertainments, of course, were
to be put off. No communications were made to his future
son-in-law, whose marriage-day had been fixed; but there
was enough in Mr. Osborne’s appearance to prevent Mr. Bul-
lock from making any inquiries, or in any way pressing for-
ward that ceremony. He and the ladies whispered about it un-
der their voices in the drawing-room sometimes, whither the
father never came. He remained constantly in his own study;
the whole front part of the house being closed until some
time after the completion of the general mourning.
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 3

About three weeks after the 18th of June, Mr. Osborne’s
acquaintance, Sir William Dobbin, called at Mr. Osborne’s
house in Russell Square with a very pale and agitated face,
and insisted upon seeing that gentleman. Ushered into his
room, and after a few words, which neither the speaker nor
the host understood, the former produced from an enclosure
a letter sealed with a large red seal. “My son, Major Dob-
bin,” the Alderman said, with some hesitation, “despatched
me a letter by an officer of the —th, who arrived in town to-
day. My son’s letter contains one for you, Osborne.” The
Alderman placed the letter on the table, and Osborne stared
at him for a moment or two in silence. His looks frightened
the ambassador, who, after looking guiltily for a little time
at the grief-stricken man, hurried away without another word.

The letter was in George’s well-known bold handwriting.
It was that one which he had written before daybreak on the
16th of June, and just before he took leave of Amelia. The
great red seal was emblazoned with the sham coat of arms
which Osborne had assumed from the Peerage, with “Pax in
bello” for a motto; that of the ducal house with which the
vain old man tried to fancy himself connected. The hand
that signed it would never hold pen or sword more. The very
seal that sealed it had been robbed from George’s dead body
as it lay on the field of battle. The father knew nothing of
this, but sat and looked at the letter in terrified vacancy. He
almost fell when he went to open it.

Have you ever had a difference with a dear friend? How
his letters, written in the period of love and confidence, sicken
and rebuke you! What a dreary mourning it is to dwell upon
those vehement protests of dead affection! What lying
epitaphs they make over the corpse of love! What dark,
cruel comments upon Life and Vanities! Most of us have
got or written drawers full of them. They are closet-skeletons
which we keep and shun. Osborne trembled long before the
letter from his dead son.

The poor boy’s letter did not say much. He had been too
proud to acknowledge the tenderness which his heart felt.
He only said, that on the eve of a great battle he wished to
bid his father farewell, and solemnly to implore his good
offices for the wife—it might be for the child—whom he left
behind him. He owned with contrition that his irregularities
and his extravagance had already wasted a large part of his

mother’s little fortune. He thanked his father for his former
24
4 VANITY FAIR.

generous conduct; and he promised him, that if he fell on
the field, or survived it, he would act in a manner worthy of
the name of George Osborne.

His English habit, pride, awkwardness perhaps, had pre-
vented him from saying more. His father could not see the
kiss George had placed on the superscription of his letter.
Mr. Osborne dropped it with the bitterest, deadliest pang of
balked affection and revenge. His son was still beloved and
unforgiven.

About two months afterwards, however, as the young ladies
of the family went to church with their father, they remarked
how he took a different seat from that which he usually occu-
pied when he chose to attend divine worship; and that from
his cushion opposite he looked up at the wall over their heads.
This caused the young women likewise to gaze in the direc-
tion towards which their father’s gloomy eyes pointed: and
they saw an elaborate monument upon the wall, where Britan-
nia was represented weeping over an urn, and a broken sword
and a couchant lion indicated that the piece of sculpture had
been erected in honor of a deceased warrior. The sculptors
of those days had stocks of such funereal emblems in hand;
as you may see still on the walls of St..Paul’s, which are cov-
ered with hundreds of these braggart heathen allegories.
There was a constant demand for them during the first fifteen
years of the present century.

Under the memorial in question were emblazoned the well-
known and pompous Osborne arms; and the inscription said,
that the monument was “Sacred to the memory of George Os-
borne, Junior, Esq., late a Captain in his Majesty’s —th regi-
ment of foot, who fell on the 18th of June, 1815, aged 28
years, while fighting for his king and country in the glorious
victory of Waterloo. Dulce et decorum est pro patria mort.”

The sight of that stone agitated the nerves of the sisters so
much, that Miss Maria was compelled to leave the church.
The congregation made way respectfully for those sobbing
girls clothed in deep black, and pitied the stern old father
seated opposite the memorial of the dead soldier. “Will he
forgive Mrs. George?” the girls said to themselves as soon as
their ebullition of grief was over. Much conversation passed
too among the acquaintances of the Osborne family, who knew
of the rupture between the son and father caused by the form-
er’s marriage, as to the chance of a reconciliation with the
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HBRO. 5

young widow. There were bets among the gentlemen both
about Russell Square and in the City.

If the sisters had any anxiety regarding the possible recog-
nition of Amelia as a daughter of the family, it was increased
presently, and towards the end of the autumn, by their fath-
er’s announcement. that he was going abroad. He did not
say whither, but they knew at once that his steps would be
turned towards Belgium, and were aware that George’s widow
was still in Brussels. They had pretty accurate news indeed
of poor Amelia from Lady Dobbin and her daughters. Our
honest Captain had been promoted in consequence of the
death of the second Major of the regiment on the field; and
the brave O’Dowd, who had distinguished himself greatly
here as upon all occasions where he had a chance to show his
coolness and valor, was a Colonel and Companion of the Bath.

Very many of the brave —th, who had suffered severely
upon both days of action, were still at Brussels in the autumn,
recovering of their wounds. The city was a vast military hos-
pital for months after the great battles; and as men and
officers began to rally from their hurts, the gardens and places
of public resort swarmed with maimed warriors, old and
young, who, just rescued out of death, fell to gambling, and
gayety, and love-making, as people of Vanity Fair will do.
Mr. Osborne found out some of the —th easily. He knew
their uniform quite well, and had been used to follow all the
promotions and exchanges in the regiment, and loved to talk
about it and its officers as if he had been one of the number.
On the day after his arrival at Brussels, and as he issued from
his hotel, which faced the park, he saw a soldier in the well-
known facings, reposing on a stone bench in the garden, and
went and sat down trembling by the wounded convalescent
man.

“Were you in Captain Osborne’s company?” he said, and
added, after a pause, “he was my son, sir.”

The man was not of the Captain’s company, but he lifted up
his unwounded arm and touched his cap sadly and respect-
fully to the haggard, broken-spirited gentleman who ques-
tioned him. “The whole army didn’t contain a finer or a
better officer,” the soldier said. “The Sergeant of the Cap-
tain’s company (Captain Raymond had it now) was in town
though, and was just well of a shot in the shoulder. His
honor might see him if he liked, who could tell him anything
he wanted to know about—about the —th’s actions.
6 VANITY FAIR.

But his honor had seen Major Dobbin, no doubt,
the brave Captain’s great friend; and Mrs. Osborne,
who was here, too, and had been very bad, he heard
everybody say. They say she was out of her mind like for
six weeks or more. But your honor knows all about that,—
and asking your pardon”-—the man added.

Osborne put a guinea into the soldier’s hand, and told him
he should have another if he would bring the Sergeant to the
Hotel du Pare; a promise which very soon brought the de-
sired officer to Mr. Osborne’s presence. And the first soldier
went away; and after telling a comrade or two how Captain Os-
borne’s father was arrived, and what a free-handed, generous
gentleman he was, they went and made good cheer with drink
and feasting, as long as the guineas lasted which had come
from the proud purse of the mourning old father.

In the Sergeant’s company, who was also just convalescent,
Osborne made the journey from Waterloo and Quatre Bras,
a journey which thousands of his countrymen were then
taking. He took the Sergeant with him in his carriage, and
went through both fields under his guidance. He saw the
point of the road where the regiment marched into action
on the 16th, and the slope down which they drove the French
cavalry who were pressing on the retreating Belgians. There
was the spot where the noble Captain cut down the French
officer who was grappling with the young Ensign for the
colors, the Color-Sergeants having been shot down. Along
this road they retreated on the next day, and here was the bank
at which the regiment bivouacked under the rain of the night
of the seventeenth. Farther on was the position which they
took and held during the day, forming time after time to
receive the charge of the enemy’s horsemen, and lying down
under the shelter of the bank from the furious French cannon-
ade. And it was at this declivity, when at evening the whole
English line received the order to advance, as the enemy fell
back after his last charge, that the Captain, hurraying and
rushing down the hill waving his sword, received a shot and
fell dead. “It was Major Dobbin who took back the Cap-
tain’s body to Brussels,’ the Sergeant said, in a low voice,
“and had him buried, as your honor knows.” The peasants
and relic-hunters about the place were screaming round the
pair, as the soldier told his story, offering for sale all sorts of
mementoes of the fight, crosses, and epaulets, and shattered
culirasses, and eagles,
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. a

Osborne gave a sumptuous reward to the Sergeant when he
parted with him, after having visited the scenes of his son’s
last exploits. His burial-place he had already seen. Indeed,
he had driven thither immediately after his arrival at Brus-
sels. George’s body lay in the pretty burial-ground of
Laeken, near the city; in which place, having once visited it
on a party of pleasure, he had lightly expressed a wish to
have his grave made. And there the young officer was laid by
his friend, in the unconsecrated corner of the garden, sepa-
rated by a little hedge from the temples and towns and plan-
tations of flowers and shrubs, under which the Roman Catholic
dead repose. It seemed a humiliation to old Osborne to think
that his son, an English gentleman, a captain in the famous
British army, should not be found worthy to lie in ground
where mere foreigners were buried. Which of us is there
can tell how much vanity lurks in our warmest regard for
others, and how selfish our love is? Old Osborne did not
speculate much upon the mingled nature of his feelings, and
how his instinct and selfishness were combating together. He
firmly believed that everything he did was right, that he ought
on all occasions to have his own way,—and like the sting of
the wasp or serpent his hatred rushed out armed and poison-
ous against anything like opposition. He was proud of his
hatred as of everything else. Always to be right, always to
trample forward, and never to doubt, are not these the great
qualities with which dullness takes the lead in the world?

As after the drive to Waterloo, Mr. Osborne’s carriage was
nearing the gates of the city at sunset, they met another open
barouche, in which were a couple of ladies and a gentleman,
and by the side of which an officer was riding. Osborne gave
a start back, and the Sergeant, seated with him, cast a look
of surprise at his neighbor, as he touched his cap to the officer,
who mechanically returned his salute. It was Amelia, with
the lame young Ensign by her side, and opposite to her her
faithful friend Mrs. O’Dowd. It was Amelia, but how changed
from the fresh and comely girl Osborne knew. Her face was
white and thin. Her pretty brown hair was parted under a
widow’s cap,—the poor child. Her eyes were fixed, and look-
ing nowhere. They stared blank in the face of Osborne, as
the carriages crossed each other, but she did not know him;
nor did he recognize her, until, looking up, he saw Dobbin
riding by her; and then he knew who it was. He hated her.
He did not know how much until he saw her there. When
8 VANITY FAIR.

her carriage had passed on, he turned and stared at the Ser-
geant, with a curse and defiance in his eye cast at his com-
panion, who could not help looking at him,—as much as to
say, “How dare you look at me? Damn you! I do hate her.
It is she who has tumbled my hopes and all my pride down.’
“Tell the scoundrel to drive on quick,” he shouted with an
cath, to the lackey on the box. A minute afterwards, a horse
came clattering over the pavement behind Osborne’s carriage,
and Dobbin rode up. His thoughts had been elsewhere as the
carriages passed each other, and it was not until he had ridden
some paces forward, that he remembered it was Osborne who
had just passed him. Then he turned to examine if the
sight of her father-in-law had made any impression on Amelia,
but the poor girl did not know who had passed. Then Wil-
liam, who daily used to accompany her in his drives, taking
out his watch, made some excuse about an engagement which
he suddenly recollected, and so rode off. She did not remark
that either; but sat looking before her, over the homely land-
scape towards the woods in the distance, by which George
marched away.

“Mr. Osborne, Mr. Osborne!” cried Dobbin, as he rode up
and held out his hand. Osborne made no motion to take it,
but shouted out once more and with another curse to his serv-
ant to drive on.

Dobbin laid his hand on the carriage side. “I will see you,
sir,” he said. “I have a message for you.”

“From that woman?” eaid Osborne, fiercely.

“No,” replied the other, “from your son;” at which Osborne
fell back into the corner of his carriage, and Dobbin, allowing
it to pass on, rode close behind it, and so through the town
until they reached Mr. Osborne’s hotel, and without a word.
There he followed Osborne up to his apartments. George had
often been in the rooms; they were the lodgings which the
Crawleys had occupied during their stay in Brussels.

“Pray have you any commands for me, Captain Dobbin, or,
I beg your pardon, I should say Major Dobbin, since better
men than you are dead, and you step into their shoes,” said
Mr. Osborne, in that sarcastic tone which he sometimes was
pleased to assume.

“Better men are dead,” Dobbin replied. “I want to speak
to you about one.’

“Make it short, sir,” said the other, with an oath, scowling
at his visitor.
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 9

“T am here as his closest friend,” the Major resumed, “and
the executor of his will. He made it before he went into
action. Are you aware how small his means are, and of the
straitened circumstances of his widow?”

“I don’t know his widow, sir,” Osborne said. “Let her go
back to her father.” But the gentleman whom he addressed
was determined to remain in good temper, and went on with-
out heeding the interruption.

“Do you know, sir, Mrs. Osborne’s condition? Her life
and her reason almost have been shaken by the blow which
has fallen on her. It is very doubtful whether she will rally.
There is a chance left for her, however, and it is about this
I came to speak to you. She will be a mother soon. Will
you visit the parent’s offense upon the child’s head? or will
you forgive the child for poor George’s sake?”

Osborne broke out into a rhapsody of self-praise and impre-
cations;—by the first, excusing himself to his own conscience
for his conduct; by the second, exaggerating the undutiful-
ness of George. No father in all England could have behaved
more generously to a son, who, had rebelled against him wick-
edly. He had died without even so much as confessing he
was wrong. Let him take the consequences of his undutiful-
ness and folly. As for himself, Mr. Osborne, he was a man
of his word. He had sworn never to speak to that woman,
or to recognize her as his son’s wife. “And that’s what you
may tell her,” he concluded with an oath; “and that’s what
I will stick to to the last day of my life.”

There was no hope from that quarter then. The widow
must live on her slender pittance, or on such aid as Jos could
give her. “I might tell her, and she would not heed it,”
thought Dobbin, sadly: for the poor girl’s thoughts were not
here at all since her catastrophe, and, stupefied under the pres-
sure of her sorrow, good and evil were alike indifferent to
her.

So, indeed, were even friendship and kindness. She re-
ceived them both uncomplainingly, and, having accepted
them, relapsed into her grief.

Suppose some twelve months after the above conversation
took place to have passed in the life of our poor Amelia. She
has spent the first portion of that time in a sorrow so pro-
found and pitiable, that we who have been watching and de-
scribing some of the emotions of that weak and tender heart
10 VANITY FAIR.

must draw back in the presence of the cruel grief under which
it is bleeding. Tread silently round the hapless couch of the
poor prostrate soul. Shut gently the door of the dark cham-
ber wherein she suffers, as those kind people did who nursed
her through the first months of her pain, and never left her
until heaven had sent her consolation. A day came,—of almost
terrified delight and wonder,—when the poor widowed girl
pressed a child upon her breast,—a child, with the eyes of
George who was gone,—a little boy, as beautiful as a cherub.
What a miracle it was to hear its first cry! How she laughed
and wept over it,—how love, and hope, and prayer woke again
in her bosom as the baby nestled there. She was safe. The
doctors who attended her, and had feared for her life or for
her brain, had waited anxiously for this crisis before they
could pronounce that either was secure. It was worth the
long months of doubt and dread which the persons who had
constantly been with her had passed, to see her eyes once more
beaming tenderly upon them.

Our friend Dobbin was one of them. It was he who
brought her back to England and to her mother’s house;
when Mrs. O’Dowd, receiving a peremptory summons from
her Colonel, had been forced to quit her patient. To see Dob-
bin holding the infant, and to hear Amelia’s laugh of triumph
as she watched him, would have done any man good who had
a sense of humor. William was the godfather of the child,
and exerted his ingenuity in the purchase of cups, spoons, pap-
boats, and corals for this little Christian.

How his mother nursed him, and dressed him, and lived
upon him; how she drove away all nurses, and would scarce
allow any hand but her own to touch him; how she consid-
ered that the greatest favor she could confer upon his god-
father, Major Dobbin, was to allow the Major occasionally to
dandle him, need not be told here. This child was her being.
Her existence was a maternal caress. She envcloped the fec-
ble and unconscious creature with love and worship. It was
her life which the baby drank in from her bosom. Of nights,
and when alone, she had stealthy and intense raptures of
motherly love, such as God’s marvelous care hag awarded to
the female instinct,—joys how far higher and lower than rea-
son,—blind, beautiful devotions which only women’s hearts
know. It was William Dobbin’s task to muse upon these
movements of Amelia’s, and to watch her heart; and if his
love made him divine almost all the feelings which agitated it,
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 11

alas! he could see with a fatal perspicuity that there was no
place there for him. And go, gently, he bore his fate, know-
ing it, and content to bear it.

I suppose Amelia’s father and mother saw through the in-
tentions of the Major, and were not ill-disposed to encourage
him; for Dobbin visited their house daily, and stayed for
hours with them, or with Amelia, or with the honest landlord,
Mr. Clapp, and his family. He brought, on one pretext or
another, presents to everybody, and almost every day; and
went, with the landlord’s little girl, who was rather a favorite
with Amelia, by the name of Major Sugarplums. It was this
little child who commonly acted as mistress of the ceremonies
to introduce him to Mrs. Osborne. She laughed one day when
Major Sugarplum’s cab drove up to Fulham, and he descended
from it, bringing out a wooden horse, a drum, a trumpet, and
other warlike toys, for little Georgy, who was scarcely six
months old, and for whom the articles in question were en-
tirely premature.

The child was asleep. “Hush,” said Amelia, annoyed, per-
haps, at the creaking of the Major’s boots; and she held out
her hand; smiling because William could not take it until he
had rid himself of his cargo of toys. “Go down stairs, little
Mary,” said he presently to the child, “I want to speak to
Mrs. Osborne.” She looked up rather astonished, and laid
down the infant on its bed.

“T am come to say good-bye, Amelia,” said he, taking her
slender little white hand gently.

“Good-bye? and where are you going?” she said, with a
smile.

“Send the letters to the agents,” he said; “they will for-
ward them; for you will write to me, won’t you? I shall be
away a long time.”

“Pll write to you about Georgy,” she said. “Dear William,
how good you have been to him and to me. Look at him.
Isn’t he like an angel?”

The little pink hands of the child closed mechanically
round the honest soldier’s finger, and Amelia looked up in
his face with bright maternal pleasure. The cruellest looks
could not have wounded him more than that glance of hope-
less kindness. He bent over the child and mother. He could
not speak for a moment. And it was with all his strength
that he could force himself to say a God bless you. “God
bless you,” said Amelia, and held up her face and kissed him,
12 VANITY FAIR.

“Hush! Don’t wake Georgy!” she added, as William Dob-
bin went to the door with heavy steps. She did not hear the
noise of his cab-wheels as he drove away: she was looking at
the child, who was laughing in his sleep.

CHAPTER II.
HOW TO LIVE WELL ON NOTHING A YEAR.

‘. I suppose there is no man in this Vanity Fair of ours so
little observant as not to think sometimes about the worldly
affairs of his acquaintances, or so extremely charitable as not
to wonder how his neighbor Jones, or his neighbor Smith, can
make both ends meet at the end of the year. With the ut-
most regard for the family, for instance (for I dine with them
twice or thrice in the season), I cannot but own that the ap-
pearance of the Jenkinses in the Park, in the large barouche
with the grenadier-footmen, will surprise and mystify me to
my dying day; for though I know the equipage is only jobbed,
and all the Jenkins people are on board-wages, yet those three
men and the carriage must represent an expense of six hun-
dred a year at the very least,—and then there are the splendid
dinners, the two boys at Eton, the prize governess and mas-
ters for the girls, the trip abroad, or to Eastbourne or Worth-
ing in the autumn, the annual ball with a supper from Gun-
ter’s (who, by the way, supplies most of the first-rate dinners
which J. gives, as I know very well, having been invited to
one of them to fill a vacant place, when I saw at once that
these repasts are very superior to the common run of enter-
tainments for which the humbler sort of J.’s acquaintances
get cards),—who, I say, with the most good-natured feelings
in the world, can help wondering how the Jenkinses made out
matters? What is Jenkins?—we all know,—Commissioner of
the Tape and Sealing-Wax Office, with £1200 a year for a salary.
Had his wife a private fortune? Pooh!—Miss Flint,—one of
the eleven children of a small squire in Buckinghamshire.
All she ever gets from her family is a turkey at Christmas,
in exchange for which she has to board two or three of her
sisters in the off season; and lodge and feed her brothers when
they come to town. How does Jenkins balance his income?
I say as every friend of his must say, How is it that he has
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 13

not been outlawed long since; and that he ever came back
(as he did to the surprise of everybody) last year from Bou-
logne?

“T” is here introduced to personify the world in general,—
the Mrs. Grundy of each respected reader’s private circle-—
every one of whom can point to some families of his acquaint-
ance who live nobody knows how. Many a glass of wine have
we all of us drunk, I have very little doubt, hob-and-nobbing
with the hospitable giver, and wondering how the deuce he
paid for it.

Some three or four years after his stay in Paris, when Raw-
don Crawley and his wife were established in a very small
comfortable house in Curzon Street, Mayfair, there were
scarcely one of the numerous friends whom they entertained
at dinner that did not ask the above question regarding them.
The novelist, it has been said before, knows everything, and
as I am in a situation to be able to tell the public how Crawley
and his wife lived without any income, may I entreat the
public newspapers, which are in the habit of extracting por-
tions of the various periodical works now published, not to
reprint the following exact narrative and calculations,—of
which I ought, as the discoverer (and at some expense, too),
to have the benefit. My son, I would say, were I blessed with
a child,—you may by deep inquiry and constant intercourse
with him, learn how a man lives comfortably on nothing a
year. But it is best not to be intimate with gentlemen of
this profession, and to take the calculations at second-hand,
as you do logarithms, for to work them yourself, depend upon
it, will cost you something considerable.

On nothing per annum then, and during a course of some
two or three years, of which we can afford to give but a very
brief history, Crawley and his wife lived very happily and
comfortably at Paris. It was in this period that he quitted
the Guards, and sold out of the army. When we find him
again, his mustachios and the title of Colonel on his card are
the only relics of his military profession.

It has been mentioned that Rebecca, soon after her arrival
in Paris, took a very smart and leading position in the society
of that capital, and was welcomed at some of the most distin-
guished houses of the restored French nobility. The English-
men of fashion in Paris courted her, too, to the disgust of
the ladies their wives, who could not bear the parvenue. For
some months the salons of the Faubourg St. Germain, in
14 VANITY FAIR.

which her place was secured, and the splendors of the new
Court, where she was received with much distinction, de-
lighted and perhaps a little intoxicated Mrs. Crawley, who may
have been disposed during this period of elation to slight the
people,—honest young military men mostly,—who formed her
husband’s chief society.

But the Colonel yawned sadly among the duchesses and
great ladies of the Court. The old women who played écarté
made such a noise about a five-franc piece, that it was not
worth Colonel Crawley’s while to sit down at a card-table.
The wit of their conversation he could not appreciate, being
ignorant of their language. And what good could his wife
get, he urged, by making courtesies every night to a whole
circle of Princesses? He left Rebecca presently to frequent
these parties alone; resuming his own simple pursuits and
amusements amongst the amiable friends of his own choice.

The truth is, when we say of a gentleman that he lives
elegantly on nothing a year, we use the word “nothing” to
signify something unknown; meaning, simply, that we don’t
know how the gentleman in question defrays the expenses of
his establishment. Now, our friend the Colonel had a great
aptitude for all games of chance: and exercising himself, as
he continually did, with the cards, the dice-box, or the cue,
it is natural to suppose that he attained a much greater skill
in the use of these articles than men can possess who only
occasionally handle them. To use a cue at billiards well is
like using a pencil, or a German flute, or a small-sword,—you
cannot master any one of these implements at first, and it is
only by repeated study and perseverance, joined to a natural
taste, that a man can excel in the handling of either. Now
Crawley, from being only a brilliant amateur had grown to
be a consummate master of billiards. Like a great general,
his genius used to rise with the danger, and when the luck had
been unfavorable to him for a whole game, and the bets were
consequently against him, he would, with consummate skill
and boldness, make some prodigious hits which would restore
the battle, and come in a victor at the end, to the astonishment
of everybody,—of everybody, that is, who was a stranger to
his play. Those who were accustomed to see it were cautious
how they staked their money against a man of such sudden
resources, and brilliant overpowering skill.

At games of cards he was equally skillful; for though he
would constantly lose money at the commencement of an
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO, 15

evening, playing so carelessly and making such blunders, that
new-comers were often inclined to think meanly of his talent;
yet when roused to action, and awakened to caution by re-
peated small losses, it was remarked that Crawley’s play became
quite different, and that he was pretty sure of beating his
enemy thoroughly before the night was over. Indeed, very
few men could say that they ever had the better of him.

His successes were so repeated that no wonder the envious
and the vanquished spoke sometimes with bitterness regarding
them. And as the French say of the Duke of Wellington,
who never suffered a defeat, that only an astonishing series
of lucky accidents enabled him to be an invariable winner;
yet even they allow that he cheated at Waterloo, and was en-
abled to win the last great trick:—so it was hinted at head-
quarters in England, that some foul play must have taken
place in order to account for the continuous successes of Col-
onel Crawley.

Though Frascati’s and the Salon were open at that time in
Paris, the mania for play was so widely spread, that the public
gambling-rooms did not suffice for the general ardor, and
gambling went on in private houses as much as if there had
been no public means of gratifying the passion. At Crawley’s
charming little réwnions of an evening this fatal amusement
commonly was practiced,—much to good-natured little Mrs.
Crawley’s annoyance. She spoke about her husband’s pas-
sion for dice with the deepest grief; she bewailed it to every-
body who came to her house. She besought the young fel-
lows never, never to touch a box; and when young Green,
of the Rifles, lost a very considerable sum of money, Rebecca
passed a whole night in tears, as the servant told the unfortu-
nate young gentleman, and actually went on her knees to her
husband to beseech him to remit the debt, and burn the ac-
knowledgment. How could he? He had lost just as much
himself to Blackstone of the Hussars, and Count Punter of
the Hanoverian Cavalry. Green might have any decent time;
but pay?—of course he must pay; to talk of burning I O U’s
was child’s play.

Other officers, chiefly young,—for the young fellows gath-
ered round Mrs. Crawley,—came from her parties with long
faces, having dropped more or less money at her fatal card-
tables. Her house began to have an unfortunate reputation.
The old hands warned the less experienced of their danger.
Colonel O’Dowd, of the —th regiment, one of those occupy-

 
16 VANITY FAIR.

ing in Paris, warned Lieutenant Spoouey of that corps. A
loud and violent fracas took place between the infantry colonel
and his lady, who were dining at the Café de Paris, and Col-
onel and Mrs. Crawley, who were also taking their meal there.
The ladies engaged on both sides. Mrs. O’Dowd snapped her
fingers in Mrs. Crawley’s face, and called her husband “no
betther than a blackleg.” Colonel Crawley challenged Col-
onel O’Dowd, C. B. The Commander-in-Chief hearing of
the dispute sent for Colonel Crawley, who was getting ready
the same pistols, “which he shot Captain Marker,” and had
such a conversation with him that no duel took place. If
Rebecca had not gone on her knees to General Tufto, Crawley
would have been sent back to England; and he did not play,
except with civilians, for some weeks after.

But in spite of Rawdon’s undoubted skill and constant suc-
cesses, it became evident to Rebecca, considering these things,
that their position was but a precarious one, and that, even
although they paid scarcely anybody, their little capital would
end one day by dwindling into zero. “Gambling,” she would
say, “dear, is good to help your income, but not as an income
itself. Some day people may be tired of play, and then where
are we?” Rawdon acquiesced in the justice of her opinion;
and in truth he had remarked that after a few nights of his
little suppers, &c., gentlemen were tired of play with him,
and, in spite of Rebecca’s charms, did not present themselves
very eagerly.

Easy and pleasant as their life at Paris was, it was after all
only an idle dalliance and amiable trifling; and Rebecca saw
that she must push Rawdon’s fortune in their own country.
She must get him a place or appointment at home or in the
colonies; and she determined to make a move on England as
soon as the way could be cleared for her. As a first step she
had made Crawley sell out of the Guards, and go on half-pay.
His function ag aide-de-camp to General Tufto had ceased
previously. Rebecca laughed in all companies at that officer,
at his toupee (which he mounted on coming to Paris), at his
waistband, at his false teeth, at his pretensions to be a lady-
killer above all, and his absurd vanity in fancying every
woman whom he came near was in love with him. It was to
Mrs. Brent, the beetle-browed wife of Mr. Commissary Brent,
to whom the General transferred his attentions now,—his
bouquets, his dinners at the restaurateurs’, his opera-boxes,
and his knick-knacks. Poor Mrs. Tufto was no more happy
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 17

than before, and had still to pass long evenings alone with her
daughters, knowing that her General was gone off scented and
curled to stand behind Mrs. Brent’s chair at the play. Becky
had a dozen admirers in his place to be sure; and could cut
her rival to pieces with her wit. But, as we have said, she
was growing tired of this idle social life: opera-boxes and
restaurateur-dinners palled upon her: nosegays could not be
laid by as a provision for future years: and she could not live
upon knick-knacks, laced handkerchiefs, and kid gloves. She
felt the frivolity of pleasure, and longed for more substantial
benefits.

At this juncture news arrived which was spread among
the many creditors of the Colonel at Paris, and which caused
them great satisfaction. Miss Crawley, the rich aunt from
whom he expected his immense inheritance, was dying; the
Colonel must haste to her bedside. Mrs. Crawley and her
child would remain behind until he came to reclaim them.
He departed for Calais, and having reached that place in
safety, it might have been supposed that he went to Dover;
but instead he took the diligence to Dunkirk, and thence
traveled to Brussels, for which place he had a former predi-
lection. The fact is, he owed more money at London than at
Paris; and he preferred the quiet little Belgian city to either
of the more noisy capitals.

Her aunt was dead. Mrs. Crawley ordered the most in-
tense mourning for herself and little Rawdon. The Colonel
was busy arranging the affairs of the inheritance. They could
take the premier now, instead of the little entresol of the
hotel which they oceupied. Mrs. Crawley and the landlord
had a consultation about the new hangings, an amicable wran-
gle about the carpets, and a final adjustment of everything ex-
cept the bill. She went off in one of his carriages; her
French donne with her; the child by her side; the admirable
landlord and landlady smiling farewell to her from the gate.
General Tufto was furious when he heard she was gone, and
Mrs. Brent furious with him for being furious; Lieutenant
Spooney was cut to the heart; and the landlord got ready his
best apartments previous to the return of the fascinating little
woman and her husband. He serrédthe trunks which she
left in his charge with the greatest care. They had been
especially recommended to him by Madame Crawley. They
were not, however, found to be particularly valuable when
opened some time after.

Vol. IL.—2
18 VANITY FAIR.

But before she went to join her husband in the Belgic capi-
tal, Mrs. Crawley made an expedition into England, leaving
behind her her little son upon the Continent, under the care
of her French maid.

The parting between Rebecca and the little Rawdon did
not cause either party much pain. She had not, to say the
truth, seen much of the young gentleman since his birth.
After the amiable fashion of French mothers, she had placed
him out at nurse in a village in the neighborhood of Paris,
where little Rawdon passed the first months of his life, not
unhappily, with a numerous family of fosterbrothers in wood-
en shoes. His father would ride over many a time to see
him here, and the elder Rawdon’s paternal heart glowed to
see him rosy and dirty, shouting lustily, and happy in the
making of mud-pies under the superintendence of the gar-
dener’s wife, his nurse.

Rebecca did not care much to go and see the son and heir.
Once he spoiled a new dove-colored pelisse of hers. He pre-
ferred his nurse’s caresses to his mamma’s, and when finally
he quitted that jolly nurse and almost parent, he cried loudly
for hours. He was only consoled by his mother’s promise
that he should return to his nurse the next day; indeed the
nurse herself, who probably would have been pained at the
parting too, was told that the child would immediately be re-
stored to her, and for some time awaited quite anxiously his
return.

In fact, our friends may be said to have been among the
first of that brood of hardy English adventurers who have
subsequently invaded the Continent, and swindled in all the
capitals of Europe. The respect in those happy days of
1817-18 was very great for the wealth and honor of Britons.
They had not then learned, as I am told, to haggle for bar-
gains with the pertinacity which now distinguishes them.
The great cities of Europe had not been as yet open to the
enterprise of our rascals. And whereas there is now hardly a
town of France or Italy in which you shall not see some noble
countryman of our own, with that happy swagger and inso-
lence of demeanor which we carry everywhere, swindling inn-
landlords, passing fictitious checks upon credulous bankers,
robbing coach-makers of their carriages, goldsmiths of their
trinkets, easy travelers of their money at cards—even public
libraries of their books:—thirty years ago you needed but to
be a Milor Anglais, traveling in a private carriage, and credit
 

 

 

DEPARTURE FROM PARIS

’

MRS. RAWDON'S
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 19

was at your hand wherever you chose to seek it, and gentle-
men, instead of cheating, were cheated. It was not for some
weeks after the Crawleys’ departure that the landlord of the
hotel which they occupied during their residence at Paris
found out the losses which he had sustained: not until Ma-
dame Marabou, the milliner, made repeated visits with her
little bill for articles supplied to Madame Crawley; not until
Monsieur Didelot from Boule d’Or in the Palais Royal had
asked half a dozen times whether cette charmante Miladi who
had bought watches and bracelets of him was de retour. It
is a fact that even the poor gardener’s wife, who had nursed
Madame?’s child, was never paid after the first six months for
that supply of the milk of human kindness with which she
had furnished the lusty and healthy little Rawdon. No, not
even the nurse was paid,—the Crawleys were in too great a
hurry to remember their trifling debt to her. As for the
landlord of the hotel, his curses against the English nation
were violent for the rest of his natural life. He asked all
travelers whether they knew a certain Colonel Lor Crawley—
avec sa femme—une petite dame, trés spirituelle. “Ah,
Monsieur!” he would add— “tls m’ont affreusement volé.” Tt
was melancholy to hear his accents as he spoke of that catas-
trophe.

Rebecca’s object in her journey to London was to effect a
kind of compromise with her husband’s numerous creditors,
and, by offering them a dividend of ninepence or a shilling
in the pound, to secure a return for him into his own country.
It does not become us to trace the steps which she took in the
conduct of this most difficult negotiation; but having shown
them to their satisfaction that the sum which she was em-
powered to offer was all her husband’s available capital, and
having convinced them that Colonel Crawley would prefer
a perpetual retirement on the Continent to a residence in this
country with his debts unsettled; having proved to them that
there was no possibility of money accruing to him from other
quarters, and no earthly chance of their getting a larger divi-
dend than that which she was empowered to offer, she brought
the Colonel’s creditors unanimously to accept her proposals,
and purchased with fifteen hundred pounds of ready money
more than ten times that amount of debts.

Mrs. Crawley employed no lawyer in the transaction. The
matter was so simple, to have or to leave, as she justly ob-
served, that she made the lawyers of the creditors themselves

25
20 VANITY FAIR.

do the business. And Mr. Lewis representing Mr. Davids, of
Red Lion Square, and Mr. Moss acting for Mr. Manasseh, of
Cursitor Street (chief creditors of the Colonel’s), compli-
mented his lady upon the brilliant way in which she did busi-
ness, and declared that there was no professional man who
could beat her.

Rebecca received their congratulations with perfect mod-
esty; ordered a bottle of sherry and a bread cake to the little
dingy lodgings where she dwelt, while conducting the busi-
ness, to treat the enemy’s lawyers: shook hands with them at
parting, in excellent good-humor, and returned straightway
to the Continent, to rejoin her husband and son, and acquaint
the former with the glad news of his entire liberation. As
for the latter, he had been considerably neglected during his
mother’s absence by Mademoiselle Genevieve, her French
maid; for that young woman, contracting an attach-
ment for a soldier in the garrison of Calais, forgot her charge
in the society of this midtatre, and little Rawdon very nar-
rowly escaped drowning on Calais sands at this period, where
the absent Genevieve had left and lost him.

And so Colonel and Mrs. Crawley came to London; and it
is at their house in Curzon Street, May Fair, that they really
showed the skill which must be possessed by those who would
live on the resources above named.

CHAPTER IIL. WN
THE SUBJECT CONTINUED.

In the first place, and as a matter of the greatest necessity,
we are bound to describe how a house may be got for nothing
a year. These mansions are to be had either unfurnished,
where, if you have credit with Messrs. Gillows or Bantings,
you can get them splendidly montées and decorated entirely
according to your own fancy; or they are to be let furnished;
a less troublesome and complicated arrangement to most par-
ties. It was so that Crawley and his wife preferred to hire
their house.

Before Mr. Bowls came to preside over Miss Crawley’s house
and cellar in Park Lane, that lady had had for a butler a Mr.
Raggles, who was born on the family estate of Queen’s Craw-
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 21

ley, and indeed was a younger son of a gardener there. By
good conduct, a handsome person and calves, and a grave de-
meanor, Raggles rose from the knife-board to the foot-board
of the carriage; from the foot-board to the butler’s pantry.
When he had been a certain number of years at the head of
Miss Crawley’s establishment, where he had good wages, fat
perquisites, and plenty of opportunities of saving, he an-
nounced that he was about to contract a matrimonial alliance
with a late cook of Miss Crawley’s, who had subsisted in an
honorable manner by the exercise of a mangle, and the keep-
ing of a small green shop in the neighborhood. The truth is
that the ceremony had been clandestinely performed some
years back; although the news of Mr. Raggles’s marriage was
first brought to Miss Crawley by a little boy and girl of seven
and eight years of age, whose continual presence in the kitchen
had attracted the attention of Miss Briggs.

Mr. Raggles then retired and personally undertook the su-
perintendence of the small shop and the greens. He added
milk and cream, eggs and country-fed pork to his stores, con-
tenting himself, whilst other retired butlers were vending
spirits in public-houses, by dealing in the simplest country
produce. And having a good connection amongst the butlers
in the neighborhood, and a snug back parlor where he and
Mrs. Raggles received them, his milk, cream, and eggs got
to be adopted by many of the fraternity, and his profits in-
creased every year. Year after year he quietly and modestly
amassed money, and when at length that snug and complete
bachelor’s residence at No. 201 Curzon Street, May Fair, lately
the residence of the Honorable Frederick Deuceace, gone
abroad, with its rich and appropriate furniture by the first
makers, was brought to the hammer, who should go in and
purchase the lease and furniture of the house but Charles
Raggles? A part of the money he borrowed, it is true, and
at rather a high interest, from a brother butler, but the chief
part he paid down, and it was with no small pride that Mrs.
Ragegles found herself sleeping in a bed of carved mahogany,
with silk curtains, with a prodigious cheval glass opposite to
her, and a wardrobe which would contain her, and Raggles,
and all the family.

Of course, they did not intend to occupy permanently an
apartment so splendid. It was in order to let the house again
that Raggles purchased it. As soon as a tenant was found,
he subsided into the green-grocer’s shop once more; but a
22 VANITY FAIR.

happy thing it was for him to walk out of that tenement and
into Curzon Street, and there survey his house,—his own
house,—with geraniums in the window and a carved bronze
knocker. The footman occasionally lounging at the area
railing treated him with respect; the cook took her green
stuff at his house and called him Mr. Landlord; and there
was not one thing the tenants did, or one dish which they had
for dinner, that Raggles might not know of, if he liked.

He was a good man; good and happy. The house brought
him in so handsome a yearly income, that he was determined
to send his children to good schools, and accordingly, regard-
less of expense, Charles was sent to boarding at Dr. Swishtail’s,
Sugarcane Lodge, and little Matilda to Miss Peckover’s, Lau-
rentinum House, Clapham.

Raggles loved and adored the Crawley family as the author
of all his prosperity in life. He had a silhouette of his mis-
tress in his back shop, and a drawing of the Porter’s Lodge
at Queen’s Crawley, done by that spinster herself in India
ink,—and the only addition he made to the decorations of the
Curzon Street House was a print of Queen’s Crawley in Hamp-
shire, the Seat of Sir Walpole Crawley, Baronet, who was
represented in a gilded car drawn by six white horses, and
passing by a lake covered with swans, and barges containing
ladies in hoops, and musicians with flags and periwigs. In-
deed Raggles thought there was no such palace in all the
world, and no such august family.

As luck would have it, Raggles’s house in Curzon Street
was to let when Rawdon and his wife returned to London.
The Colonel knew it and its owner quite well; the latter’s
connection with the Crawley family had been kept up con-
stantly, for Raggles helped Mr. Bowls whenever Miss Crawley
received friends. And the old man not only let his house to
the Colonel, but officiated as his butler whenever he had
company; Mrs. Raggles operating in the kitchen below, and
sending up dinners of which old Miss Crawley herself might
have approved. This was the way, then, Crawley got his
house for nothing; for though Raggles had to pay taxes and
rates, and the interest of the mortgage to the brother butler;
and the insurance of his life, and the charges for his children
at school, and the value of the meat and drink which his own
family—and for a time that of Colonel Crawley too—con-
sumed; and though the poor wretch was utterly ruined by
the transaction, his children being flung on the streets, and
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 23

himself driven into the Fleet Prison, yet somebody must pay
even for gentlemen who live for nothing a year,—and xo it
was this unlucky Raggles was made the representative of
Colonel Crawley’s defective capital.

I wonder how many families are driven to roguery and to
ruin by great practitioners in Crawley’s way?—how many
great noblemen rob their petty tradesmen, condescend to
swindle their poor retainers out of wretched little sums, and
cheat for a few shillings? When we read that a noble noble-
man has left for the Continent, or that another noble noble-
man has an execution in his house,—and that one or other
owe six or seven millions, the defeat seems glorious even, and
we respect the victim in the vastness of his ruin. But who
pities a poor barber who can’t get his money for powdering
the footmen’s heads; or a poor carpenter who has ruined
himself by fixing up ornaments and pavilions for my lady’s
déjeuné; or the poor devil of a tailor whom the steward pa-
tronizes, and who has pledged all he is worth, and more, tg
get the liveries ready, which my lord has done him the hono1
to bespeak? When the great house tumbles down these mis:
erable wretches fall under it unnoticed: as they say in the
old legends, before a man goes to the Devil himself, he sends
plenty of other souls thither.

Rawdon and his wife generously gave their patronage to all
such of Miss Crawley’s tradesmen and purveyors as chose ta
serve them. Some were willing enough, especially the poo1
ones. It was wonderful to see the pertinacity with which
the washerwoman from Tooting brought the cart every Satur-
day, and her bills week after week. Mr. Raggles himself had
to supply the green-groceries. The bill for servants’ porter
at the Fortune of War public-house is a curiosity in the chron-
icles of beer. Every servant also was owed the greater part of
his wages, and thus kept up perforce an interest in the house.
Nobody in fact was paid. Not the blacksmith who opened
the lock; nor the glazier who mended the pane; nor the
jobber who let the carriage; nor the groom who drove it;
nor the butcher who provided the leg of mutton; nor the
coals which roasted it; nor the cook who basted it; nor the
servants who eat it: and this I am given to understand is
not unfrequently the way in which people live elegantly on
nothing a year.

In a little town such things cannot be done without remark.
We know there the quantity of milk our neighbor takes, and

 
24 VANITY | FAIR.

espy the joint or the fowls which are going in for his dinner.
So probably, 200 and 202 in Curzon Street might know what
was going on in the house between them, the servants com-
municating through the area-railings; but Crawley and his
wife and his friends did not know 200 and 202. When you
came to 201 there was a hearty welcome, a kind smile, a good
dinner, and a jolly shake of the hand from the host and host-
ess there, just for all the world as if they had been undisputed
masters of three or four thousand a year,—and so they were,
not in money, but in produce and labor,—if they did not pay
for the mutton, they had it: if they did not give bullion in
exchange for their wine, how should we know? Never was
better claret at any man’s table than at honest Rawdon’s;
dinners more gay and neatly served. His drawing-rooms were
the prettiest little modest salons conceivable: they were dec-
orated with the greatest taste, and a thousand knick-knacks
from Paris, by Rebecca; and when she sat at her piano trill-
ing songs with a lightsome heart, the stranger voted himself
in a little paradise of domestic comfort, and agreed that, if
the husband was rather stupid, the wife was charming, and
the dinners the pleasantest in the world.

__ Rebecca’s wit, cleverness, and flippancy made her speedily
the vogue in London among a certain class. You saw demure
chariots at her door, out of which stepped very great people.
You beheld her carriage in the park, surrounded by dandies
of note. The little box in the third tier of the opera was
crowded with heads constantly changing; but it must be con-
fessed that the ladies held aloof from her, and that their doors
were shut to our little adventurer.

With regard to the world of female fashion and its customs,
the present writer of course can only speak at second hand.
A man can no more penetrate or understand those mysteries
than he can know what the ladies talk about when they go up
stairs after dinner. It is only by inquiry and perseverance,
that one sometimes gets hints of those secrets; and by a
similar diligence every person who treads the Pall Mall pave-
ment, and frequents the clubs of this metropolis, knows, either
through his own experience or through some acquaintance
with whom he plays at billiards or shares the joint, something
about the genteel world of London, and how, as there are
men (such as Rawdon Crawley, whose position we mentioned
before) who cut a good figure to the eyes of the ignorant
world and to the apprentices in the Park, who behold them
consorting with the most notorious dandies there, so there
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO, 25

are ladies, who may be called men’s women, being welcomed
entirely by all the gentlemen, and cut or slighted by all their
wives. Mrs. Firebrace is of this sort; the lady with the beauti-
ful fair ringlets whom you see every day in Hyde Park, sur-
rounded by the greatest and most famous dandies of this em-
pire. Mrs. Rockwood is another, whose parties are announced
laboriously in the fashionable newspapers, and with whom
you see that all sorts of ambassadors and great noblemen dine;
and many more might be mentioned had they to do with the
history at present in hand. But while simple folks who are
out of the world, or country people with a taste for the genteel,
behold these ladies in their seeming glory in public places, or
envy them from afar off, persons who are better instructed
could inform them that these envied ladies have no more
chance of establishing themselves in “Society,” than the be-
nighted squire’s wife in Somersetshire, who reads of their
doings in the Morning Post. Men living about London are
aware of these awful truths. You hear how pitilessly many
ladies of seeming rank and wealth are excluded from this
“Society.” The frantic efforts which they make to enter this
circle, the meannesses to which they submit, the insults which
they undergo, are matters of wonder to those who take hu-
man or woman kind for a study; and the pursuit of fashion
under difficulties would be a fine theme for any very great
person who had the wit, the leisure, and the knowledge of the
English language necessary for the compiling of such a his-
tory.

Now the few female acquaintances whom Mrs. Crawley had
known abroad not only declined to visit her when she came
to this side of the Channel, but cut her severely when they
met in public places. It was curious to see how the great
ladies forgot her, and no doubt not altogether a pleasant study
to Rebecca. When Lady Bareacres met her in the waiting-
room at the opera, she gathered her daughters about her as if
they would be contaminated by a touch of Becky, and, re-
treating a step or two, placed herself in front of them, and
stared at her little enemy. To stare Becky out of countenance
required a severer glance than even the frigid old Bareacres
could shoot out of her dismal eyes. When Lady de la Mole,
who had ridden a score of times by Becky’s side at Brussels,
met Mrs. Crawley’s open carriage in Hyde Park, her Lady-
ship was quite blind, and could not in the least recognize
her former friend, Even Mrs. Blenkinsop, the banker’s wife,
26 VANITY FAIR,

eut her at church. Becky went regularly to church now;
it was edifying to see her enter there with Rawdon by her
side, carrying a couple of large gilt prayer-books, and after-
wards going through the ceremony with the gravest resigna-
tion.

Rawdon at first felt very acutely the slights which were
passed upon his wife, and was inclined to be gloomy and sav-
age. He talked of calling out the husbands or brothers of
every one of the insolent women who did not pay a proper
respect to his wife; and it was only by the strongest com-
mands and entreaties on her part that he was brought into
keeping a decent behavior. “You can’t shoot me into so-
ciety,” she said, good-naturedly. “Remember, my dear, that
I was but a governess, and you, you poor, silly old man, have
the worst reputation for debt, and dice, and all sorts of wicked-
ness. We shall get quite as many friends as we want by and
by, and in the mean while you must be a good boy, and obey
your schoolmistress in everything she tells you to do. When
we heard that your aunt had left almost everything to Pitt
and his wife, do you remember what a rage you were in? You
would have told all Paris, if I had not made you keep your
temper, and where would you have been now?—in prison at
Ste. Pélagie for debt, and not established in London in a
handsome house, with every comfort about you,—you were in
such a fury you were ready to murder your brother, you
wicked Cain you, and what good would have come of remain-
ing angry? All the rage in the world won’t get us your aunt’s
money; and it is much better that we should be friends with
your brother’s family than enemies, as those foolish Butes
are. When your father dies, Queen’s Crawley will be a pleas-
ant house for you and me to pass the winter in. If we are
ruined, you can carve and take charge of the stable, and I can
be a governess to Lady Jane’s children. Ruined? fiddlede-
dee! I will get you a good place before that; or Pitt and his
little boy will die, and we will be Sir Rawdon and my lady.
While there is life, there is hope, my dear, and I intend to
make a man of you yet. Who sold your horses for you?
Who paid your debts for you?” Rawdon was obliged to con-
fess that he owed all these benefits to his wife, and to trust
himself to her guidance for the future.

Indeed, when Miss Crawley quitted the world, and that
money for which all her relatives had been fighting so eagerly
yas finally left to Pitt, Bute Crawley, who found that only
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 27

five thousand pounds had been left to him instead of the
twenty upon which he calculated, was in such a fury at his
disappointment, that he vented it in savage abuse upon his
nephew; and the quarrel always rankling between them
ended in an utter breach of intercourse. Rawdon Crawley’s
conduct, on the other hand, who got but a hundred pounds,
was such as to astonish his brother and delight his sister-in-
law, who was disposed to look kindly upon all the members of
her husband’s family. He wrote to his brother a very frank,
manly, good-humored letter from Paris. He was aware, he
said, that by his own marriage he had forfeited his aunt’s
favor; and though he did not disguise his disappointment
that she should have been so entirely relentless towards him,
he was glad that the money was still kept in their branch of
the family, and heartily congratulated his brother on his good
fortune. He sent his affectionate remembrances to his sister,
and hoped to have her good-will for Mrs. Rawdon; and the
letter concluded with a postscript to Pitt in the latter lady’s
own handwriting. She, too, begged to join in her husband’s
congratulations. She should ever remember Mr. Crawley’s
kindness to her in early days when she was a friendless or-
phan, the instructress of his little sisters, in whose welfare
she still took the tenderest interest. She wished him every
happiness in his married life, and, asking his permission to
offer her remembrances to Lady Jane (of whose goodness all
the world informed her), she hoped that one day she might
be allowed to present her little boy to his uncle and aunt,
and begged to bespeak for him their good-will and protection.

Pitt Crawley received this communication very graciously,
—more graciously than Miss Crawley had received some of
Rebecca’s previous compositions in Rawdon’s handwriting;
and as for Lady Jane, she was so charmed with the letter, that
she expected her husband would instantly divide her aunt’s
legacy into two equal portions, and send off one-half to his
brother at Paris.

To her Ladyship’s surprise, however, Pitt declined to ac-
commodate his brother with a check for thirty thousand
pounds. But he made Rawdon a handsome offer of his hand
whenever the latter should come to England and choose to
take it; and, thanking Mrs. Crawley for her good opinion of
himself and Lady Jane, he graciously pronounced his willing-
ness to take any opportunity to serve her little boy.

Thus an almost reconciliation was brought about between
28 VANITY FAIR.

the brothers. When Rebecca came to town Pitt and his wife
were not in London. Many a time she drove by the old door
in Park Lane to see whether they had taken possession of
Miss Crawley’s house there. But the new family did not make
its appearance; it was only through Raggles that she heard
of their movements,—how Miss Crawley’s domestics had been
dismissed with decent gratuities, and how Mr. Pitt had only
once made his appearance in London, when he stopped for
a few days at the house, did business with his lawyers there,
and sold off all Miss Crawley’s French novels to a bookseller
out of Bond Street. Becky had reasons of her own which
caused her to long for the arrival of her new relation. “When
Lady Jane comes,” thought she, “she shall be my sponsor in
London society; and as for the women! bah! the women will
ask me when they find the men want to see me.

An article as necessary to a lady in this position as her
brougham or -her bouquet is her companion. I have always
admired the way in which the tender creatures, who cannot
exist without sympathy, hire an exceedingly plain friend of
their own sex from whom they are almost inseparable. The
sight of that inevitable woman in her faded gown seated be-
hind her dear friend in the opera-box, or occupying the back
seat of the barouche, is always a wholesome and moral one
to me, as jolly a reminder as that of the Death’s-head which
figured in the repasts of Egyptian bon-vivants, a strange,
sardonic memorial of Vanity Fair. What?—even battered,
brazen, beautiful, conscienceless, heartless Mrs. Firebrace,
whose father died of her shame; even lovely, daring Mrs.
Mantrap, who will ride at any fence which any man in Eng-
land will take, and who drives her grays in the Park, while
her mother keeps a huckster’s stall in Bath still;—even those
who are so bold, one might fancy they could face anything,
dare not face the world without a female friend. They must
have somebody to cling to, the affectionate creatures! And
you will hardly see them in any public place without a shabby
companion in a dyed silk, sitting somewhere in the shade close
behind them.

“Rawdon,” said Becky, very late one night, as a party of
gentlemen were seated round her crackling drawing-room fire
(for the men came to her house to finish the night; and she
had ice and coffee for them, the best in London): “I must
have a sheep-dog.”
A NOVEL WITHOUT 1A, HERO. 29

“A what?” said Rawdon, looking up from an écarté table.

“A sheep-dog!” said young Lord Southdown. “My dear
Mrs. Crawley, what a fancy! Why not have a Danish dog?
I know of one as big as a camel-leopard, by Jove. It would
almost pull your brougham. Or a Persian greyhound, eh?
(I propose, if you please); or a little pug that would go into
one of Lord Steyne’s snuff-boxes? There’s a man at Bays-
water got one with such a nose that you might,—I mark the
king and play,—that you might hang your hat on it.”

“I mark the trick,” Rawdon gravely said. He attended
to his game commonly, and didn’t much meddle with the con-
versation except when it was about horses and betting.

“What can you want with a shepherd’s dog?” the lively
little Southdown continued.

“I mean a moral shepherd’s dog,” said Becky, laughing,
and looking up at Lord Steyne.

“What the devil’s that?” said his Lordship.

“A dog to keep the wolves off me,” Rebecca continued.
“A companion.”

“Dear little innocent lamb, you want one,” said the Marquis;
and his jaw thrust out, and he began to grin hideously, his
little eyes leering towards Rebecca.

The great Lord of Steyne was standing by the fire sipping
coffee. The fire crackled and blazed pleasantly. There
was a score of candles sparkling round the mantel-piece, in
all sorts of quaint sconces, of gilt and bronze and porcelain.
They lighted up Rebecea’s figure to admiration, as she sat
on a sofa covered with a pattern of gaudy flowers. She was
in a pink dress, that looked as fresh as a rose; her dazzling
white arms and shoulders were half covered with a thin hazy
scarf through which they sparkled; her hair hung in curls
round her neck; one of her little feet peeped out from the
fresh crisp folds of the silk,—the prettiest little foot in the
prettiest little sandal in the finest silk stocking in the world.

The candles lighted up Lord Steyne’s shining bald head,
which was fringed with red hair. He had thick bushy eye-
brows, with little twinkling bloodshot eyes, surrounded by a
thousand wrinkles. His jaw was underhung, and when he
laughed two white buck-teeth protruded themselves and glis-
tened savagely in the midst of the grin. He had been dining
with royal personages, and wore his garter and ribbon. A
short man was his Lordship, broad-chested, and bow-legged,
30 VANITY FAIR.

but proud of the fineness of his foot and ankle, and always
caressing his garter-knee.

“And so the Shepherd is not enough,” said he, “to defend
his lambkin?”

“The Shepherd is too fond of playing at cards and going
to his clubs,” answered Becky, laughing.

“?Gad, what a debauched Corydon!” said my Lord,—“what
a mouth for a pipe!”

“I take your three to two,” here said Rawdon at the card-
table.

“Hark at Melibaeus,” snarled the noble Marquis; “he’s pas-
torally occupied too; he’s shearing a Southdown. What an
innocent mutton, hey? Damme, what a snowy fleece!”

Rebecea’s eyes shot out gleams of scornful humor. “My
Lord,” she said, “you are a knight of the Order.” He had
the collar round his neck, indeed,—a gift of the restored
Princes of Spain.

Lord Steyne in early life had been notorious for-his daring
and his success at play. He had sat up two days and two
nights with Mr. Fox at hazard. He had won money of the
most august personages of the realm: he had won his mar-
quisate, it was said, at the gaming-table; but he did not like
an allusion to those bygone fredaines. Rebecca saw the scowl
gathering over his heavy brow.

She rose up from her sofa, and went and took his coffee-
cup out of his hand with a little courtesy. “Yes,” she said,
“T must get a watch-dog. But he won’t bark at you.” And,
going into the other drawing-room, she sat down to the piano,
and began to sing little French songs in such a charming,
thrilling voice, that the mollified nobleman speedily followed
her into that chamber, and might be seen nodding his head
and bowing time over her.

Rawdon and his friend meanwhile played écarté until they
had enough. The Colonel won; but, say that he won ever so
much and often, nights like these, which occurred many
times in the week,—his wife having all the talk and all the
admiration, and he sitting silent without the circle, not com-
prehending a word of the jokes, the allusions, the mystical
language within,—must have been rather wearisome to the
ex-dragoon.

“How is Mrs. Crawley’s husband,” Lord Steyne used to
say to him by way of a good day when they met; and indeed
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO, 31

that was now his avocation in life. He was Colonel Crawley
no more. He was Mrs. Crawley’s husband.

About the little Rawdon, if nothing has been said all this
while, it is because he is hidden up stairs in a garret some-
where, or has crawled below into the kitchen for companion-
ship. His mother scarcely ever took notice of him. He passed
the days with his French donne as long as that domestic re-
mained in Mr. Crawley’s family; and when the Frenchwoman
went away, the little fellow, howling in the loneliness of the
night, had compassion taken on him by a housemaid, who
took him out of his solitary nursery into her bed in the garret
hard by and comforted him.

Rebecca, my Lord Steyne, and one or two more, were in
the drawing-room taking tea after the opera, when this shout-
ing was heard overhead. “It’s my cherub crying for his nurse,”
she said. She did not offer to move to go and see the child.
“Don’t agitate your feelings by going to look for him,” said
Lord Steyne, sardonically. “Bah!” replied the other, with
a sort of blush, “he’ll cry himself to sleep”; and they fell to
talking about the opera.

Rawdon had stolen off, though, to look after his son and
heir; and came back to the company when he found that
honest Dolly was consoling the child. The Colonel’s dressing-
room was in those upper regions. He used to see the boy
there in private. They had interviews together every morn-
ing when he shaved; Rawdon minor sitting on a box by his
father’s side, and watching the operation with never-ceasing
pleasure. He and the sire were great friends. The father
would bring him sweetmeats from the dessert, and hide them
in a certain old epaulet-box, where the child went to seek
them, and laughed with joy on discovering the treasure;
laughed, but not too loud, for mamma was below asleep, and
must not be disturbed. She did not go to rest till very late,
and seldom rose till after noon.

Rawdon bought the boy plenty of picture-books, and
crammed his nursery with toys. Its walls were covered with
pictures pasted by the father’s own hand, and purchased by
him for ready money. When he was off duty with Mrs. Raw-
don in the Park, he would sit up here, passing hours with
the boy; who rode on his chest, who pulled his great mus-
tachios as if they were driving-reins, and spent days with him
in indefatigable gambols. The room was a low room, and
32 VANITY IAIR.

once, when the child was not five years old, his father, who
was tossing him wildly up in his arms, hit the poor little chap’s
skull so violently against the ceiling that he almost dropped
the child so terrified was he at the disaster.

Rawdon minor had made up his face for a tremendous howl,
—the severity of the blow indeed authorized that indulgence;
but just as he was going to begin, the father interposed.

“For God’s sake, Rawdy, don’t wake mamma,” he cried.
And the child, looking in a very hard and piteous way at his
father, bit his lips, clenched his hands, and didn’t cry a bit.
Rawdon told that story at the clubs, at the mess, to every-
body in town. “By Gad, sir,” he explained to the public in
general, “what a good plucked one that boy of mine is,—
what a trump he is! I half sent his head through the ceiling,
by Gad, and he would’nt cry for fear of disturbing his
mother.”

Sometimes—once or twice in a week—that lady visited the
upper regions in which the child lived. She came like a
vivified figure out of the Magasin des Modes, blandly smiling
in the most beautiful new clothes and little gloves and boots.
Wonderful scarfs, laces, and jewels glittered about her. She
had always a new bonnet on, and flowers bloomed perpetually
in it; or else magnificent curling ostrich feathers, soft and
snowy as Camellias. She nodded twice or thrice patronizingly
to the little boy, who looked up from his dinner or from the
pictures of soldiers he was painting. When she left the room,
an odor of rose, or some other magical fragrance, lingered
about the nursery. She was an unearthly being in his eyes,
superior to his father,—to all the world; to be worshiped and
admired at a distance. To drive with that lady in the carriage
was an awful ride; he sat up in the back seat, and did not
dare to speak; he gazed with all his eyes at the beautifully
dressed princess opposite to him. Gentlemen on splendid
es horses came up, and smiled and talked with her.

ow her eyes beamed upon all of them! Her hand used to
quiver and wave gracefully as they passed. When he went
out with her, he had his new red dress on. His old brown
holland was good enough when he stayed at home. Sometimes,
when she was away, and Dolly, his maid, was making his bed,
he came into his mother’s room. It was as the abode of a
fairy to him,—a mystic chamber of splendor and delights.
There in the wardrobe hung those wonderful robes, pink and
blue, and many-tinted. There was the jewel-case, silver-
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO, 33

clasped ; and the wondrous bronze hand on the dressing-table,
glistening all over with a hundred rings. There was the che-
val-glass, that miracle of art, in which he could just see his
own wondering head, and the reflection of Dolly (queerly dis-
torted, and as if up in the ceiling) plumping and patting the
pillows of the bed. 0, thou poor, lonely, little benighted
boy! Mother is the name for God in the lips and hearts of lit-
tle children; and here was one who was worshiping a stone!

Now Rawdon Crawley, rascal as the Colonel was, had cer-
tain manly tendencies of affection in his heart, and could
love a child and a woman still. For Rawdon minor he had a
great secret tenderness then, which did not escape Rebecca,
though she did not talk about it to her husband. It did not
annoy her: she was too good-natured. It only increased her
scorn for him. He felt somehow ashamed of this paternal
softness, and hid it from his wife,—only indulging in it when
alone with the boy.

He used to take him out of mornings, when they would go
to the stables together and to the Park. Little Lord South-
down, the best-natured of men, who would make you a present
of the hat from his head, and whose main occupation in life
was to buy knick-knacks that he might give them away after-
wards, bought the little chap a pony not much bigger than a
large rat, the donor said, and on this little black Shetland
pygmy young Rawdon’s great father was pleased to mount the
boy, and to walk by his side in the Park. It pleased him to
see his old quarters, and his old fellow-guardsmen at Knights-
bridge: he had begun to think of his bachelorhood with some-
thing like regret. The old troopers were glad to recognize
their ancient officer, and dandle the little Colonel. Colonel
Crawley found dining at mess and with his brother-officers
very pleasant. “Hang it, I ain’t clever enough for her,—I
know it. She won’t miss me,” he used to say: and he was
right: his wife did not miss him.

Rebecca was fond of her husband. She was always per-
fectly good-humored and kind to him. She did not even show
her scorn much for him; perhaps she liked him the better
for being a fool. He was her upper servant and maitre d’hétel,
He went on her errands; obeyed her orders without question;
drove in the carriage in the ring with her without repining;
took her to the opera-box; solaced himself at his club during
the performance, and came punctually back to fetch her when
due. He would have liked her to be a little fonder of the boy:

Vol IL.—3
34 VANITY FAIR.

but even to that he reconciled himself. “Hang it, you know
she’s so clever,” he said, “and I’m not literary and that, you
know.” For, as we have said before, it requires no great wis-
dom to be able to win at cards and billiards, and Rawdon made
no pretensions to any other sort of skill.

When the companion came, his domestic duties became very
light. His wife encouraged him to dine abroad: she would
let him off duty at the opera. “Don’t stay and stupefy your-
self at home to-night, my dear,” she would say. “Some men
are coming who will only bore you. I would not ask them, but
you know it’s for your good, and now I have a sheep-dog, I
need not be afraid to be alone.”

“A sheep-dog—a companion! Becky Sharp with a compan-
ion! Isn’t it good fun?” thought Mrs. Crawley to herself.
The notion tickled hugely her sense of humor.

One Sunday morning, as Rawdon Crawley, his little son,
and the pony were taking their accustomed walk in the Park,
they passed by an old acquaintance of the Colonel’s, Corporal
Clink, of the regiment, who was in conversation with a friend,
an old gentleman, who held a boy in his arms about the age
of little Rawdon. This other youngster had seized hold of the
Waterloo medal which the Corporal wore, and was examining
it with delight.

“Good morning, your honor,” said Clink, in reply to the
“How do, Clink?” of the Colonel. “This ’ere young gentle-
man is about the little Colonel’s age, sir,” continued the Cor-
poral.

“His father was a Waterloo man, too,” said the old gentle-
man, who carried the boy. ‘“Wasn’t he, Georgy?”

“Yes,” said Georgy. He and the little chap on the pony
were looking at each other with all their might,—solemnly
scanning each other as children do.

“In a line regiment,” Clink said, with a patronizing air.

“He was a Captain in the —th regiment,” said the old gen-
tleman, rather pompously. “Captain George Osborne, sir,
—perhaps you knew him. He died the death of a hero, sir,
fighting against the Corsican tyrant.”

Colonel Crawley blushed quite red. “I knew him very well,
wee he said, “and his wife, his dear little wife, sir—how is
she?”

“She is my daughter, sir,” said the old gentleman, putting
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO, 33

down the boy, and taking out a.card with great solemnity,
which he handed to the Colonel. On it was written— :

“Mr. Sedley, Sole Agent for the Black Diamond and Anti-
Cinder Coal Association, Bunker’s Wharf, Thames Street, and
Anna-Maria Cottages, Fulham Road West.”

Little Georgy went up and looked at the Shetland pony.

“Should you like to have a ride?” said Rawdon minor from
the saddle.

“Yes,” said Georgy. The Colonel, who had been looking
at him with some interest, took up the child and put him on
the pony behind Rawdon minor.

“Take hold of him, Georgy,” he said,—“take my little boy
round the waist,—his name is Rawdon.” And both the chil-
dren began to laugh.

“You won’t see a prettier pair, I think, this summer’s day,
sir,’ said the good-natured Corporal; and the Colonel, the
Corporal, and old Mr. Sedley with his umbrella, walked by
the side of the children.

CHAPTER IV.

A FAMILY IN A VERY SMALL WAY.

We must suppose little George Osborne has ridden from
Knightsbridge towards Fulham, and will stop and make in-
quiries at that village regarding some friends whom we have
left there. How is Mrs. Amelia after the storm of Waterloo?
Is she living and thriving? What has come of Major Dobbin,
whose cab was always hankering about her premises? and are
there any news of the Collector of Boggley Wollah? The facts
concerning the latter are briefly these.

Our worthy fat friend Joseph Sedley returned to India not
long after his escape from Brussels. Either his furlough was
up, or he dreaded to meet any witnesses of his Waterloo flight.
However it might be, he went back to his duties in Bengal,
very soon after Napoleon had taken up his residence at St.
Helena, where Jos saw the ex-emperor. To hear Mr. Sedley
talk on board ship you would have supposed that it was not
the first time he and the Corsican had met, and that the
civilian had bearded the French General at Mount St. John.
He ooo a thousand anecdotes about the famous battles; he
ae VANITY FAIR,

knew the position of every regiment, and the loss which each
had incurred. He did not deny that he had been concerned
in those victories,—that he had been with the army, and car-
ried despatches for the Duke of Wellington. And he described
what the Duke did and said on every conceivable moment of
the day of Waterloo, with such an accurate knowledge of his
Grace’s sentiments and proceedings, that it was clear he must
have been by the conqueror’s side throughout the day; though,
as a non-combatant, his name was not mentioned in the pub-
lic documents relative to the battle. Perhaps he actually
worked himself up to believe that he had been engaged with
the army; certain it is that he made a prodigious sensation
for some tithe 'at Calcutta, and was called Waterloo Sedley dur-
ing the whole of his subsequent stay in Bengal.

The bills which Jos had given for the purchase of those
unlucky horses were paid without question by him and his
agents. He never was heard to allude to the bargain, and
nobody knows for a certainty what became of the horses, or
how he got rid of them, or of Isidor, his Belgian servant, who
sold a gray horse, very like the one which Jos rode, at Valen-
ciennes some time during the autumn of 1815.

Jos’s London agents had orders to pay one hundred and
twenty pounds yearly to his parents at Fulham. It was the
chief support of the old couple; for Mr. Sedley’s speculations
in life subsequent to his bankruptcy did not by any means
retrieve the broken old gentleman’s fortune. He tried to be
a wine-merchant, a coal-merchant, a commission-lottery agent,
etc., etc. He sent round prospectuses to his friends whenever
he took a new trade, and ordered a new brass plate for the
door, and talked pompously about making his fortune still.
But Fortune never came back to the feeble and stricken old
man. One by one his friends dropped off, and were weary of
buying dear coals and bad wine from him; and there was only
his wife in all the world who fancied, when he tottered off to
the city of a morning, that he was still doing any business
there. At evening he crawled slowly back; and he used to
go of nights to a little club at a tavern, where he disposed of
the finances of the nation. It was wonderful to hear him talk
about millions, and agios, and discounts, and what Rothschild
was doing, and Baring Brothers. He talked of such vast sums
that the gentlemen of the club (the apothecary, the under-
taker, the great carpenter and builder, the parish clerk, who
was allowed to come stealthily, and Mr. Clapp, our old ac-
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO, 87

quaintance) respected the old gentleman. “I was better off
once, sir,” he did not fail to tell everybody who “used the
toom.” “My son, sir, is at this minute chief magistrate of
Ramgunge in the Presidency of Bengal, and touching his four
thousand rupees per mensem. My daughter might be a Col-
onel’s lady if she liked. I might draw upon my son, the first
magistrate, sir, for two thousand pound to-morrow, and Alex-
ander would cash my bill, down, sir, Gown on the counter,
sir. But the Sedleys were always a proud family.” You and
I, my dear reader, may drop into this condition one day: for
have not many of our friends attained it? Our luck may
fail: our powers forsake us: our place on the boards be taken
by better and younger mimes,—the chance of life roll away
and leave us shattered and stranded. Then men will walk
across the road when they meet you,—or, worse still, hold
you out a couple of fingers and patronize you in a pitying
way,—then you will know, as soon as your back is turned,
that your friend begins with a “Poor devil, what imprudences
he has committed, what chances that chap has thrown away!”
Well, well,—a carriage and three thousand a year is not the
summit of the reward nor the end of God’s judgment of men.
If quacks prosper as often as they go to the wall,—if zanies
succeed and knaves arrive at fortune, and, vice versa, sharing
ill luck and prosperity for all the world like the ablest and
most honest amongst us,—I say, brother, the gifts and pleas-
ures of Vanity Fair cannot be held of any great account, and
that it is probable .... but we are wandering out of the
domain of the story.

Had Mrs. Sedley been a woman of energy, she would have
exerted it after her husband’s ruin, and, occupying a large
house, would have taken in boarders. The broken Sedley
would have acted well as the boarding-house landlady’s hus-
band; the Munoz of private life; the titular lord and master:
the carver, house-steward, and humble husband of the occu-
pier of the dingy throne. I have seen men of good brains and
breeding, and of good hopes and vigor once, who feasted
squires and kept hunters in their youth, meekly cutting up
legs of mutton for rancorous old harridans, and pretending to
preside over their dreary tables,—but Mrs. Sedley, we say,
had not spirit enough to bustle about for “a few select in-
mates to join a cheerful musical family,” such as one reads of
in the Times. She was content to lie on the shore where for-
38 VANITY FAIR.

tune had stranded her,—and you could see that the career of
this old couple was over.

I don’t think they were unhappy. Perhaps they were a
little prouder in their downfall than in their prosperity. Mrs.
Sedley was always a great person for her landlady, Mrs. Clapp,
when she descended and passed many hours with her in the
basement or ornamented kitchen. The Irish maid Betty
Flanagan’s bonnets and ribbons, her sauciness, her idleness,
her reckless prodigality of kitchen candles, her consumption of
tea and sugar, and so forth, occupied and amused the old
lady almost as much as the doings of her former household,
when she had Sambo and the coachman, and a groom, and a
footboy, and a housekeeper with a regiment of female
domestics,—her former household, about which the good lady
talked a hundred times a day. And besides Betty Flanagan,
Mrs. Sedley had all the maids-of-all-work in the street to su-
perintend. She kiew how each tenant of the cottages paid
or owed his little rent. She stepped aside when Mrs. Rouge-
mont the actress passed with her dubious family. She flung
up her head when Mrs. Pestler, the apothecary’s lady, drove
by in her husband’s professional one-horse chaise. She had
colloquies with the green-grocer about the penn’orth of tur-
nips which Mr. Sedley loved; she kept an eye upon the milk-
man, and the baker’s boy; and made visitations to the butcher,
who sold hundreds of oxen very likely with less ado than
was made about Mrs. Sedley’s loin of mutton; and she counted
the potatoes under the joint on Sundays, on which days,
dressed in her best, she went to church twice and read Blair’s
Sermons in the evening.

On that day, for “business” prevented him on week-days
from taking such a pleasure, it was old Sedley’s delight to take
out his little grandson Georgy to the neighboring Parks or
Kensington Gardens, to see the soldiers or to feed the ducks.
Georgy loved the red-coats, and his grandpapa told him how
his father had been a famous soldier, and introduced him to
many sergeants and others with Waterloo medals on their
breasts, to whom the old grandfather pompously presented
the child as the son of Captain Osborne of the —th, who died
gloriously on the glorious eighteenth. He has been known
to, treat some of these non-commissioned gentlemen to a glass
of porter, and, indeed, in their first Sunday walks, was dis-
posed to spoil little Georgy, sadly gorging the boy with apples
and parliament, to the detriment of his health; until Amelia
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 39

declared that George should never go out with his grandpapa,
unless the latter promised solemnly, and on his honor, not to
give the child any cakes, lollipops, or stall produce whatever.

Between Mrs. Sedley and her daughter there was a sort of
coolness about this boy, and a secret jealousy; for one even-
ing, in George’s very early days, Amelia, who had been seated
at work in their little parlor, scarcely remarking that the old
lady had quitted the room, ran up stairs instinctively to the
nursery, at the cries of the child, who had been asleep until
that moment,—and there found Mrs. Sedley in the act of
surreptitiously administering Daffy’s Elixir to the infant.
Amelia, the gentlest and sweetest of every-day mortals, when
she found this meddling with her maternal authority, thrilled:
and trembled all over with anger. Her cheeks, ordinarily
pale, now flushed up, until they were as red as they used to be
when she was a child of twelve years old. She seized the
baby out of her mother’s arms, and then grasped at the bottle,
leaving the old lady gaping at her, furious, and holding the
guilty teaspoon.

Amelia flung the bottle crashing into the fireplace. “I
will not have baby poisoned, mamma,” cried Emmy, rocking
the infant about violently with both her arms round him,
and turning with flashing eyes at her mother.

“Poisoned, Amelia!” said the old lady; “this language to
me?”

“He shall not have any medicine but that which Mr. Pestler
sends for him. He told me that Daffy’s Elixir was poison.”

“Very good; you think I’m a murderess, then,” replied
Mrs. Sedley. “This is the language you use to your mother.
I have met with misfortunes; I have sunk low in life; I
have kept my carriage, and now walk on foot; but I did not
know I was a murderess before, and thank you for the news.”

“Mamma,” said the poor girl, who was always ready for
tears—“you shouldn’t be hard upon me. I—I didn’t mean—
I mean, I did not wish to say you would do any wrong to this
dear child: only. ee

“O no, my love,—only that I was a murderess; in which
case, I had better go to the Old Bailey. Though I didn’t
poison you, when you were a child; but gave you the best
of education, and the most expensive masters money could
procure. Yes; I’ve nursed five children, and buried three:
and the one I loved the best of all, and tended through croup,
and teething, and measles, and whooping-cough, and brought

 
40 VANITY FAIR.

up with foreign masters, regardless of expense, and with ac-
complishments at Minerva House,—which I never had when
I was a girl,—when I was too, glad to honor my father and
mother, that I might live long in the land, and to be useful,
and not to mope all day in my room and act the fine lady,—
says I’m a murderess. Ah, Mrs. Osborne! may you never
nourish a viper in your bosom, that’s my prayer.”

“Mamma, mamma!” cried the bewildered girl; and the
child in her arms set up a frantic chorus of shouts.

“A murderess, indeed! Go down on your knees and pray
to God to cleanse your wicked, ungrateful heart, Amelia, and
may He forgive you as I do”; and Mrs. Sedley tossed out of
the room, hissing out the word poison, once more, and so end-
ing her charitable benediction.

Till the termination of her natural life, this breach between
Mrs. Sedley and her daughter was never thoroughly mended.
The quarrel gave the elder lady numberless advantages which
she did not fail to turn to account with female ingenuity and
perseverance. For instance, she scarcely spoke to Amelia for
many weeks afterwards. She warned the domestics not to
touch the child, as Mrs. Osborne might be offended. She
asked her daughter to see and satisfy herself that there was
no poison prepared in the little daily messes that were con-
cocted for Georgy. When neighbors asked after the boy’s
health, she referred them pointedly to Mrs. Osborne. She
never ventured to ask whether the baby was well or not. She
would not touch the child although he was her grandson,
and own precious darling, for she was not used to children,
and might kill it. And whenever Mr. Pestler came upon his
healing inquisition, she received the Doctor with such a sar-
castic and scornful demeanor, as made the surgeon declare
that not Lady Thistlewood herself, whom he had the honor
of attending professionally, could give herself greater airs
than old Mrs. Sedley, from whom he never took a fee. And
very likely Emmy was jealous too, upon her own part, as what
mother is not, of those who would manage her children for
her, or become candidates for the first place in their affections?
It is certain that when anybody nursed the child, she was
uneasy, and that she would no more allow Mrs. Clapp or
the domestic to dress or tend him, than she would have let
them wash her husband’s miniature which hung up over her
little bed:—the same little bed from which the poor girl had
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 44

gone to his; and to which she retired now for many long,
silent, tearful, but happy years.

In this room was all Amelia’s heart and treasure. Here it
was that she tended her boy, and watched him through the
many ills of childhood, with a constant passion of love. The
elder George returned in him somehow, only improved, and
as if come back from heaven. In a hundred little tones, looks,
and movements, the child was so like his father, that the
widow’s heart thrilled as she held him to it; and he would
often ask the cause of her tears. It was because of his like-
ness to his father, she did not scruple to tell him. She talked
constantly to him about this dead father, and spoke of her
love for George to the innocent and wondering child; much
more than she ever had done to George himself, or to any
confidante of her youth. To her parents she never talked
about this matter; shrinking from baring her heart to them.
Little George very likely could understand no better than
they; but into his ears she poured her senti-
mental secrets unreservedly, and into his only.
The very joy of this woman was a sort of grief, or so tender,
at least, that its expression was tears. Her sensibilities were
so weak and tremulous, that perhaps they ought not to be
talked about in a book. I was told by Dr. Pestler (now a most
flourishing lady’s physician, with a sumptuous dark green
carriage, a prospect of speedy knighthood, and a house in
Manchester Square), that her grief at weaning the child was
a sight that would have unmanned a Herod. He was very
soft-hearted many years ago, and his wife was mortally jealous
of Mrs. Amelia, then and long afterwards.

Perhaps the Doctor’s lady had good reason for her jealousy:
most women shared it, of those who formed the small circle
of Amelia’s acquaintance, and were quite angry at the en-
thusiasm with which the other sex regarded her. For almost
all men who came near her loved her; though no doubt they
would be at a loss to tell you why. She was not brilliant, nor
witty, nor wise overmuch, nor extraordinarily handsome. But
wherever she went she touched and charmed every one of the
male sex, as invariably as she awakened the scorn and in-
eredulity of her own sisterhood. I think it was her weakness
which was her principal charm:—a kind of sweet submission
and softness, which seemed to appeal to each man she met for
his sympathy and protection. We have seen how in the regi-
ment, though she spoke but to few of George’s comrades there,
42 VANITY FAIR.

all the swords of the young fellows at the mess-table would
have leapt from their scabbards to fight round her; and so it
was in the little narrow lodging-house and circle at Fulham,
she interested and pleased everybody. If she had been Mrs.
Mango herself, of the great house of Mango, Plantain, and Co.,
Crutched Friars, and the magnificent proprietress of the
Pineries, Fulham, who gave summer déjednés frequented by
Dukes and Earls, and drove about the parish with magnificent
yellow liveries and bay horses, such as the royal stables at
Kensington themselves could not turn out,—I say, had she
been Mrs. Mango herself, or her son’s wife, Lady Mary Mango
(daughter of the Earl of Castlemouldy, who condescended to
marry the head of the firm), the tradesmen of the neighbor-
hood could not pay her more honor than they invariably
showed to the gentle young widow, when she passed by their
doors, or made her humble purchases at their shops.

Thus it was not only Mr. Pestler, the medical man, but Mr.
Linton, the young assistant, who doctored the servant-maids
and small tradesmen, and might be seen any day reading the
Times in the surgery, who openly declared himself the slave
of Mrs. Osborne. He was a personable young gentleman, more
welcome at Mrs. Sedley’s lodgings than his principal; and
if anything went wrong with Georgy, he would drop in twice
or thrice in the day, to see the little chap, and without so
much as the thought of a fee. He would abstract lozenges,
tamarinds, and other produce from the surgery-drawers for
little Georgy’s benefit, and compounded draughts and mix-
tures for him of miraculous sweetness, so that it was quite a
pleasure to the child to be ailing. He and Pestler, his chief,
sat up two whole nights by the boy in that momentous and
awful week when Georgy had the measles; and when you
would have thought, from the mother’s terror, that there had
never been measles in the world before. Would they have
done as much for other people? Did they sit up for the folks
at the Pineries, when Ralph Plantagenet, and Gwendoline,
and Guinever Mango had the same juvenile complaint? Did
they sit up for little Mary Clapp, the landlord’s daughter,
who actually caught the disease of little Georgy? Truth com-
pels one to say, no. They slept quite undisturbed, at least
as far as she was concerned,—pronounced hers to be a slight
case, which would almost cure itself, sent her in a draught
or two, and threw in bark when the child rallied, with perfect
indifference, and just for form’s sake.
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 43

Again, there was the little French chevalier opposite, who
gave lessons in his native tongue at various schools in the
neighborhood, and who might be heard in his apartment of
nights playing tremulous old gavottes and minuets on a
wheezy old fiddle. Whenever this powdered and courteous
cld man, who never missed a Sunday at the convent chapel at
Hammersmith, and who was in all respects, thoughts, con-
duct, and bearing, utterly unlike the bearded savages of his
nation, who curse perfidious Albion, and scowl at you from
over their cigars, in the Quadrant arcades at the present day,
—whenever the old Chevalier de Talonrouge spoke of Mis-
tress Osborne, he would first finish his pinch of snuff, flick
away the remaining particles of dust with a graceful wave of
his hand, gather up his fingers again into a bunch, and, bring-
ing them up to his mouth, blow them open with a kiss, ex-
claiming, Ah! la divine creature! He vowed and protested
that when Amelia walked in the Brompton Lanes flowers
grew in profusion under her feet. He called little Georgy
Cupid, and asked him news of Venus, his mamma; and told
the astonished Betty Flanagan that she was one of the Graces,
and the favorite attendant of the Reine des Amours.

Instances might be multiplied of this easily gained and
unconscious popularity. Did not Mr. Binny, the mild and
genteel curate of the district chapel, which the family at-
tended, call assiduously upon the widow, dandle the little boy
on his knee, and offer to teach him Latin, to the anger of the
elderly virgin, his sister, who kept house for him? “There
is nothing in her, Beilby,’” the latter lady would say. “When
she comes to tea here she does not speak a word during the
whole evening. She is but a poor lackadaisical creature, and
it is my belief has no heart at all. It is only her pretty face
which all you gentlemen admire so. Miss Grits, who has five
thousand pounds, and expectations besides, has twice as much
character, and is a thousand times more agreeable to my
taste; and if she were good-looking I know that you would
think her perfection.”

Very likely Miss Binny was right to a great extent. It is
the pretty face which creates sympathy in the hearts of men,
those wicked rogues. A woman may possess the wisdom and
chastity of Minerva, and we give no heed to her, if she has a
plain face. What folly will not a pair of bright eyes make
pardonable? What dullness may not red lips and sweet ac-
cents render pleasant? And so, with their usual sense of jus-
44 VANITY FAIR.

tice, ladies argue that because a woman is handsome, there.
fore she is a fool. O ladies, ladies! there are some of you
who are neither handsome nor wise.

These are but trivial incidents to recount in the life of our
heroine. Her tale does not deal in wonders, as the gentle
reader has already no doubt perceived; and if a journal had
been kept of her proceedings during the seven years after
the birth of her son, there would be found few incidents more
remarkable in it than that of the measles, recorded in the fore-
going page. Yes, one day, and greatly to her wonder, the
Reverend Mr. Binny, just mentioned, asked her to change her
name of Osborne for his own; when, with deep blushes, and
tears in her eyes and voice, she thanked him for his regard for
her, expressed gratitude for his attentions to her and to her
poor little boy, but said that she never, never could think of
any but—but the husband whom she had lost.

On the twenty-fifth of April, and the eighteenth of June,
the days of marriage and widowhood, she kept her room en-
tirely, consecrating them (and we do not know how many
hours of solitary night-thought, her little boy sleeping in his
crib by her bedside) to the memory of that departed friend.
During the day she was more active. She had to teach George
to read and to write, and a little to draw. She read books,
in order that she might tell him stories from them. As his
eyes opened, and his mind expanded, under the influence of
the outward nature round about him, she taught the child,
to the best of her humble power, to acknowledge the Maker
of all; and every night and every morning he and she (in that
awful and touching communion which I think must bring a
thrill to the heart of every man who witnesses or who remem-
bers it)—the mother and the little boy—prayed to Our Father
together, the mother pleading with all her gentle heart, the
child lisping after her as she spoke. And each time they
prayed to God to bless dear papa, as if he were alive and in the
room with them.

To wash and dress this young gentleman,—to take him for
a run of the mornings, before breakfast, and the retreat of
grandpapa for “business,’—to make for him the most won-
derful and ingenious dresses, for which end the thrifty widow
cut up and altered every available little bit of finery which
she possessed out of her wardrobe during her marriage,— for
Mrs. Osborne herself (greatly to her mother’s vexation, who
preferred fine clothes, especially since her misfortunes) always
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO, 45

wore a black gown, and a straw bonnet with a black ribbon,—
occupied her many hours of the day. Others she had to spare,
at the service of her mother and her old father. She had
taken the pains to learn, and used to play cribbage with this
gentleman on the nights when he did not go to his club. She
sang for him when he was so minded, and it was a good sign,
for he invariably fell into a comfortable sleep during the
music. She wrote out his numerous memorials, letters, pros-
pectuses, and projects. It was in her handwriting that most
of the old gentleman’s former acquaintances were informed
that he had become an agent for the Black Diamond and Anti-
Cinder Coal Company, and could supply his friends and the
public with the best coals at —s. per chaldron. All he did was
to sign the circulars with his flourish and signature, and di-
rect them in a shaky, clerk-like hand. One of these papers
was sent to Major Dobbin,—Regt., care of Messrs. Cox and
Greenwood; but the Major, being in Madras at the time, had
no particular call for coals. He knew, though, the hand
which had written the prospectus. Good God! what would
he not have given to hold it in his own! A second prospectus
came out, informing the Major that J. Sedley and Company,
having established agencies at Oporto, Bordeaux, and St.
Mary’s, were enabled to offer to their friends and the public
generally the finest and most celebrated growths of ports,
sherries, and claret wines at reasonable prices, and under
extraordinary advantages. Acting upon this hint, Dobbin
furiously canvassed the governor, the commander-in-chief, the
judges, the regiments, and everybody whom he knew in the
Presidency, and sent home to Sedley and Co. orders for wine
which perfectly astonished Mr. Sedley and Mr. Clapp, who
was the Co. in the business. But no more orders came after
that first burst of good fortune, on which poor old Sedley
was about to build a house in the City, a regiment of clerks,
a dock to himself, and correspondents all over the world. The
old gentleman’s former taste in wine had gone; the curses of
the mess-room assailed Major Dobbin for the vile drinks he
had been the means of introducing there; and he bought
back a great quantity of the wine, and sold it at public outcry,
at an enormous loss to himself. As for Jos, who was by this
time promoted to a seat at the Revenue Board at Calcutta,
he was wild with rage when the post brought him out a bun-
dle of these Bacchanalian prospectuses, with a private note
from his father, telling Jos that his senior counted upon him
46 VANITY FAIR.

in this enterprise, and had consigned a quantity of select
wines to him, as per invoice, drawing bills upon him for the
amount of the same. Jos, who would no more have it sup-
posed that his father, Jos Sedley’s father, of the Board of
Revenue, was a wine merchant asking for orders, than that
he was Jack Ketch, refused the bills with scorn, wrote back
contumeliously to the old gentleman, bidding him to mind his
own affairs; and, the protested paper coming back, Sedley
and Co. had to take it up, with the profits which they had
made out of the Madras venture, and with a little portion of
Emmy’s savings.

Besides her pension of fifty pounds a year, there had been
five hundred pounds, as her husband’s executor stated, left
in the agent’s hands at the time of Osborne’s demise, which
sum, as George’s guardian, Dobbin proposed to put out at 8
per cent in an Indian house of agency. Mr. Sedley, who
thought the Major had some roguish intentions of his own
about the money, was strongly against this plan; and he went
to the agents to protest personally against the employment of
the money in question, when he learned, to his surprise, that
there had been no such sum in their hands, that all the late
Captain’s assets did not amount to a hundred pounds, and
that the five hundred pounds in question must be a separate
sum, of which Major Dobbin knew the particulars. More than
ever convinced that there was some roguery, old Sedley pur-
sued the Major. As his daughter’s nearest friend, he de-
manded, with a high hand, a statement of the late Captain’s
accounts. Dobbin’s stammering, blushing, and awkwardness
added to the other’s convictions that he had a rogue to deal
with; and in a majestic tone he told that officer a piece of his
mind, as he called it, simply stating his belief that the Major
was unlawfully detaining his late son-in-law’s money.

Dobbin, at this, lost all patience, and if his accuser had not
been so old and so broken, a quarrel might have ensued be-
tween them at the Slaughter Coffee-house, in a box of which
place of entertainment the gentlemen had their colloquy.
“Come up stairs, sir,” lisped the Major. “I insist on your
coming up the stairs, and I will show which is the injured par-
ty, poor George or I”; and, dragging the old gentleman up
to his bedroom, he produced from his desk Osborne’s accounts,
and a bundle of I O U’s which the latter had given him, who,
to do him justice, was always ready to give an I OU. “He
paid his bills in England,” Dobbin added, “but he had not a
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 47

hundred pounds in the world when he fell. I and one or two
of his brother officers made up the little sum, which was all
that we could spare, and you dare tell us that we are trying
to cheat the widow and the orphan.” Sedley was very con-
trite and humbled, though the fact is, that William Dobbin
had told a great falsehood to the old gentleman; having him-
self given every shilling of the money, having buried his
friend, and paid all the fees and charges incident upon the
calamity and removal of poor Amelia.

About these expenses old Osborne had never given himself
any trouble to think, nor dny other relative of Amelia, nor
Amelia herself, indeed. She trusted to Major Dobbin as an
accountant, took his somewhat confused calculations for
ao and never once suspected how much she was in his

ebt.

Twice or thrice in the year, according to her promise, she
wrote him letters to Madras, letters all about little Georgy.
How he treasured these papers! Whenever Amelia wrote, he
answered, and not until then. But he sent over endless re-
membrances of himself to his godson and to her. He ordered
and sent a box of scarfs, and a grand ivory set of chess-men.
from China. The pawns were little green and white men,
with real swords and shields; the knights were on horseback,
the castles were on the backs of elephants. “Mrs. Mango’s
own set at the Pineries was not so fine,”’ Mr. Pestler remarked.
These chess-men were the delight of Georgy’s life, who printed
his first letter in acknowledgment of this gift of his godpapa.
He sent over preserves and pickles, which latter the young
gentleman tried surreptitiously in the sideboard, and half
killed himself with eating. He thought it was a judgment
upon him for stealing, they were so hot. Emmy wrote a
comical little account of this mishap to the Major; it pleased
him to think that her spirits were rallying, and that she could
be merry sometimes now. He sent over a pair of shawls, a
white one for her, and a black one with palm-leaves for her
mother, and a pair of red scarfs, as winter wrappers, for old
Mrs. Sedley and George. The shawls were worth fifty guineas
apiece, at the very least, as Mrs. Sedley knew. She wore hers
in state at church at Brompton, and was congratulated by her
female friends upon the splendid acquisition. Emmy’s, too,
became prettily her modest black gown. “What a pity it is
she won't think of him,’’ Mrs. Sedley remarked to Mrs. Clapp,
and to all her friends of Brompton. “Jos never sent us such
48 VANITY FAIR,

presents, I am sure, and grudges us everything. It is evident
that the Major is over head and ears in love with her; and yet,
whenever I so much as hint it, she turns red and begins to
cry, and goes and sits up stairs with her miniature. I’m sick
of that miniature. J wish we had never seen those odious,
purse-proud Osbornes.”

Amid such humble scenes and associates, George’s early
youth was passed, and the boy grew up delicate, sensitive, im-
perious, woman-bred,—domineering the gentle mother whom
he loved with passionate affection. He ruled all the rest of
the little world round about him. As he grew, the elders
were amazed at his haughty manner and his constant likeness
to his father. He asked questions about everything, as in-
quiring youth will do. The profundity of his remarks and
interrogatories astonished his old grandfather, who perfectly
bored the club at the tavern with stories about the little lad’s
learning and genius. He suffered his grandmother with a
good-humored indifference. The small circle round about him
believed that the equal of the boy did not exist upon the earth.
Georgy inherited his father’s pride, and perhaps thought they
were not wrong.

When he grew to be about six years old, Dobbin began to
write to him very much. The Major wanted to hear that
Georgy was going to a school, and hoped he would acquit him-
self with credit there; or would he have a good tutor at home?
it was time that he should begin to learn; and his godfather
and guardian hinted that he hoped to be allowed to defray the
charges of the boy’s education, which would fall heavily upon
his mother’s straitened income. The Major, in a word, was
always thinking about Amelia and her little boy, and by or-
ders to his agents kept the latter provided with picture-books,
paint-boxes, desks, and all conceivable implements of amuse-
ment and instruction. Three days before George’s sixth birth-
day, a gentleman in a gig, accompanied by a servant, drove
up to Mr. Sedley’s house, and asked to see Master George Os-
borne; it was Mr. Woolsey, military tailor, of Conduit Street,
who came at the Major’s order to measure the young gentle-
man for a suit of cluth clothes. He had had the honor of mak-
ing for the Captain, the young gentleman’s father.

Sometimes, too, and by the Major’s desire, no doubt, his sis-
ters, the Misses Dobbin, would call in the family carriage to
take Amelia and the little boy a drive, if they were so inclined.
The patronage and kindness of these ladies was very uncom-
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO, 49

fortable to Amelia, but she bore it meekly enough, for her na-
ture was to yield; and, besides, the carriage and its splendors
gave little Georgy immense pleasure. The ladies begged oc-
casionally that the child might pass a day with them, and he
was always glad to go to that fine garden-house at Denmark
Hill, where they lived, and where there were such fine grapes
in the hot-houses and peaches on the walls.

One day they kindly came over to Amelia with news which
they were sure would delight her,—something very interest-
ing about their dear William.

“What was it: was he coming home?” she asked with pleas-
ure beaming in her eyes.

“OQ no,—not the least,—but they had very good reason to
believe that dear William was about to be married,—and to
a relation of a very dear friend of Amelia’s,—to Miss Glorvina
O’Dowd, Sir Michael O’Dowd’s sister, who had gone out to
join Lady O’Dowd at Madras,—a very beautiful and accom-
plished girl, everybody said.”

Amelia said “Oh!” Amelia was very, very happy indeed.
But she supposed Glorvina could not be like her old acquaint-
ance, who was most kind—but—but she was very happy in-
deed. And by some impulse, of which I cannot explain the
meaning, she took George in her arms and kissed him with an
extraordinary tenderness. Her eyes were quite moist when
she put the child down; and she scarcely spoke a word during
the whole of the drive,—though she was so very happy indeed.

CHAPTER V.

A CYNICAL CHAPTER.

Our duty now takes us back for a brief space to some old
Hampshire acquaintances of ours, whose hopes respecting
the disposal of their rich kinswoman’s property were so woful-
ly disappointed. After counting upon thirty thousand
pounds from his sister, it was a heavy blow to Bute Crawley
to receive but five; out of which sum, when he had paid his
own debts and those of Jim, his son at college, a very small
fragment remained to portion off his four plain daughters.
Mrs. Bute never knew, or at least never acknowledged, how
far her own tyrannous behavior had tended to ruin her hus-

Vol. IL—4
50 VANITY FAIR.

band. All that woman could do, she vowed and protested
she had done. Was it her fault if she did not possess those
sycophantic arts which her hypocritical nephew, Pitt Crawley,
practiced? She wished him all the happiness which he
merited out of his ill-gotten gains. “At least the money will
remain in the family,” she said, charitably. “Pitt will never
spend it, my dear, that is quite certain; for a greater miser
does not exist in England, and he is as odious, though in a
different way, as his spendthrift brother, the abandoned Raw-
don.”

So Mrs. Bute, after the first shock of rage and disappoint-
ment, began to accommodate herself as best she could to her
altered fortunes, and to save and retrench with all her
might. She instructed her daughters how to bear poverty
cheerfully, and invented a thousand notable methods to con-
ceal or evade it. She took them about to balls and public
places in the neighborhood, with praiseworthy energy: nay,
she entertained her friends in a hospitable, comfortable manner
at the Rectory, and much more frequently than before dear
Miss Crawley’s legacy had fallen in. From her outward bear-
ing nobody would have supposed that the family had been dis-
appointed in their expectations, or have guessed from her
frequent appearance in public how she pinched and starved
at home. Her girls had more milliner’s furniture than they
had ever enjoyed before. They appeared perseveringly at
the Winchester and Southampton assemblies; they penetrated
to Cowes for the race-balls and regatta gayeties there; and
their carriage, with the horses taken from the plough, was at
work perpetually, until it began almost to be believed that
the four sisters had had fortunes left them by their aunt,
whose name the family never mentioned in public but with
the most tender gratitude and regard. I know no sort of
lying which is more frequent in Vanity Fair than this; and
it may be remarked how people who practice it take credit
to themselves for their hypocrisy, and fancy that they are ex-
ceedingly virtuous and praiseworthy, because they are able to
deceive the world with regard to the extent of their means.

Mrs. Bute certainly thought herself one of the most virtuous
women in England, and the sight of her happy family was an
edifying one to strangers. They were so cheerful, so loving,
so well educated, so simple! Martha painted flowers ex-
quisitely, and furnished half the charity-bazaars in the county.
Emma was a regular County Bulbul, and her verses in the
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. b1

“Hampshire Telegraph” were the glory of its Poets’ Corner.
Fanny and Matilda sang duets together, mamma playing the
piano, and the other two sisters sitting with their arms round
each other’s waists, and listening affectionately. Nobody saw
the poor girls drumming at the duets in private. No one saw
mamma drilling them rigidly hour after hour. In a word,
Mrs. Bute put a good face against fortune, and kept up ap-
pearances in the most virtuous manner.

Everything that a good and respectable mother could do
Mrs. Bute did. She got over yachting men from Southamp-
ton, parsons from the Cathedral Close at Winchester, and offi-
cers from the barracks there. She tried to inveigle the young
barristers at assizes, and encouraged Jim to bring home friends
with whom he went out hunting with the H. H. What will
not a mother do for the benefit of her beloved ones?

Between such a woman and her brother-in-law, the odious
Baronet at the Hall, it is manifest that there could be very lit-
tle in common. The rupture between Bute and his brother
Sir Pitt was complete; indeed, between Sir Pitt and the whole
county, to which the old man was a scandal. His dislike
for respectable society increased with age, and the lodge-gates
had not opened to a gentleman’s carriage-wheels since Pitt
and Lady Jane came to pay their visit of duty after their
marriage.

That was an awful and unfortunate visit, never to be
thought of by the family without horror. Pitt begged his
wife, with a ghastly countenance, never to speak of it; and
it was only through Mrs. Bute herself, who still knew every-
thing which took place at the Hall, that the circumstance of
Sir Pitt’s reception of his son and daughter-in-law were ever
known at all.

As they drove up the avenue of the Park in their neat and
well-appointed carriage, Pitt remarked with dismay and wrath
great gaps among the trees,—his trees,—which the old Baro-
net was felling entirely without license. The park wore an
aspect of utter dreariness and ruin. The drives were ill kept,
and the neat carriage splashed and foundered in muddy pools
along the road. The great sweep in front of the terrace and
entrance stair was black and covered with mosses; the once
trim flower-beds rank and weedy. Shutters were up along
almiost the whole line of the house; the great hall door was
unbarred after much ringing of the bell; an individual in
sibbona was seen flitting up the black oak stair, as Horrocks
52 VANITY FAIR.

at length admitted the heir of Queen’s Crawley and his bride
into the halls of their fathers. He led the way into Sir Pitt’s
“Library,” as it was called, the fumes of tobacco growing
stronger as Pitt and Lady Jane approached that apartment.
“Sir Pitt ain’t very well,” Horrocks remarked apologetically,
and hinted that his master was afflicted with lumbago.

The library looked out on the front walk and park. Sir
Pitt had opened one of the windows, and was bawling out
thence to the postilion and Pitt’s servant, who seemed to be
about to take the baggage down.

“Don’t move none of them trunks,” he cried, pointing with
a pipe which he held in his hand. “It’s only a morning visit,
Tucker, you fool. Lor, what cracks that off hoss has in his
heels! Ain’t there no one at the King’s Head to rub *em
a little? How do, Pitt? How do, my dear? Come to see
the old man, hay! Gad—you’ve a pretty face, too. You
ain’t like that old horse-godmother, your mother. Come and
give old Pitt a kiss, like a good little gal.”

The embrace disconcerted the daughter-in-law somewhat,
as the caresses of the old gentleman, unshorn and perfumed
with tobacco, might well do. But she remembered that her
brother Southdown had mustachios, and smoked cigars, and
submitted to the Baronet with a tolerable grace.

“Pitt has got vat,” said the Baronet, after this mark of
affection. “Does he read ee very long zermons, my dear?
Hundredth Psalm, Evening Hymn, hay, Pitt? Go and get
a glass of Malmsey and cake for my Lady Jane, Horrocks,
you great big booby, and don’t stand stearing there like a
fat pig. I won’t ask you to stop, my dear; you'll find it too
stoopid, and so should I too along a Pitt. I’m an old man
now, and like my own ways, and my pipe and backgammon of a
night.”

“T can play at backgammon, sir,” said Lady Jane, laughing.
“T used to play with papa and Miss Crawley, didn’t I, Mr.
Crawley?”

“Lady Jane can play, sir, at the game to which you state
that you are so partial,” Pitt said, haughtily.

“But she wawn’t stop for all that. Naw, naw, goo back
to Mudbury and give Mrs. Rincer a benefit: or drive down
to the Rectory, and ask Buty for a dinner. He’ll be charmed
to see you, you know; he’s so much obliged to you for gettin’
the old woman’s money. Ha, ha! Some of it will do to
patch up the Hall when I’m gone.”
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 538

“I perceive, sir,” said Pitt, with a heightened voice, “that
your people will cut down the timber.”

“Yees, yees, very fine weather, and seasonable for the time
of year,” Sir Pitt answered, who had suddenly grown deaf.
“But I’m gittin’ old, Pitt, now. Law bless you, you ain’t
far from fifty yourself. But he wears well, my pretty Lady,
don’t he? It’s all godliness, sobriety, ancl a moral life. Look
at me, I’m not very fur from fowr-score—he, he;” and he
eee and took snuff, and leered at her and pinched her

and.

Pitt once more brought the conversation back to the tim-
ber: but the Baronet was deaf again in an instant.

“Tm gettin’ very old, and have been cruel bad this year
with the lumbago. I shan’t be here now for long; but I’m
glad ee’ve come, daughter-in-law. I like your face, Lady
Jane: it’s got none of the damned high-boned Binkie look
in it; and I’ll give ee something pretty, my dear, to go to
Court in.” And he shuffled across the room to a cupboard,
from which he took a little old case containing jewels of
some value. “Take that,” said he, “my dear; it belonged
to my mother, and afterwards to the first Lady Binkie.
Pretty pearls——never gave ’em the ironmonger’s daughter.
No, no. Take ’em and put ’em up quick,” said he, thrusting,
the case into his daughter’s hand, and clapping the door of
the cabinet to, as Horrocks entered with a salver and refresh-
ments.

“What have you a been and given Pitt’s wife?” said the
individual in ribbons, when Pitt and Lady Jane had taken
leave of the old gentleman. It was Miss Horrocks, the but-
ler’s daughter,—the cause of the scandal throughout the
country,—the lady who reigned now almost supreme at
Queen’s Crawley.

The rise and progress of those Ribbons had been marked
with dismay by the county and family. The Ribbons opened
an account at the Mudbury Branch Savings Bank; the Rib-
bons drove to Church, monopolizing the pony-chaise, which
was for the use of the servants at the Hall. The domestics
were dismissed at her pleasure. The Scotch gardener, who
still lingered on the premises, taking a pride in his walls and
hot-houses, and indeed making a pretty good livelihood by
the garden, which he farmed, and of which he sold the prod-
uce at Southampton, found the Ribbons eating peaches in
a sunshiny morning at the south-wall, and had his ears boxed
54 VANITY FAIR.

when he remonstrated about this attack on his property. He
and his Scotch wife and his Scotch children, the only respect-
able inhabitants of Queen’s Crawley, were forced to migrate,
with their goods and chattels, and left the stately com-
fortable gardens to go to waste, and the flower-beds to run
to seed. Poor Lady Crawley’s rose-garden became the dreari-
est wilderness. Only two or three domestics shuddered in
the bleak old servants’ hall. The stables and offices were va-
cant, and shut up, and half ruined. Sir Pitt lived in private,
and boozed nightly with Horrocks, his butler or house-steward
(as he now began to be called), and the abandoned Ribbons.
The times were very much changed since the period when
she drove to Mudbury in the spring-cart, and called the small
tradesmen “Sir.” It may have been shame, or it may have
been dislike of his neighbors, but the old Cynic of Queen’s
Crawley hardly issued from his park-gates at all now. He
quarreled with his agents, and screwed his tenants by letter.
His days were passed in conducting his own correspondence;
the lawyers and farm-bailiffs who had to do business with
him could not reach him but through the Ribbons, who re-
ceived them at the door of the housekeeper’s room, which
commanded the back entrance by which they were admitted;
and so the Baronet’s daily perplexities increased, and his em-
barrassments multiplied round him.

The horror of Pitt Crawley may be imagined, as_ these re-
ports of his father’s dotage reached the most exemplary and
correct of gentlemen. He trembled daily lest he should hear
that the Ribbons was proclaimed his second legal mother-in-
law. After that first and last visit, his father’s name was
never mentioned in Pitt’s polite and genteel establishment.
It was the skeleton in his house, and all the family walked
by it in terror and silence. The Countess Southdown kept
on dropping per coach at the lodge-gate the most exciting
tracts, tracts which ought to frighten the hair off your head.
Mrs. Bute at the parsonage nightly looked out to see if the sky
was red over the elms behind which the Hall stood, and the
mansion was on fire. Sir G. Wapshot and Sir H. Fuddle-
stone, old friends of the house, wouldn’t sit on the bench
with Sir Pitt at quarter Sessions, and cut him dead in the
High Street of Southampton, where the reprobate stood offer-
ing his dirty old hands to them. Nothing had any effect upon
him; he put his hands into his pockets, and burst out laughing
as he scrambled into his carriage and four; he used to burst
out laughing at Lady Southdown’s tracts; and he laughed
A NOVEL WITHOUT A TIERO. 55

at his sons, and at the world, and at the Ribbons when she
was angry, which was not seldom.

Miss Horrocks was installed as housekeeper at Queen’s
Crawley, and ruled all the domestics there with great majesty
and rigor. All the servants were instructed to address her
as “Mum,” or “Madam,’—and there was one little maid,
on her promotion, who persisted in calling her “My Lady,”
without any rebuke on the part ofthe housekeeper. “There
has been better ladies, and there has been worser, Hester,”
was Miss Horrocks’s reply to this compliment of her inferior:
so she ruled, having supreme power over all except her
father, whom, however, she treated with considerable haughti-
ness, warning him not to be too familiar in his behavior to
one “as was to be a Baronet’s lady.” Indeed, she rehearsed
that exalted part in life with great satisfaction to herself, and
to the amusement of old Sir Pitt, who chuckled at her airs
and graces, and would laugh by the hour together at her
assumptions of dignity and imitations of genteel life. He
swore it was as good as a play to see her in the character of a
fine dame, and he made her put on one of the first Lady
Crawley’s court dresses, swearing (entirely to Miss Horrocks’s
own concurrence), that the dress became her prodigiously,
and threatening to drive her off that very instant to Court
in a coach-and-four. She had the ransacking of the ward-
robes of the two defunct ladies, and cut and hacked their
posthumous finery so as to suit her own tastes and figure.
And she would have liked to take possession of their jewels
and trinkets too; but the old Baronet had locked them away
in his private cabinet, nor could she coax or wheedle him out
of the keys. And it is a fact, that some time after she left
Queen’s Crawley a copy-book belonging to this lady was dis-
covered, which showed that she had taken great pains in
private to learn the art of writing in general, and especially
of writing her own name as Lady Crawley, Lady Betsy Hor-
rocks, Lady Elizabeth Crawley, etc.

Though the good people of the Parsonage never went to
the Hall, and shunned the horrid old dotard its owner, yet
they kept a strict knowledge of all that happened there, and
were looking out every day for the catastrophe for which
Miss Horrocks was also eager. But Fate intervened envi-
ously, and prevented her from receiving the reward due to
such immaculate love and virtue.

One day the Baronet surprised “her Ladyship,” as he joc 1-
56 VANITY YaiR,

larly called her, seated at that old and tuneless piano in the
drawing-room, which had scarcely been touched since Becky
Sharp played quadrilles upon it;—seated at the piano with the
utmost gravity, and squalling to the best of her power in
* imitation of the music which she had sometimes heard. The
little kitchen-maid on her promotion was standing at her
mistress’s side, quite delighted during the operation, and wag-
ging her head up and down, and crying, “Lor, mum, ’tis bitti-
ful,”—just like a genteel sycophant in a real drawing-room.

This incident made the old Baronet roar with laughter,
as usual. He narrated the circumstance a dozen times to
Horrocks in the course of the evening, and greatly to the dis-
comfiture of Miss Horrocks. He thrummed on the table as
if it had been a musical instrument and squalled in imitation
of her manner of singing. He vowed that such a beautiful
voice ought to be cultivated, and declared she ought to have
singing-masters, in which proposals she saw nothing ridicu-
lous. He was in great spirits that night; and drank with
his friend and butler an extraordinary quantity of rum-and-
water,—at a very late hour the faithful friend and domestic
conducted his master to his bedroom.

Half an hour afterwards there was a great hurry and bustle
in the house. Lights went about from window to window
in the lonely desolate old Hall, whereof but two or three
rooms were ordinarily occupied by its owner. Presently a
boy on a pony went galloping off to Mudbury, to the Doctor’s
house there. And in another hour (by which fact we ascer-
tain how carefully the excellent Mrs. Bute Crawley had al-
ways kept up an understanding with the great house), that
lady in her clogs and calash, the Reverend Bute Crawley, and
James Crawley, her son, had walked over from the Rectory
through the park, and had entered the mansion by the open.
hall door.

They passed through the hall and the small oak parlor,
on the table of which stood the three tumblers and the empty
rum-bottle which had served for Sir Pitt’s carouse, and
through that apartment into Sir Pitt’s study, where they
found Miss Horrocks, of the guilty ribbons, with a wild air,
trying at the presses and escritoires with a bunch of keys.
She dropped them with a scream of terror, as little Mrs.
“%ute’s eyes flashed out at her from under her black calash.

“Look at that, James and Mr. Crawley,” cried Mrs, Bute,
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 5?

pointing at the scared figure of the black-eyed, guilty wench.

“Te gave ’em me; he gave ’em me!” she cried.

“Gave them you, you abandoned creature!” screamed Mrs.
Bute. “Bear witness, Mr. Crawley, we found this good-for-
nothing woman in the act of stealing your brother’s property;
and she will be hanged, as I always said she would.”

Betsy Horrocks, quite daunted, flung herself down on her
knees, bursting into tears. But those who know a really
good woman are aware that she is not in a hurry to forgive,
sa that the humiliation of an enemy is a triumph to her
soul.

“Ring the bell, James,’ Mrs. Bute said. “Go on ringing it
till the people come.” The three or four domestics resident
in the deserted old house came presently at that jangling and
continued summons.

“Put that woman in the strong-room,” she said. “We
caught her in the act of robbing Sir Pitt. Mr. Crawley, yow’ll
make out her committal,—and, Beddoes, yow’ll drive her over
in the spring-cart, in the morning, to Southampton Jail.”

“My dear,’ interposed the Magistrate and Rector,—“she’s
only—”

“Are there no handcuffs?” Mrs. Bute continued, stamping
in her clogs. “There used to be handcuffs. Where’s the crea-
ture’s abominable father?”

“He did give ’em me,” still cried poor Betsy; “didn’t he,
Hester? You saw Sir Pitt—you know you did—give ’em me,
ever so long go,—the day after Mudbury fair: not that I
want ’em. Take ’em if you think they ain’t mine.” And
here the unhappy wretch pulled out from her pocket a large
pair of paste shoe-buckles which had excited her admiration,
and which she had just appropriated out of one of the book-
cases in the study, where they had lain.

“Law, Betsy, how could you go for to tell such a wicked
story!” said Hester, the little kitchen-maid late on her pro-
motion, “and to Madam Crawley, so good and kind, and his
Rev’rince” (with a courtesy), “and you may search all my
boxes, mum, I’m sure, and here’s my keys as ’m an_honest
girl though of pore parents and workhouse bred,—and if you
find so much as a beggarly bit of lace or a silk stocking out
of all the gownds as you’ve had the picking of, may I never

go to church agin.” :
“Give up your keys, you hardened hussy,” hissed out the

yirtuous little lady in the calash,
58 VANITY FAIR.

“And here’s a candle, mum, and if you please, mum, I can
show you her room, mum, and the press in the housekeeper’s
room, mum, where she keeps heaps and heaps of things,
mum,” cried out the eager little Hester, with a profusion of
courtesies.

“Hold your tongue, if you please. I know the room which
the creature occupies perfectly well. Mrs. Brown, have the
goodness to come with me, and, Beddoes, don’t you lose sight
of that woman,” said Mrs. Bute, seizing the candle. ‘‘Mr.
Crawley, you had better go up stairs, and see that they are
not murdering your unfortunate brother;” and the calash,
escorted by Mrs. Brown, walked away to the apartment which,
as she said truly, she knew perfectly well.

Bute went up stairs, and found the Doctor from Mudbury,
with the frightened Horrocks over his master in a chair.
They were trying to bleed Sir Pitt Crawley.

With the early morning an express was sent off to Mr. Pitt
Crawley by the Rector’s lady, who assumed the command of
everything, and had watched the old Baronet through the
night. He had been brought back to a sort of life; he could
not speak, but seemed to recognize people. Mrs. Bute kept
resolutely by his bedside. She never seemed to want to
sleep, that little woman, and did not close her fiery black eyes
once, though the Doctor snored in the arm-chair. Horrocks
made some wild efforts to assert his authority and assist his
master; but Mrs. Bute called him a tipsy old wretch, and
bade him never show his face again in that house, or he should
be transported like his abominable daughter.

Terrified by her manner, he slunk down to the oak parlor
where Mr. James was, who, having tried the bottle standing
there and found no liquor in it, ordered Mr. Horrocks to get
another bottle of rum, which he fetched, with clean glasses,
and to which the Rector and his son sat down; ordering Hor-
rocks to put down the keys at that instant and never to show
his face again.

Cowed by this behavior, Horrocks gave up the keys; and
he and his daughter slunk off silently through the night, and
gave up possession of the house of Queen’s Crawley.
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 5$

CHAPTER VI.
IN WHICH BECKY IS RECOGNIZED BY THE FAMILY.

The heir of Crawley arrived at home, in due time, after
this catastrophe, and henceforth may be said to have reigned
in Queen’s Crawley. For, though the old Baronet survived
many months, he never recovered the use of his intellect or
his speech completely, and the government of the estate de-
volved upon his elder son. In a strange condition Pitt found
it. Sir Pitt was always buying and mortgaging; he had
twenty men of business, and quarrels with each; quarrels
with all his tenants, and lawsuits with them; lawsuits with
the lawyers; lawsuits with the Mining and Dock Companies
in which he was proprietor; and with every person with whom
he had business. To unravel these difficulties, and to set the
estate clear, was a task worthy of the orderly and persevering
diplomatist of Pumpernickel; and he set himself to work
with prodigious assiduity. His whole family, of course, was
transported to Queen’s Crawley, whither Lady Southdown,
of course, came too; and she set about converting the parish
under the Rector’s nose, and brought down her irregular
clergy to the dismay of the angry Mrs. Bute. Sir Pitt had
concluded no bargain for the sale of the living of Queen’s
Crawley; when it should drop, her Ladyship proposed to
take the patronage into her own hands, and present a young
protégé to the Rectory; on which subject the diplomatic Pitt
said nothing.

Mrs. Bute’s intentions with regard to Miss Betsy Horrocks
were not carried into effect; and she paid no visit to South-
ampton Jail. She and her father left the Hall, when the
latter took possession of the Crawley Arms in the village, of
which he had got a lease from Sir Pitt. The ex-butler had
obtained a small freehold there likewise, which gave him a
vote for the borough. The Rector had another of these votes,
and these and four others formed the representative body
which returned the two members for Queen’s Crawley.

There was a show of courtesy kept up between the Rectory
and the Hall ladies, between the younger ones at least, for
Mrs. Bute and Lady Southdown never could meet without
60 VANITY FAIR.

battles, and gradually ceased seeing each other. Her Lady-
ship kept her room when the ladies from the Rectory visited
their cousins at the Hall. Perhaps Mr. Pitt was not very
much displeased at these occasional absences of his mamma-
in-law. He believed the Binkie family to be the greatest and
wisest, and most interesting in the world, and her Ladyship
and his aunt had long held ascendency over him; but some-
times he felt that she commanded him too much. To be con-
sidered young was complimentary doubtless; but at six-and-
forty to be treated as a boy was sometimes mortifying. Lady
Jane yielded up everything, however, to her mother. She
was only fond of her children in private; and it was lucky
for her that Lady Southdown’s multifarious business, her
conferences with ministers, and her correspondence with all
the missionaries of Africa, Asia, and Australasia, etc., occu-
pied the venerable Countess a great deal, so that she had but
little time to devote to her granddaughter, the little Matilda,
and her grandson, Master Pitt Crawley. The latter was a
feeble child; and it was only by prodigious quantities of calo-
mel that Lady Southdown was able to keep him in life at all.

As for Sir Pitt, he retired into those very apartments where
Lady Crawley had been previously extinguished, and here was
tended by Miss Hester, the girl upon her promotion, with
constant care and assiduity. What love, what fidelity, what
constancy is there equal to that of a nurse with good wages?
They smooth pillows: and make arrowroot: they get up at
nights: they bear complaints and querulousness: they see the
sun shining out of doors and don’t want to go abroad: they
sleep on arm-chairs, and eat their meals in solitude: they
pass long, long evenings doing nothing, watching the embers,
and the patient’s drink simmering in the jug: they read
the weekly paper the whole week through; and Law’s Serious
Call or the Whole Duty of Man suffices them for literature
for the year,—and we quarrel with them because, when their
relations come to see them once a week, a little gin is smug-
gled in in their linen-basket. Ladies, what man’s love is
there that would stand a year’s nursing of the object of his
affection? Whereas a nurse will stand by you for ten pounds
a quarter, and we think her too highly paid. At least Mr.
Crawley grumbled a good deal about paying half as much
to Miss Hester for her constant attendance upon the Baronet
his father.

Of sunshiny days this old gentleman was taken out in a
chair on the terrace,—the very chair which Miss Crawley had
‘A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 61

had at Brighton, and which had been transported thence with
a number of Lady Southdown’s effects te Queen’s Crawley.
Lady Jane always walked by the old man; and was an evident
favorite with him. He used to nod many times to her and
smile when she came in, and utter inarticulate deprecatory
moans when she was going away. When the door shut upon
her he would cry and sob,—whereupon Hester’s face and man-
ner, which was always exceedingly bland and gentle while her
lady was present, would change at once, and she would make
faces at him and clench her fist, and scream out, “Hold your
tongue, you stoopid old fool,” and twirl away his chair from
the fire which he loved to look at,—at which he would cry
more. For this was all that was left after more than seventy
years of cunning, and struggling, and drinking, and schem-
ing, and sin, and selfishness,—a whimpering old idiot put in
and out of bed and cleaned and fed like a baby.

At last a day came when the nurse’s occupation was over.
Early one morning, as Pitt Crawley was at his steward’s and
bailiff’s books in the study, a knock came to the door, and
Hester presented herself, dropping a courtesy, and said:—

“Tf you please, Sir Pitt, Sir Pitt died this morning, Sir
Pitt. I was a making of his toast, Sir Pitt, for his gruel, Sir
Pitt, which he took every morning regular at six, Sir Pitt, and
—lI thought I heard a moan like, Sir Pitt—-and—and—and—”
She dropped another courtesy.

What was it that made Pitt’s pale face flush quite red?
Was it because he was Sir Pitt at last, with a seat in Parlia-
ment, and perhaps future honors in prospect? “TI’ll clear the
estate now with the ready money,” he thought, and rapidly
calculated its encumbrances and the improvements which he
would make. He would not use his aunt’s money previously,
lest Sir Pitt should recover, and his outlay be in vain.

All the blinds were pulled down at the Hall and Rectory;
the church bell wag tolled, and the chancel hung in black;
and Bute Crawley didn’t go to a coursing meeting, but went
and dined quietly at Fuddlestone, where they talked about
his deceased brother and young Sir Pitt over their port. Miss
Betsy, who was by this time married to a saddler at Mudbury,
cried a good deal. The family surgeon rode over and paid
his respectful compliments, and inquiries for the health of
their Ladyships. The death was talked about at Mudbury
and at the Crawley Arms; the landlord whereof had become
62 VANITY FAIR.

reconciled with the Rector of late, who was occasionally known.
to step into the parlor and taste Mr. Horrocks’s mild beer.

“Shall I write to your brother—or will you?” asked Lady
Jane of her husband, Sir Pitt.

“T will write, of course,” Sir Pitt said, “and invite him to
the funeral: it will be but becoming.”

“And—and—Mrs. Rawdon,” said Lady Jane, timidly.

“Jane!” said Lady Southdown, “how can you think of such
a thing?”

“Mrs. Rawdon must of course be asked,” said Sir Pitt, reso-
lutely.

“Not whilst I am in the house!” said Lady Southdown.

“Your Ladyship will be pleased to recollect that I am the
head of this family,” Sir Pitt replied. “If you please, Lady
Jane, you will write a letter to Mrs. Rawdon Crawley, request-
ing her presence upon this melancholy occasion.”

“Jane, I forbid you to put pen to paper!” cried the Count-
ess.

“I believe I am the head of this family,” Sir Pitt repeated;
“and however much I may regret any circumstance which
may lead to your Ladyship quitting this house, must, if you
please, continue to govern it as I see fit.”

Lady Southdown rose up as magnificent as Mrs. Siddons in
Lady Macbeth, and ordered that horses might be put to her
carriage. If her son and daughter turned her out of their
house, she would hide her sorrows somewhere in loneliness,
and pray for their conversion to better thoughts.

“We don’t turn you out of our house, mamma,” said the
timid Lady Jane, imploringly.

“You invite such company to it as no Christian lady should
meet, and I will have my horses to-morrow morning.”

“Have the goodness to write, Jane, under my dictation,”
said Sir Pitt, rising, and throwing himself into an attitude
of command, like the portrait of a Gentleman in the Exhibi-
tion, “and begin. ‘Queen’s Crawley, September 14, 1822.—
My dear brother— ”

Hearing these decisive and terrible words, Lady Macbeth,
who had been waiting for a sign of weakness or vacillation on
the part of her son-in-law, rose, and with a scared look left
the library. Lady Jane looked up to her husband as if she
would fain follow and soothe her mamma; but Pitt forbade
his wife to move.

“She won’t go away,” he said. “She has let her house at
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO, 63

Brighton, and has spent her last half-year’s dividends. A
Countess living at an inn is a ruined woman. I have been
waiting long for an opportunity to take this—this decisive
step, my love; for, as you must perceive, it is impossible that
there should be two chiefs in a family; and now, if you please,
we will resume the dictation. ‘My dear brother, the melan-
choly intelligence which it is my duty to convey to my family
must have been long anticipated by,’ ” &.

In a word, Pitt having come to his kingdom, and having
by good luck, or desert rather, as he considered, assumed al-
most all the fortune which his other relatives had expected,
was determined to treat his family kindly and respectably, and
make a house of Queen’s Crawley once more. It pleased him
to think that he should be its chief. He proposed to use the
vast influence that his commanding talents and position must
speedily acquire for him in the county to get his brother
placed and his cousins decently provided for, and perhaps
had a little sting of repentance as he thought that he was the
proprietor of all that they had hoped for. In the course of
three or four days’ reign his bearing was changed, and his
plans quite fixed: he determined to rule justly and honestly,
to depose Lady Southdown, and to be on the friendliest possi-
ble terms with all the relations of his blood.

So he dictated a letter to his brother Rawdon,—a solemn
and elaborate letter containing the profoundest observations,
couched in the longest words, and filling with wonder the
simple little secretary, who wrote under her husband’s order.
“What an orator this will be,” thought she, “when he enters
the House of Commons” (on which point, and on the tyranny
of Lady Southdown, Pitt had sometimes dropped hints to his
wife in bed); “how wise and good, and what a genius my hus-
band is! I fancied him a little cold; but how good, and
what a genius!”

The fact is, Pitt Crawley had got every word of the letter
by heart, and had studied it, with diplomatic secrecy, deeply
and perfectly, long before he thought fit to communicate
it to his astonished wife.

This letter, with a huge black border and seal, was accord-
ingly despatched by Sir Pitt Crawley to his brother the Col-
onel, in London. Rawdon Crawley was but half pleased at
the receipt of it. “What’s the use of going down to that
stupid place?” thought he. “I can’t stand being alone with
64 VANITY FAIR.

Pitt after dinner, and horses there and back will cost us
twenty pounds.”

He carried the letter, as he did all difficulties, to Becky,
up stairs in her bedroom,—with her chocolate, which he al-
ways made and took to her of a morning.

He put the tray with the breakfast and the letter on the
dressing-table, before which Becky sat combing her yellow
hair. She took up the black-edged missive, and, having read
it, she jumped up from the chair, crying “Hurray!” and wav-
ing the note round her head.

“Hurray?” said Rawdon, wondering at the little figure
capering about in a streaming flannel dressing-gown, with
tawny locks disheveled. “He’s not left us anything, Becky.
1 had my share when I came of age.”

“You'll never be of age, you silly old man,” Becky replied.
“Run out now to Madam Brunoy’s, for I must have some
mourning; and get a crape on your hat, and a black waist-
coat,—I don’t think you’ve got one; order it to be brought
home to-morrow, so that we may be able to start on Thurs-
day.”

“You don’t mean to go?” Rawdon interposed.

“Of course I mean to go. I mean that Lady Jane shall
present me at Court next year. I mean that your brother
shall give you a seat in Parliament, you stupid old creature.
I mean that Lord Steyne shall have your vote and his, my
dear, old, silly man; and that you shall be an Irish Secretary,
or a West Indian Governor: or a Treasurer, or a Consul, or
some such thing.”

“Posting will cost a dooce of a lot of money,’ grumbled
Rawdon.

“We might take Southdown’s carriage, which ought to be
present at the funeral, as he is a relation of the family: but,
no,—I intend that we shall go by the coach. They'll like it
better. It seems more humble—”

“Rawdy goes of course?” the Colonel asked.

“No such thing; why pay an extra place? He’s too big
to travel bodkin between you and me. Let him stay here
in the nursery, and Briggs can make him a black frock. Go
you: and do as I bid you. And you had best tell Sparks,
your man, that old Sir Pitt is dead, and that you will come
in for something considerable when the affairs are arranged.
He'll tell this to Raggles, who has been pressing for money,
A NOVEL WITHOUT A: HERO, 65

and it will console poor Ragegles.” And so Beck be ip-
ping her diocese ia eee ee

When the faithful Lord Steyne arrived in the evening, he
found Becky and her companion, who was no other than our
friend Briggs, busy cutting, tipping, snipping, and tearing
all sorts of black stuffs available for the melancholy occa-
sion.

“Miss Briggs and I are plunged in grief and despondency
for the death of our papa,” Rebecca said. “Sir Pitt Craw-
ley is dead, my Lord. We have been tearing our hair all the
morning, and now we are tearing up our old clothes.”

“QO Rebecca, how can you—” was all that Briggs could
say as she turned up her eyes.

“O Rebecca, how can you—” echoed my Lord. “So that
old scoundrel’s dead, is he? He might have been a Peer
if he had played his cards better. Mr. Pitt had very nearly
made him; but he ratted always at the wrong time. What
an old Silenus it was.”

“I might have been Silenus’s widow,” said Rebecca. “Don’t
you remember, Miss Briggs, how you peeped in at the door,
and saw old Sir Pitt on his knees to me?” Miss Briggs, our
old friend, blushed very much at this reminiscence; and was
glad when Lord Steyne ordered her to go down stairs and
make him a cup of tea.

Briggs was the house-dog whom Rebecca had provided as
guardian of her innocence and reputation. Miss Crawley
had left her a little annuity. She would have been content
to remain in the Crawley family with Lady Jane, who was
good to her and everybody; but Lady Southdown dismissed
poor Briggs as quickly as decency permitted; and Mr. Pitt
(who thought himself much injured by the uncalled-for gen-
erosity of his deceased relative towards a lady who had only
been Miss Crawley’s faithful retainer a score of years) made
no objections to that exercise of the dowager’s authority.
Bowls and Firkin likewise received their legacies, and their
dismissals; and married and set up a lodging-house, accord-
ing to the custom of their kind.

Briggs tried to live with her relations in the country, but
found that attempt was vain after the better society to which
she had been accustomed. Briggs’s friends, small tradesmen
in a country town, quarreled over Miss Briggs’s forty pounds
a year, as eagerly and more openly than Miss Crawley’s kins-

Vol. 1.5
66 VANITY FAIR.

folk had for that lady’s inheritance. Briggs’s brother, a
radical hatter and grocer, called his sister a purse-proud aris-
tocrat, because she would not advance a part of her capital
to stock his shop; and she would have done so most likely,
but that their sister, a dissenting shoemaker’s lady, at vari-
ance with the hatter and grocer who went to another chapel,
showed how their brother was on the verge of bankruptcy,
and took possession of Briggs for a while. The dissenting
shoemaker wanted Miss Briggs to send his son to college, and
make a gentleman of him. Between them the two families
got a great portion of her private savings out of her; and
finally she fled to London followed by the anathemas of both,
and determined to seek for servitude again as infinitely less
onerous than liberty. And advertising in the papers that a
“Gentlewoman of agreeable manners, and accustomed to the
best society, was anxious to,” ete., she took up her residence
with Mr, Bowls in Half-Moon Street, and waited the result
of the advertisement.

So it was that she fell in with Rebecca. Mrs. Rawdon’s
dashing little carriage and ponies was whirling down the street
one day, just as Miss Briggs, fatigued, had reached Mr. Bowls’s
door, after a weary walk to the Times Office in the City, to
insert her advertisement for the sixth time. Rebecca was
driving, and at once recognized the gentlewoman with agree-
able manners, and being a perfectly good-humored woman,
as we have seen, and having a regard for Briggs, she pulled
up the ponies at the doorsteps, gave the reins to the groom,
and, jumping out, had hold of both Briggs’s hands, before
she of the agreeable manners had recovered from the shock
of seeing an old friend.

Briggs cried, and Becky laughed a great deal, and kissed
the gentlewoman as soon as they got into the passage; and
thence into Mrs. Bowls’s front parlor, with the red moreen
curtains, and the round looking-glass, with the chained eagle
above, gazing upon the back of the ticket in the window
which announced “Apartments to Let.”

Briggs told all her history amidst those perfectly uncalled-
for sobs and ejaculations of wonder with which women of
her soft nature salute an old acquaintance, or regard a ren-
contre in the street; for though people meet other people
every day, yet some there are who insist upon discovering
miracles; and women, even though they have disliked each
other, begin to cry when they meei, deploring and remem-
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO, 67

bering the time when they last quarreled. So, in a word,
Briggs told all her history, and Becky gave a narrative of
her own life, with her usual artlessness and candor.

Mrs. Bowls, late Firkin, came and listened grimly in the
passage to the hysterical sniffing and giggling which went
on in the front parlor. Becky had never been a favorite
of hers. Since the establishment of the married couple in
London they had frequented their former friends of the house
of Raggles, and did not like the latter’s account of the Col-
onel’s ménage. “TI wouldn’t trust him, Ragg, my boy,” Bowls
remarked; and his wife, when Mrs. Rawdon issued from the
parlor, only saluted the lady with a very sour courtesy; and
her fingers were like so many sausages, cold and lifeless, when
she held them out in deference to Mrs. Rawdon, who per-
sisted in shaking hands with the retired lady’s maid. She
whirled away into Piccadilly, nodding with the sweetest of
smiles, towards Miss Briggs, who hung nodding at the win-
dow close under the advertisement-card, and at the next mo-
ment was in the Park with a half-dozen of dandies cantering
after her carriage.

When she found how her friend was situated, and how,
having a snug legacy from Miss Crawley, salary was no ob-
ject to our gentlewoman, Becky instantly formed some be-
nevolent little domestic plans concerning her. This was just
such a companion as would suit her establishment, and she
invited Briggs to come to dinner with her that very evening,
when she should see Becky’s dear little darling Rawden.

Mrs. Bowls cautioned her lodger against venturing into the
lion’s den, “wherein you will rue it, Miss B., mark my words,
and as sure as my name is Bowls.” And Briggs promised
to be very cautious. The upshot of which caution was that
she went to live with Mrs. Rawdon the next week, and had
lent Rawdon Crawley six hundred pounds upon annuity be-
fore six months were over.

28
68 VANITY FAIR,

CHAPTER VII.

IN WHICH BECKY REVISITS THE HALLS OF HER ANCES-
TORS.

So, the mourning being ready, and Sir Pitt Crawley warned
of their arrival, Colonel Crawley and his wife took a couple
of places in the same old Highflyer coach, by which Rebecca
had traveled in the defunct Baronet’s company, on her first
journey into the world some nine years before. How well
she remembered the Inn Yard, and the ostler to whom she
refused money, and the insinuating Cambridge lad who
wrapped her in his coat on the journey! Rawdon took his
place outside, and would have liked to drive, but his grief
forbade him. He sat by the coachmean, and talked about
horses and the road the whole way; and who kept the inns,
and who horsed the coach by which he had traveled so many
a time, when he and Pitt were boys going to Eton. At Mud-
bury, a carriage and a pair of horses received them, with a
coachman in black. “It’s the old drag, Rawdon,” Rebecca
said, ds they got in. “The worms have eaten the cloth a
good deal,—there’s the stain which Sir Pitt—ha! I see Daw-
son the Ironmonger has his shutters up,—which Sir Pitt
made such a noise about. It was a bottle of cherry brandy
he broke, which we went to fetch for your aunt from South-
ampton. How time flies, to be sure!—that can’t be Polly
Talboys, that bouncing gir] standing by her mother at the
cottage there. I remember her a mangy little urchin pick-
ing weeds in the garden.”

“Fine gal,” said Rawdon, returning the salute which the
cottage gave him, by two fingers applied to his crape hat-
band. Becky bowed and saluted, and recognized people here
and there graciously. These recognitions were inexpressi-
bly pleasant to her. It seemed as if she was not an imposter
any more, and was coming to the home of her ancestors.
Rawdon was rather abashed and cast down, on the other
hand. What recollections of boyhood and innocence might
have been flitting across his brain? What pangs of dim
remorse and doubt and shame?

“Your sisters must be young women now,” Rebecca said,
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO, 69

thinking of those girls for the first time, perhaps since she
had left them.

“Don’t know, I’m shaw,” replied the Colonel. “Hullo!
here’s old Mother Lock. How-dy-do, Mrs. Lock. Remem-
ber me, don’t you? Master Rawdon, hey? Dammy, how
those old women last; she was a hundred when I was a boy.”

They were going through the lodge-gates kept by old Mrs.
Lock, whose hand Rebecca insisted upon shaking, as she flung
open the creaking old iron gate, and the carriage passed be-
tween the two moss-grown pillars surmounted by the dove
and serpent.

“The governor has cut into the timber,’ Rawdon said,
looking about, and then was silent: so was Becky. Both
of them were rather agitated, and thinking of old times. He
about Eton, and his mother, whom he remembered,—a frigid,
demure woman, and a sister who died, of whom he had been
passionately fond; and how he used to thrash Pitt; and about
little Rawdy at home. And Rebecca thought about her own
youth, and the dark secrets of those early tainted days; and
of her entrance into life by yonder gates; and of Miss Pinker-
ton, and Joe, and Amelia.

The gravel walk and terrace had been scraped quite clean.
A grand painted hatchment was already over the great en-
trance, and two very solemn and tall personages in black
flung open each a leaf of the door as the carriage pulled up
at the familiar steps. Rawdon turned red, and Becky some-
what pale, as they passed through the old hall, arm in arm.
She pinched her husband’s arm as they entered the oak par-
lor, where Sir Pitt and his wife were ready to receive them.
Sir Pitt in black, Lady Jane in black, and my Lady South-
down with a large black head-piece of bugles and feathers,
which waved on her Ladyship’s head like an undertaker’s
tray.

Sir Pitt had judged correctly, that she would not quit the
premises. She contented herself by preserving a solemn and
stony silence, when in company of Pitt and his rebellious
wife, and by frightening the children in the nursery by the
ghastly gloom of her demeanor. Only a very faint bending
of the head-dress and plumes welcomed Rawdon and his wife,
as those prodigals returned to their family.

To say the truth, they were not affected very much one
way or other by this coolness. Her Ladyship was a person
only of secondary consideration in their minds just then,—
70 VANITY FAIR.

they were intent upon the reception which the reigning
brother and sister would afford them.

Pitt, with rather a heightened color, went up and shook
his brother by the hand, and saluted Rebecca with a hand-
shake and a very low bow. But Lady Jane took both the
hands of her sister-in-law, and kissed her affectionately. The
embrace somehow brought tears into the eyes of the little
adventuress,—which ornaments, as we know, she wore very
seldom. The artless mark of kindness and confidence touched
and pleased her; and Rawdon, encouraged by this demonstra-
tion on his sister’s part, twirled up his mustachios, and took
leave to salute Lady Jane with a kiss, which caused her Lady-
ship to blush exceedingly.

“Dev’lish nice little woman, Lady Jane,” was his verdict,
when he and his wife were together again. “Pitt’s got fat,
too, and is doing the thing handsomely.” “He can afford
it,” said Rebecca, and agreed in her husband’s further opin-
ion, “that the mother-in-law was a tremendous old Guy,—and
that the sisters were rather well-looking young women.”

They, too, had been summoned from school to attend the
funeral ceremonies. It seemed Sir Pitt Crawley, for the
dignity of the house and family, had thought right to have
about the place as many persons in black as could possibly
be assembled. All the men and maids of the house, the old
women of the Almshouse, whom the elder Sir Pitt had cheated
out of a great portion of their due, the parish clerk’s fam-
ily, and the special retainers of both Hall and Rectory, were
habited in sable; added to these, the undertaker’s men, at
least a score, with crapes and hat-bands, and who made a
goodly show when the great burying show took place; but
these are mute personages in our drama, and, having nothing
to do or say, need occupy a very little space here.

With regard to her sisters-in-law, Rebecca did not attempt
to forget her former position of governess towards them, but
recalled it frankly and kindly, and asked them about their
studies with great gravity, and told them that she had thought
of them many and many a day, and longed to know of their
welfare. In fact, you would have supposed that ever since
she had left them she had not ceased to keep them upper-
most in her thoughts, and to take the tenderest interest in
their welfare. So supposed Lady Crawley herself and her
young sisters.
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. “1

_ “She’s hardly changed since eight years,” said Miss Rosa-
lind to Miss Violet, as they were preparing for dinner.

“Those red-haired women look wonderfully well,” replied

the other.
_ “Hers is much darker than it was; I think she must dye
it,” Miss Rosalind added. “She is stouter, too, and altogether
improved,” continued Miss Rosalind, who was disposed to be
very fat.

“At least, she gives herself no airs, and remembers that
she was our governess once,” Miss Violet said, intimating
that it befitted all governesses to keep their proper place,
and forgetting altogether that she was granddaughter not
only of Sir Walpole Crawley, but of Mr. Dawson of Mud-
bury, and so had a coal-scuttle in her scutcheon. There are
other very well-meaning people, whom one meets every day
in Vanity Fair, who are surely equally oblivious.

“It can’t be true what the girls at the Rectory said, that
her mother was an opera-dancer—”

“A person can’t help their birth,” Rosalind replied, with
great liberality. “And I agree with our brother that, as
she is in the family, of course we are bound to notice her. I
am sure Aunt Bute need not talk; she wants to marry Kate
to young Hooper, the wine-merchant, and absolutely asked
him to come to the Rectory for orders.”

“I wonder whether Lady Southdown will go away,—she
looked very glum upon Mrs. Rawdon,” the other said.

“T wish she would. I won’t read the ‘Washerwoman of
Finchley Common,’ ” vowed Violet; and go saying, and avoid-
ing a passage at the end of which a certain coffin was placed
with a couple of watchers, and lights perpetually burning in
the closed room, these young women came down to the fam-
ily dinner, for which the bell rang as usual.

But before this Lady Jane conducted Rebecca to the apart-
ments prepared for her, which, with the rest of the house,
had assumed a very much improved appearance of order and
comfort during Pitt’s regency; and here, beholding that Mrs.
Rawdon’s modest little trunks had arrived, and were placed in
the bedroom and dressing-room adjoining, helped her take
off her neat black bonnet and cloak, and asked her sister-in-
law in what more she could be useful.

“What I should like best,” said Rebecca, “would be to go
to the nursery, and see your dear little children.” On which
72 VANITY FAIR.

the two ladies looked very kindly at each other, and went
to that apartment hand in hand.

Becky admired little Matilda, who was not quite four years
old, as the most charming little love in the world; and the
boy, a little fellow of two years,—pale, heavy-eyed, and large-
headed, she pronounced to be a perfect prodigy in point of
size, intelligence, and beauty.

“IT wish mamma would not insist on giving him so much
medicine,” Lady Jane said, with a sigh. “I often think we
should all be better without it.” And then Lady Jane and
her new-found friend had one of those confidential medical
conversations about the children, which all mothers, and most
women, as I am given to understand, delight in. Fifty years
ago, and when the present writer, being an interesting little
boy, was ordered out of the room with the ladies after dinner,
I remember quite well that their talk was chiefly about their
ailments; and putting this question directly to two or three
since, I have always got from them the acknowledgment that
times are not changed. Let my fair readers remark for them-
selves this very evening when they quit the dessert-table, and
assemble to celebrate the drawing-room mysteries. Well, in
half an hour Becky and Lady Jane were close and intimate
friends; and in the course of the evening her Ladyship in-
formed Sir Pitt that she thought her new sister-in-law was a
kind, frank, unaffected, and affectionate young woman.

’ And so, having easily won the daughter’s good-will, the in-
defatigable little woman bent herself to conciliate the august
Lady Southdown. As soon as she found her Ladyship
alone, Rebecca attacked her on the nursery question at once,
and said that her own little boy was saved, actually saved, by
calomel, freely administered, when all the physicians in Paris
had given the dear child up. And then she mentioned how
often she had heard of Lady Southdown from that excellent
man the Reverend Lawrence Grills, Minister of the chapel
in May Fair, which she frequented; and how her views were
very much changed by circumstances and misfortunes; and
how she hoped that a past life spent in worldliness and error
might not incapacitate her from more serious thought for the
future. She described how in former days she had been in-
debted to Mr. Crawley for religious instruction, touched upon
the “Washerwoman of Finchley Common,” which she had
read with the greatest profit, and asked about Lady Emily,
its gifted author, now Lady Emily Hornblower, at Cape Town,
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 73

where her husband had strong hopes of becoming Bishop of
Caffraria.

But she crowned all, and confirmed herself in Lady South-
down’s favor, by feeling very much agitated and unwell after
the funeral, and requesting her Ladyship’s medical advice,
which the Dowager not only gave, but, wrapped up in a bed-
gown, and looking more like Lady Macbeth than ever, came
privately in the night to Becky’s room, with a parcel of favor-
ite tracts, and a medicine of her own composition, which she
insisted that Mrs. Rawdon should take.

Becky first accepted the tracts, and began to exaiine them
with great interest, engaging the Dowager in a conversation
concerning them and the welfare of her soul, by which means
she hoped that her body might escape medication. But after
the religious topics were exhausted, Lady Macbeth would not
quit Becky’s chamber until her cup of night-drink was
emptied too; and poor Mrs. Rawdon was compelled actually
to assume a look of gratitude, and to swallow the medicine
under the unyielding old Dowager’s nose, who left her victim
finally with a benediction.

It did not much comfort Mrs. Rawdon; her countenance
was very queer when Rawdon came in and heard what had
happened; and his explosions of laughter were as loud as
usual, when Becky, with a fun which she could not disguise,
even though it was at her own expense, described the occur-
rence, and how she had been victimized by Lady Southdown.
Lord Steyne, and her son in London, had many a laugh over
the story, when Rawdon and his wife returned to their quar-
ters in May Fair. Becky acted the whole scene for them.
She put on a nightcap and gown. She preached a great ser-
mon in the true serious manner: she lectured on the virtue
of the medicine which she pretended to administer, with a
gravity of imitation so perfect, that you would have thought
it was the Countess’s own Roman nose through which she
snuffled. “Give us Lady Southdown and the black dose,”
was a constant cry amongst the folks in Becky’s little drawing-
room in May Fair. And for the first time in her life the
Dowager Countess of Southdown was made amusing.

Sir Pitt remembered the testimonies of respect and vener-
ation which Rebecca had paid personally to himself in early
days, and was tolerably well disposed towards her. The mar-
riage, ill-advised as it was, had improved Rawdon very much,
—that was clear from the Colonel’s altered habits and de-
44 VANITY FAIR,

meanor,—and had it not been a lucky union as regarded Pitt
himself? The cunning diplomatist smiled inwardly as he
owned that he owed his fortune to it, and acknowledged that
he at least ought not to cry out against it. His satisfaction
was not removed by Rebecca’s own statements, behavior, and
conversation.

She doubled the deference which before had charmed him,
calling out his conversational powers in such a manner
as quite to surprise Pitt himself, who, always inclined to re-
spect his own talents, admired them the more when Rebecca
pointed them out to him. With her sister-in-law, Rebecca
was satisfactorily able to prove that it was Mrs. Bute Crawley
who brought about the marriage which she afterwards so
calumniated; that it was Mrs. Bute’s avarice—who hoped to
gain all Miss Crawley’s fortune, and deprive Rawdon of his
aunt’s favor—which caused and invented all the wicked re-
ports against Rebecca. “She succeeded in making us poor,”
Rebecca said, with an air of angelical patience; “but how can
I be angry with a woman who has given me one of the best
husbands in the world? And has not her own avarice been
sufficiently punished by the ruin of her own hopes, and the
loss of the property by which she set so much store? Poor!”
she cried. “Dear Lady Jane, what care we for poverty? I
am used to it from childhood, and I am often thankful that
Miss Crawley’s money has gone to restore the splendor of the
noble old family of which I am so proud to be a member. I
am sure Sir Pitt will make a much better use of it than Raw-
don would.”

All these speeches were reported to Sir Pitt by the most
faithful of wives and increased the favorable impression which
Rebecca made; so much so, that when on the third day after
the funeral the family party were at dinner, Sir Pitt Crawley,
carving fowls at the head of the table, actually said to Mrs.
Rawdon, “Ahem! Rebecca, may I give you a wing?”—a
speech which made the little woman’s eyes sparkle with
pleasure.

While Rebecca was prosecuting the above schemes and
hopes, and Pitt Crawley arranging the funeral ceremonial and
other matters connected with his future progress and dignity,
and Lady Jane busy with her nursery, as far as her mother
would let her, and the sun rising and setting, and the clock-
tower bell of the Hall ringing to dinner and to prayers as
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 75

usual, the body of the late owner of Queen’s Crawley lay in
the apartment which he had occupied, watched unceasingly
by the professional attendants who were engaged for that
rite. A woman or two, and three or four undertaker’s men,
the best whom Southampton could furnish, dressed in black,
and of a proper stealthy and tragical demeanor, had charge
of the remains, which they watched turn about, having the
house-keeper’s room for their place of rendezvous when off
duty, where they played at cards in privacy and drank their
eer.

The members of the family and servants of the house kept
away from the gloomy spot, where the bones of the descend-
ant of an ancient line of knights and gentlemen lay, awaiting
their final consignment to the family crypt. No regrets at-
tended them, save those of the poor woman who had hoped to
be Sir Pitt’s wife and widow, and who had fled in disgrace
from the Hall over which she had so nearly been a ruler. Be-
yond her and a favorite old pointer he had, and between whom
and himself an attachment subsisted during the period of his
imbecility, the old man had not a single friend to mourn him,
having indeed, during the whole course of his life, never taken
the least pains to secure one. Could the best and kindest of
us who depart from the earth have an opportunity of revisit-
ing it, I suppose he or she (assuming that any Vanity Fair
feelings subsist in the sphere whither we are bound) would
have a pang of mortification at finding how soon our survivors
were consoled. And so Sir Pitt was forgotten,—lke the
kindest and best of us,—only a few weeks sooner.

Those who will may follow his remains to the grave,
whither they were borne on the appointed day, in the most
becoming manner, the family in black coaches, with their
handkerchiefs up to their noses, ready for the tears which did
not come: the undertaker and his gentlemen in deep tribula-
tion: the select tenantry mourning out of compliment to the
new landlord: the neighboring gentry’s carriages at three
miles an hour, empty, and in profound affliction: the parson
speaking out the formula about “our dear brother departed.”
As long as we have a man’s body, we play our Vanities upon
it, surrounding it with humbug and ceremonies, laying it in
state, and packing it up in gilt nails and velvet: and we finish
our duty by placing over it a stone, written all over with lies.
Bute’s curate, a smart young fellow from Oxford, and Sir
Pitt Crawley, composed between them an appropriate Latin
7 VANITY FAIR.

epitaph for the late lamented Baronet; and the former
preached a classical sermon, exhorting the survivors not to
give way to grief, and informing them in the most respectful
terms that they also would be one day called upon to pass that
gloomy and mysterious portal which had just closed upon
the remains of their lamented brother. Then the tenantry
mounted on horseback again, or stayed and refreshed them-
selves at the Crawley Arms. Then, after a lunch in the ser-
vants hall at Queen’s Crawley, the gentry’s carriages wheeled
off to their different destinations: then the undertaker’s men,
taking the ropes, palls, velvets, ostrich feathers, and other
mortuary properties, clambered up on the roof of the hearse,
and rode off to Southampton. Their faces relapsed into a
natural expression as the horses, clearing the lodge-gates, got
into a brisker trot on the open road; and squads of them
might have been seen, speckling with black the public-house
entrances, with pewter-pots flashing in the sunshine. Sir
Pitt’s invalid-chair was wheeled away into a tool-house in the
garden: the old pointer used to howl sometimes at first, but
these were the only accents of grief which were heard in the
Hall of which Sir Pitt Crawley, Baronet, had been master for
some threescore years.

As the birds were pretty plentiful, and partridge-shooting
is, as it were, the duty of an English gentleman of statesman-
like propensities, Sir Pitt Crawley, the first shock of grief
over, went out a little and partook of that diversion in a white
hat with a crape round it. The sight of those fields of stubble
and turnips, now his own, gave him many secret joys. Some-
times, and with an exquisite humility, he took no gun, but
went out with a peaceful bamboo cane; Rawdon, his big broth-
er, and the keepers, blazing away at his side. Pitt’s money
and acres had a great effect upon his brother. The penniless
Colonel became quite obsequious and respectful to the head
of his house, and despised the milk-sop Pitt no longer. Raw-
don listened with sympathy to his senior’s prospects of plant-
ing and draining: gave his advice about the stables and cattle,
rode over to Mudbury to look at a mare which he thought
would carry Lady Jane, and offered to break her, etc.: the
rebellious dragoon was quite humbled and subdued, and be-
came a most creditable younger brother. He had constant
bulletins from Miss Briggs in London respecting little Raw-
don, who was left behind there; who sent messages of his
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. é 77

own. “Iam very well,” he wrote. “I hope you are very well.
I hope mamma is very well. The pony is very well. Grey
takes me to ride in the Park. I can canter. I met the little
boy who rode before. He cried when he cantered. I do not
cry.” Rawdon read these letters to his brother, and Lady
Jane, who was delighted with them. The Baronet promised
to take charge of the lad at school; and his kind-hearted wife
gave Rebecca a bank-note, begging her to buy a present with
it for her little nephew.

One day followed another, and the ladies of the house
passed their life in those calm pursuits and amusements
which satisfy country ladies. Bells rang to meals, and to pray-
ers. The young ladies took exercise on the piano-forte every
morning after breakfast, Rebecca giving them the benefit of
her instruction. Then they put on thick shoes and walked
in the park or shrubberies, or beyond the palings into the vil-
lage, descending upon the cottages, with Lady Southdown’s
medicine and tracts for the sick people there. Lady South-
down drove out in a pony-chaise, when Rebecca would take her
place by the Dowager’s side, and listen to her solemn talk
with the utmost interest. She sang Handel and Haydn to the
family of evenings, and engaged in a large piece of worsted
work, as if she had been born to the business, and as if this
kind of life was to continue with her until she should sink to
the grave in a polite old age, leaving regrets and a great
quantity of consols behind her,—as if there were not cares
and duns, schemes, shifts, and poverty, waiting outside the
Park gates, to pounce upon her when she issued into the
world again.

“Tt isn’t difficult to be a country gentleman’s wife,” Rebecca
thought. “I think I could be a good woman if I had five
thousand a year. I could dawdle about in the nursery, and
count the apricots on the wall. I could water plants in a
greenhouse, and pick off dead leaves from the geraniums. I
could ask old women about their rheumatisms, and order half
a crown’s worth of soup for the poor. I shouldn’t miss it
much, out of five thousand a year. I could even drive ett
ten miles to dine at a neighbor’s, and dress in the fashions
of the year before last. I could go to church and keép awake
in the great family pew: or go to sleep behind the curtains,
with my veil down, if I only had practice. I could pay every-
body, if Ihad but the money. This is what the conjurers here
pride themselves upon doing. They look down with pity
78 VANITY FAIR.

upon us miserable sinners who have none. They think them-
selves generous if they give our children a five-pound note,
and us contemptible if we are without one.” And who knows
but Rebecca was right in her speculations,—and that it was
only a question of money and fortune which made the differ-
ence between her and an honest woman? If you take tempta-
tions into account, who is to say that he is better than his
neighbor? A comfortable career of prosperity, if it does not
make people honest, at least keeps them so. An
alderman coming from a _ turtle feast will not
step out of his carriage to steal a leg of mutton;
but put him to starve, and see if he will not pur-
loin a loaf. Becky consoled herself by so balancing the
chances and equalizing the distribution of good and evil in the
world.

The old haunts, the old fields and woods, the copses, ponds,
and gardens, the rooms of the old house where she had spent
a couple of years seven years ago, were all carefully revisited
by her. She had been young there, or comparatively so, for
she forgot the time when she ever was young,—but she re-
membered her thoughts and feelings seven years back, and
contrasted them with those which she had at present, now that
she had seen the world and lived with great people, and raised
herself far beyond her original humble station.

“T have passed beyond it, because I have brains,” Becky
thought, “and almost all the rest of the world are fools. I
could not go back, and consort with those people now, whom
I used to meet in my father’s studio. Lords come up to my
door with stars and garters instead of poor artists with screws
of tobacco in their pockets. I have a gentleman for my hus-
band, and an Earl’s daughter for my sister, in the very house
where I was little better than a servant a few years ago. But
am I much better to do now in the world than I was when
I was the poor painters’ daughter, and wheedled the grocer
round the corner for sugar and tea? Suppose I had married
Francis who was so fond of me,—I couldn’t have been much
poorer than I am now. MHeigho! I wish I could exchange
my position in society, and all my relations, for a snug sum in
the Three per Cent Consols”; for so it was that Becky felt the
Vanity of human affairs, and it was in those securities that
she would have liked to cast anchor.

It may, perhaps, have struck her that to have been honest
and humble, to have done her duty, and to have marched
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 73

straightforward on her way, would have brought her as near
happiness as that path by which she was striving to attain
it. But—just as the children at Queen’s Crawley went round
the room, where the body of their father lay—if ever Becky
had these thoughts, she was accustomed to walk round them,
and not look in. She eluded them, and despised them,—or
at least she was committed to the other path from which re-
treat was now impossible. And for my part I believe that
remorse is the least active of all a man’s moral senses,—the
very easiest to be deadened when wakened, and in some never
wakened at all. We grieve at being found out, and at the idea
of shame or punishment; but the mere sense of wrong makes
very few people unhappy in Vanity Fair.

So Rebecca, during her stay at Queen’s Crawley, made as
many friends of the Mammon of Unrighteousness as she could
possibly bring under control. Lady Jane and her husband
bade her farewell with the warmest demonstrations of good-
will. They looked forward with pleasure to the time when,
the family-house in Gaunt Street being repaired and beauti-
fied, they were to meet again in London. Lady Southdown
made her up a packet of medicine, and sent a letter by her
to the Rev. Lawrence Grills, exhorting that gentleman to save
the brand who “honored” the letter from the burning. Pitt
accompanied them with four horses in the carriage to Mud-
bury, having sent on their baggage in a cart previously, ac-
companied with loads of game.

“How happy you will be to see your darling little boy
again,” Lady Crawley said, taking leave of her kinswoman.

“OQ so happy,” said Rebecca, throwing up the green eyes.
She was immensely happy to be free of the place, and yet
loath to go. Queen’s Crawley was abominably stupid; and
yet the air there was somehow purer than that which she had
been accustomed to breathe. Everybody had been dull, but
had been kind in their way. “It is all the influence of a long
course of Three per Cents,” Becky said to herself, and was
right, very likely.

However, the London lamps flashed joyfully as the stage
rolled into Piccadilly, and Briggs had made a beautiful fire
in Curzon Street, and little Rawdon was up to welcome back
his papa and mamma.
80 VANITY FAIR.

CHAPTER VIII.
WHICH TREATS OF THE OSBORNE FAMILY,

Considerable time has elapsed since we have seen our re-
spectable friend, old Mr. Osborne of Russell Square. He has
not been the happiest of mortals since last we met him.
Events have occurred which have not improved his temper,
and in more instances than one he has not been allowed to
have his own way. To be thwarted in this reasonable desire was
always very injurious to the old gentleman; and resistance
became doubly exasperating when gout, age, loneliness, and
the force of many disappointments, combined to weigh him
down. His stiff black hair began to grow quite white soon
after his son’s death; his face grew redder; his hands trembled
more and more as he poured out his glass of port wine. He
led his clerks a dire life in the city: his family at home were
not much happier. I doubt if Rebecca, whom we have seen
piously praying for Consols, would have exchanged her pov-
erty, and the dare-devil excitement and chances of her life,
for Osborne’s money and the humdrum gloom which enveloped
him. He had proposed for Miss Swartz, but had been re-
jected scornfully by the partisans of that lady, who married
her to a young sprig of Scotch nobility. He was a man to
have married a woman out of low life, and bullied her dread-
fully afterwards: but no person presented herself suitable
to his taste; and, instead, he tyrannized over his unmarried
daughter, at home. She had a fine carriage and fine horses,
and sat at the head of a table loaded with the grandest plate.
She had a check-book, a prize footman to follow her when she
walked, unlimited credit, and bows and compliments from all
the tradesmen, and all the appurtenances of an heiress; but
she spent a woful time. The little charity-girls at the Found-
ling, the sweeperess at the crossing, the poorest under-kitchen-
maid in the servants’ hall, was happy compared to that un-
fortunate and now middle-aged young lady.

Frederick Bullock, Esq., of the house of Bullock, Hulker,
and Bullock, had married Maria Osborne, not without a
great deal of difficulty and grumbling on Mr. Bullock’s part.
George being dead and cut out of his father’s will, Frederick
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO, 81

insisted that the half of the old gentleman’s property should
be settled upon his Maria, and indeed, for a long time, refused
“to come to the scratch” (it was Mr. Frederick’s own expres-
sign) on any other terms. Osborne said Fred had agreed to
take his daughter with twenty thousand, and he should bind
himself to no more. “Fred might take it and welcome, or leave
it, and go and be hanged.” Fred, whose hopes had been raised
when George had been disinherited, thought himself infam-
ously swindled by the old merchant, and for some time made
as if he would break off the match altogether. Osborne with-
drew his account from Bullock and WHulker’s, went on
*Change with a horsewhip which he swore he would lay across
the back of a certain scoundrel that should be nameless, and
demeaned himself in his usual violent manner. Jane Osborne
condoled with her sister Maria during this family feud. “I
always told you, Maria, that it was your money he loved, and
not you,” she said, soothingly.

“He selected me and my money at any rate: he didn’t
choose you and yours,” replied Maria, tossing up her head.

The rupture was, however, only temporary. Fred’s father
and senior partners counseled him to take Maria, even with
the twenty thousand settled half down, and half at the death
of Mr. Osborne, with the chances of the further division of
the property. So he “knuckled down,” again to use his own
phrase; and sent old Hulker with peaceable overtures to Os-
borne. It was his father, he said, who would not hear of
the match, and had made the difficulties; he was most
anxious to keep the engagement. The excuse was sulkily ac-
cepted by Mr. Osborne. Hulker and Bullock were a high
family of the city aristocracy, and connected with the “nobs”
at the West End. It was something for the old man to be
able to say, “My son, sir, of the house of Hulker, Bullock, and
Co., sir; my daughter’s cousin, Lady Mary Mango, sir, daugh-
ter of the Right Hon. the Earl of Castlemouldy.” In his im-
agination he saw his house peopled by the “nobs.” So he
forgave young Bullock, and consented that the marriage
should take place. ;

It was a grand affair,—the bridegroom’s relatives giving
the breakfast, their habitations being near St. George’s, Han-
over Square, where the business took place. The “nobs of
the West End” were invited, and many of them signed the
book. Mr. Mango and Lady Mary Mango were there, with
the dear young Gwendoline and Gwinever Mango as bride’s-

Vol. I1.—6
82 VANITY FAIR.

maiaus; Colonel Bludyer of the Dragoon Guards (eldest son
of the house of Bludyer Brothers, Mincing Lane), another
cousin of the bridegroom, and the Honorable Mrs. Bludyer;
the Honorable George Boulter, Lord Levaant’s son, and his
lady, Miss Mango that was; Lord Viscount Castletoddy; Honor-
able James McMull and Mrs. McMull (formerly Miss Swartz),
and a host of fashionables, who have all married into Lombard
Street, and done a great deal to ennoble Cornhill.

The young couple had a house near Berkeley Square, and
a small villa at Roehampton, among the banking colony there.
Fred was considered to have made rather a mésalliance by the
ladies of his family, whose grandfather had been in a Charity
School, and who were allied through the husbands with some
of the best blood in England. And Maria was bound, by
superior pride and great care in the composition of her visit-
ing-book, to make up for the defects of birth; and felt it her
duty to see her father and sister as little as possible.

That she should utterly break with the old man, who had
still so many scores of thousand pounds to give away, is ab-
surd to suppose. Fred Bullock would never allow her to do
that. But she was still young and incapable of hiding her
feelings; and by inviting her papa and sister to her third-
rate parties, and behaving very coldly to them when they
came, and by avoiding Russell Square, and indiscreetly beg-
ging her father to quit that odious vulgar place, she did more
harm than all Frederick’s diplomacy could repair, and periled
her chance of her inheritance like a giddy, headless creature
as she was.

“So Russell Square is not good enough for Mrs. Maria,
hay?” said the old gentleman, rattling up the carriage-win-
dows as he and his daughter drove away one night from Mrs.
Frederick Bullock’s, after dinner. “So she invites her father
and sister to a second day’s dinner (if those sides, or ontrys as
she calls ’em, weren’t served yesterday, ’m d d), and to
meet City folks and littery men, and keeps the Earls and the
Ladies and the Honorables to herself. Honorables? Damn
Honorables. I am a plain British merchant, Iam: and could
buy the beggarly hounds over and over. Lords, indeed!—
why, at one of her swarreys I saw one of ’em speak to a dam
fiddler,—a fellar I despise. And they won’t come to Russell
Square, won’t they? Why, I’ll lay my life I’ve got a better
glass of wine and pay a better figure for it, and can show a
handsomer service of silver, and can lay a better dinner on

 
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 83

 

my mahogany, than ever they see on theirs, the cringing,
sneaking, stuck-up fools. Drive on quick, James: I want to
get back to Russell Square,—ha, ha!” and he sunk back into
the corner with a furious laugh. With such reflections on his
own superior merit, it was the custom of the old gentleman
not untfrequently to console himself.

Jane Osborne could not but concur in these opinions re-
specting her sister’s conduct; and when Mrs. Frederick’s first-
born, Frederic Augustus Howard Stanley Devereux Bullock,
was born, old Osborne, who was invited to the christening and
to be godfather, contented himself with sending the child a
gold cup, with twenty guineas inside it for the nurse. “That’s
more than any of your Lords will give, I’ll warrant,” he said,
and refused to attend at the ceremony.

The splendor of the gift, however, caused great satisfaction
to the house of Bullock. Maria thought that her father was
very much pleased with her, and Frederick augured the best
for his little son and heir.

One can fancy the pangs with which Miss Osborne in her
solitude in Russell Square read the “Morning Post,” where
her sister’s name occurred every now and then, in the articles
headed “Fashionable Reunions,” and where she had an op-
portunity of reading a description of Mrs. F. Bullock’s cos-
tume, when presented at the drawing-room by Lady Frederica
Bullock. Jane’s own life, as we have said, admitted of no
such grandeur. It was an awful existence. She had to get
up of black winter’s mornings to make breakfast for her scowl-
ing old father, who would have turned the whole house out
of doors if his tea had not been ready at half past eight. She
remained silent opposite to him, listening to the urn hissing,
and sitting in tremor while the parent read his paper, and con-
sumed his acc1stomed portion of muffins and tea. At half
past nine he rose and went to the City, and she was almost
free till dinner-time, to make visitations in the kitchen, and
to scold the servants; to drive abroad and descend upon the
tradesmen, who were prodigiously respectful; to leave her
cards and her papa’s at the great glum respectable houses of
their City friends; or to sit alone in the large drawing-room,
expecting visitors; and working at a huge piece of worsted by
the fire, on the sofa, hard by the great Iphigenia clock, which
ticked and tolled with mournful loudness in the dreary room.
The great glass over the mantcl-piece faced by the other
great console glass at the opposite end of the room, increased
84 VANITY FAIR.

and multiplied between them the brown Holland bag in which
the chandelier hung; until you saw these brown Holland bags
fading away in endless perspectives, and this apartment of
Miss Osborne’s seemed the center of a system of drawing-
rooms. When she removed the cordovan leather from the
grand piano, and ventured to play a few notes on it, it sounded
with a mournful sadness, startling the dismal echoes of the
house. George’s picture was gone, and laid up stairs in a
lumber-room in the garret; and though there was a conscious-
ness of him, and father and daughter often instinctively knew
that they were thinking of him, no mention was ever made of
the brave and once darling son.

At five o’clock Mr. Osborne came back to his dinner, which
he and his daughter took in silence (seldom broken, except
when he swore and was savage, if the cooking was not to his
liking), or which they shared twice in a month with a party
of dismal friends of Osborne’s rank and age. Old Dr. Gulp
and his lady from Bloomsbury Square: old Mr. Frowser, the
attorney, from Bedford Row, a very great man, and from his
business hand in glove with the “nobs at the West End”; old
Colonel Livermore, of the Bombay Army, and Mrs. Liver-
more, from Upper Bedford Place; old Sergeant Toffy and
Mrs. Toffy; and sometimes old Sir Thomas Coffin and Lady
Coffin, from Bedford Square. Sir Thomas was celebrated as a
hanging judge, and the particular tawny port was produced
when he dined with Mr. Osborne.

These people and their like gave the pompous Russell Square
merchant pompous dinners back again. They had solemn
rubbers of whist, when they went up stairs after drinking,
and their carriages were called at half past ten. Many rich
people, whom we poor devils are in the habit of envying, lead
contentedly an existence like that above described. Jane Os-
borne scarcely ever met a man under sixty, and almost the
only bachelor who appeared in their society was Mr. Smirk,
the celebrated lady’s doctor.

I can’t say that nothing had occurred to disturb the mon-
otony of this awful existence: the fact is, there had been a
secret in poor Jane’s life which had made her father more
savage and morose than even nature, pride, and over-feeding
had made him. This secret was connected with Miss Wirt,
who had a cousin an artist, Mr. Smee, very celebrated since as
a portrait-painter and R. A., but who once was glad enough
to give drawing-lessons to ladies of fashion. Mr. Smee has
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 85

forgotten where Russell Square is now, but he was glad
enough to visit it in the year 1818, when Miss Osborne had
instruction from him.

Smee (formerly a pupil of Sharpe of Frith Street, a dis-
solute, irregular, and unsuccessful man, but a man with
great knowledge of his art) being the cousin of Miss Wirt, we
say, and introduced by her to Miss Osborne, whose hand and
heart were still free after various incomplete love affairs, felt
a great attachment for this lady, and, it is believed, inspired
one in her bosom. Miss Wirt was the confidante of this in-
trigue. I know not whether she used to leave the room where
the master and his pupil were painting, in order to give them
an opportunity for exchanging those vows and sentiments
which cannot be uttered advantageously in the presence of a
third party; I know not whether she hoped that, should her
cousin succeed in carrying off the rich merchant’s daughter,
he would give Miss Wirt a portion of the wealth which she
had enabled him to win,—all that is certain is, that Mr. Os-
borne got some hint of the transaction, came back from the
City abruptly, and entered the drawing-room with his bam-
boo cane; found the painter, the pupil, and the companion
all looking exceedingly pale there; turned the former out of
doors with menaces that he would break every bone in his
skin, and half an hour afterwards dismissed Miss Wirt likewise,
kicking her trunks down the stairs, trampling on her band-
boxes, and shaking his fist at her hackney-coach, as it bore
her away.

Jane Osborne kept her bedroom for many days. She was
not allowed to have a companion afterwards. Her father
swore to her that she should not have a shilling of his money
if she made any match without his concurrence; and as he
wanted a woman to keep his house, he did not choose that
she should marry,—so that she was obliged to give up all
projects with which Cupid had any share. During her papa’s
life, then, she resigned herself to the manner of existence here
described, and was content to be an Old Maid. Her sister,
meanwhile, was having children with finer names every year,
—and the intercourse between the two grew fainter continual-
ly. “Jane and I do not move in the same sphere of life,” Mrs.
Bullock said. “I regard her as a sister, of course,”’—which
means,—what does it mean when a lady says that she regards
Jane as a sister?
86 VANITY FAIR.

It has been described how the Misses Dobbin lived with their
father at a fine villa at Denmark Hill, where there were beauti-
ful graperies and peach-trees which delighted little Georgy
Osborne. The Misses Dobbin, who drove often to Brompton
to see our dear Amelia, came sometimes to Russell Square,
too, to pay a visit to their old acquaintance, Miss Osborne.
I believe it was in consequence of the commands of their
brother, the Major in India (for whom their papa had a pro-
digious respect), that they paid attention to Mrs. George;
for the Major, the godfather and guardian of Amelia’s little
boy, still hoped that the child’s grandfather might be induced
to relent towards him, and acknowledge him for the sake of
his son. The Miss Dobbins kept Miss Osborne acquainted
with the state of Amelia’s affairs; how she was living with the
father and mother; how poor they were: how they wondered
what men, and such men as their brother and dear Captain
Osborne, could find in such an insignificant little chit; how
she was still, as heretofore, a nambypamby, milk-and-water,
affected creature,—but how the boy was really the noblest lit-
tle boy ever seen,—for the hearts of all women warm towards
young children, and the sourest spinster is kind to them.

One day, after great entreaties on the part of the Misses
Dobbin, Amelia allowed little George to go and pass a day
with them at Denmark Hill,—a part of which day she spent
herself in writing to the Major in India. She congratulated
him on the happy news which his sisters had just conveyed
to her. She prayed for his prosperity, and that of the bride
he had chosen. She thanked him for a thousand, thousand
kind offices and proofs of steadfast friendship to her in her af-
fliction. She told him the last news about little Georgy, and
how he was gone to spend that very day with his sisters in the
country. She underlined the letter a great deal, and she
signed herself affectionately his friend, Amelia Osborne. She
forgot to send any message of kindness to Lady O’Dowd, as
her wont was,—and did not mention Glorvina by name, and
only in italics, as the Major’s bride, for whom she begged
blessings. But the news of the marriage removed the reserve
which she had kept up towards him. She was glad to be able
to own and feel how warmly and gratefully she regarded him,
—and as for the idea of being jealous of Glorvina, (Glorvina,
indeed!) Amelia would have scouted it, if an angel from heav-
en had hinted it to her.

That night, when Georgy came back in the pony-carriage in
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 87

which he rejoiced, and in which he was driven by Sir Wm.
Dobbin’s old coachman, he had round his neck a fine gold
chain and watch. He said an old lady, not pretty, had giver
it him, who cried and kissed him a great dea!. But he didn’t
like her. He liked grapes very much. And he only liked his
mamma. Amelia shrunk and started: the timid soul felt a
presentiment of terror when she heard that the relations of the
child’s father had seen him.

Miss Osborne came back to give her father his dinner. He
had made a good speculation in the City, and was rather in a
good-humor that day, and chanced to remark the agitation
under which she labored. ‘“What’s the matter, Miss Os-
borne?” he deigned to say.

The woman burst into tears. “O sir,” she said, “I’ve seen
little George. He is as beautiful as an angel,—and so like
him!” The old man opposite to her did not say a word, but
flushed up, and began to tremble in every limb.

CHAPTER IX.

IN WHICH THE READER HAS TO DOUBLE THE CAPE.

The astonished reader must be called upon to transport
himself ten thousand miles to the military station of Bundle-
gunge, in the Madras division of our Indian empire, where
our gallant old friends of the —th regiment are quartered
under the command of the brave Colonel, Sir Michael O’Dowd.
Time has dealt kindly with that stout officer, as it does ordi-
narily with men who have good stomachs and good tempers,
and are not perplexed overmuch by fatigue of the brain. The
Colonel plays a good knife and fork at tiffin, and resumes
those weapons with great success at dinner. He smokes his
hookah after both meals, and puffs as quietly, while his wife
scolds him, as he did under the fire of the French at Waterloo.
Age and heat have not diminished the activity or the elo-
quence of the descendant of the Malonys and the Molloys.
Her Ladyship, our old acquaintance, is as much at home at
Madras as at Brussels,—in the cantonment as under the tents.
On the march you saw her at the head of the regiment seated
on a royal elephant, a noble sight. Mounted on that beast.
she has been into action with tigers in the jungle: she has
88 VANITY FAIR.

been received by native princes, who have welcomed her and
Glorvina into the recesses of their zenanas, and offered her
shawls and jewels which it went to her heart to refuse. The
sentries of all arms salute her wherever she makes her ap-
pearance; and she touches her hat gravely to their salutation.
Lady O’Dowd is one of the greatest ladies in the Presidency
of Madras,—her quarrel with Lady Smith, wife of Sir Minos
Smith the puisne judge, is still remembered by some at
Madras, when the Colonel’s lady snapped her fingers in the
Judge’s lady’s face, and said she’d never walk behind ever a
‘eggarly civilian. Even now, though it is five-and-twenty
years ago, people remember Lady O’Dowd performing a jig
at Government House, where she danced down two Aides-de-
Camp, a Major of Madras cavalry, and two gentlemen of the
Civil Service; and, persuaded by Major Dobbin, C. B., sec-
ond in command of the —th, to retire to the supper-room,
lassata nondum satiata recessit.

Peggy O’Dowd is indeed the same as ever; kind in act and
thought; impetuous in temper; eager to command; a tyrant
over her Michael; a dragon amongst all the ladies of the regi-
ment; a mother to all the young men, whom she tends in
their sickness, defends in all their scrapes, and with whom
Lady Peggy is immensely popular. But the Subalterns’ and
Captains’ ladies (the Major is unmarried) cabal against her a
good deal. They say that Glorvina gives herself airs, and that
Peggy herself is intolerably domineering. She interfered with
a little congregation which Mrs. Kirk had got up, and laughed
the young men away from her sermons, stating that a soldier’s
wife had no business to be a parson; that Mrs. Kirk would be
much better mending her husband’s clothes; and, if the regi-
ment wanted sermons, that she had the finest in the world,
those of her uncle, the Dean. She abruptly put a termination
to a flirtation which Lieutenant Stubble of the regiment
had commenced with the Surgeon’s wife, threatening to come
down upon Stubble for the money which he had borrowed
from her (for the young fellow was still of an extravagant
turn) unless he broke off at once and went to the Cape, on
sick-leave. On the other hand, she housed and sheltered Mrs.
Posky, who fled from her bungalow one night, pursued by
her infuriate husband, wielding his second brandy bottle, and
actually carried Posky through the delirium tremens, and
broke him of the habit of drinking, which had grown upon
that officer as all evil habits will grow upon men, In a word, in
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 89

adversity she was the best of comforters, in good fortune the
most troublesome of friends; having a perfectly good opinion
of herself always, and an indomitable resolution to have her
own way.

Among other points, she had made up her mind that Glor-
vina should marry our old friend Dobbin. Mrs. O’Dowd knew
the Major’s expectations, and appreciated his good qualities,
and the high character which he enjoyed in his profession.
Glorvina, a very handsome, fresh-colored, black-haired, blue-
eyed young lady, who could ride a horse, or play a sonata with
any girl out of the County Cark, seemed to be the very per-
son destined to insure Dobbin’s happiness,—much more than
that poor good little weak-spur’ted Amelia, about whom he
used to take on so. “Look at Glorvina enter a room,” Mrs.
O’Dowd would say, “and compare her with that poor Mrs.
Osborne, who couldn’t say bo to a goose. She’d be worthy of
you, Major.—yow’re a quiet man yourself, and want some one
to talk for ye. And though she does not come of such good
blood as the Malonys or Molloys, let me tell ye, she’s of an
ancient family that any nobleman might be proud to marry
into.”

But before she had come to stich a resolution, and deter-
mined to subjugate Major Dobbin by her endearments, it
must be owned that Glorvina had practiced them a good deal
elsewhere. She had had a season in Dublin, and who knows
how many in Cork, Killarney, and Mallow? She had flirted
with all the marriageable officers whom the depots of her
country afforded, and all the bachelor squires who seemed
eligible. She had been engaged to be married a half-score
times in Ireland, besides the clergyman at Bath who used her
so ill. She had flirted all the way to Madras with the Cap-
tain and chief-mate of the Ramchunder East-Indiaman, and
had a season at the Presidency with her brother and Mrs.
O’Dowd, who was staying there while the Major of the regi-
ment was in command at the station. Everybody admired her
there; everybody danced with her; but no one proposed who
was worth the marrying; one or two exceedingly young sub-
alterns sighed after her, and a beardless civilian or two; but
she rejected these as beneath her pretensions; and other and
younger virgins than Glorvina were married before her. There
are women, and handsome women too, who have this fortune
in life. They fall in love with the utmost generosity; they
ride and walk with half the Army-list, though they draw near
90 VANITY FAIR,

to forty, and yet the Miss O’Gradys are Miss O’Gradys still;
Glorvina persisted that, but for Lady O’Dowd’s unlucky quar-
rel with the Judge’s lady, she would have made a good match
at Madras, where old Mr. Chutney, who was at the head of
the civil service (and who afterwards married Miss Dolby, a
young lady only thirteen years of age, who had just arrived
from school in Europe), was just at the point of proposing to
her,

Well, although Lady O’Dowd and Glorvina quarreled a
great number of times every day, and upon almost every con-
ceivable subject,—indeed, if Mick O’Dowd had not possessed
the temper of an angel, two such women constantly about
his ears would have driven him out of his senses,—yet they
agreed between themselves on this point, that Glorvina should
marry Major Dobbin, and were determined that the Major
should have no rest until the arrangement was brought about.
Undismayed by forty or fifty previous defeats, Glorvina laid
siege to him. She sang Irish Melodies at him unceasingly.
She asked him so frequently and pathetically, will he come to
the bower? that it is a wonder how any man of feeling could
have resisted the invitation. She was never tired of inquir-
ing, if Sorrow had his young days faded; and was ready to
listen and weep like Desdemona at the stories of his dangers
and his campaigns. It has been said that our honest and dear
old friend used to perform on the flute in private: Glorvina
insisted upon having duets with him, and Lady O’Dowd
would rise and artlessly quit the room, when the young couple
were so engaged. Glorvina forced the Major to ride with her
of mornings. The whole cantonment saw them set out and
return. She was constantly writing notes over to him at his
house, borrowing his books, and scoring with her great: pen-
cil-marks such passages of sentiment or humor as awakened
her sympathy. She borrowed his horses, his servants, his
spoons, and palanquin;—no wonder that public rumor as-
signed her to him, and that the Major’s sisters in England
should fancy they were about to have a sister-in-law.

Dobbin, who was thus vigorously besieged, was in the mean-
while in a state of the most odious tranquillity. He used to
laugh when the young fellows of the regiment joked him about
Glorvina’s manifest attentions to him. “Bah!” said he, “she
is only keeping her hand in,—she practices upon me as she
does upon Mrs. Tozer’s piano, because it’s the most handy
instrument in the station. I am much too battered and old
 

GLORVINA TRIES HER FASCINATIONS ON TIE MAJOR
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 91

for such a fine young lady as Glorvina.” And so he went on
riding with her, and copying music and verses into her al-
bums, and playing at chess with her very submissively; for it
is with these simple amusements that some officers in India
are accustomed to while away their leisure moments; while
others of a less domestic turn hunt hogs, and shoot snipes, or
gamble and smoke cheroots, and betake themselves to brandy-
and-water. As for Sir Michael O’Dowd, though his lady and
her sister both urged him to call upon the Major to explain
himself, and not keep on torturing a poor innocent girl in that
shameful way, the old soldier refused point-blank to have
anything to do with the conspiracy. “Faith, the Major’s
big enough to choose for himself,” Sir Michael said; “he'll
ask ye when he wants ye’;—or else he would turn the matter
off jocularly declaring that “Dobbin was too young to keep
house, and had written home to ask lave of his mamma.”
Nay, he went further, and in private communications with
his Major would caution and rally him, crying, “Mind your
oi, Dob, my boy, them girls is bent on mischief,—me Lady
has just got a box of gowns from Europe, and there’s a pink
satin for Glorvina, which will finish ye, Dob, if it’s in the
power of woman or satin to move ye.”

But the truth is, neither beauty nor fashion could conquer
him. Our honest friend had but one idea of a woman in his
head, and that one did not in the least resemble Miss Glor-
vina O’Dowd in pink satin. A gentle little woman in black,
with large eyes and brown hair, seldom speaking, save when
spoken to, and then in a voice not the least resembling Miss
Glorvina’s,—a soft young mother tending an infant and beck-
oning the Major up with a smile to look at him,—a rosy-
cheeked lass coming singing into the room in Russell Square,
or hanging on George Osborne’s arm, happy and loving,—
there was but this image that filled our honest Major’s mind
by day and by night, and reigned over it always. Very likely
Amelia was not like the portrait the Major had formed of
her: there was a figure in a book of fashions which his sisters
had in England, and with which Wilham had made away pri-
vately, pasting it into the lid of his desk, and fancying he
saw some resemblance to Mrs. Osborne in the print, whereas
T have seen it, and can vouch that it is but the picture of a
high-waisted gown with an impossible doll’s face simpering
over it,—and, perhaps, Mr. Dobbin’s sentimental Amelia was
no more like the real one than this absurd little print which
92 VANITY FAIR.

he cherished. But what man in love, of us, is better in-
formed?—or is he much happier when he sees and owns his
delusion? Dobbin was under this spell. He did not bother his
friends and the public much about his feelings, or indeed lose
his natural zest or appetite on account of them. His head
has grizzled since we saw him last; and a line or two of silver
may be seen in the soft brown hair likewise. But his feelings
are not in the least changed or oldened; and his love remains
as fresh as a man’s recollections of boyhood are.

We have said how the two Misses Dobbins and Amelia, the
Major’s correspondents in Europe, wrote him letters from
England; Mrs. Osborne congratulating him with great can-
dor and cordiality upon his approaching nuptials with Miss
O’Dowd.

“Your sister has just kindly visited me,’ Amelia wrote in
her letter, “and informed me of an interesting event, upon
which I beg to offer my most sincere congratulations. I hope
the young lady to whom IJ hear you are to be united will in
every respect prove worthy of one who is himself all kindness
and goodness. The poor widow has only her prayers to offer,
and her cordial wishes for your prosperity! Georgy sends his
love to his dear godpapa, and hopes that you will not forget
him. I tell him that you are about to form other ties, with
one who I am sure merits all your affection, but that although
such ties must of course be the strongest and most sacred, and
supercede all others, yet that I am sure the widow and the
child whom you have ever protected and loved will always
have a corner in your heart.” The letter, which has been be-
fore alluded to, went on in this strain, protesting throughout
as to the extreme satisfaction of the writer.

This letter, which arrived by the very same ship which
brought out Lady O’Dowd’s box of millinery from London
(and which you may be sure Dobbin opened before any one of
the other packets which the mail brought him), put the re-
ceiver into such a state of mind that Glorvina, and her pink
satin, and everything belonging to her, became perfectly
odious to him. The Major cursed the talk of women; and
the sex in general. Everything annoyed him that day,—the
parade was insufferably hot and wearisome. Good heavens!
was a man of intellect to waste his life, day after day, inspect-
ing cross-belts, and putting fools through their manoeuvres?
The senseless chatter of the young men at mess was more than
ever jarring. What cared he, a man on the high road to forty,
A NOVEL WITHOUT ‘A HERO. 93

to know how many snipes Lieutenant Smith had shot, or what
were the performances of Ensign Brown’s mare? The jokes
about the table filled him with shame. He was too old to lis-
ten to the banter of the assistant-surgeon and the slang of the
youngsters, at which old O’Dowd, with his bald-head and red
face, laughed quite easily. The old man had listened to those
jokes any time these thirty years,—Dobbin himself had been
fifteen years hearing them. And after the boisterous dullness
of the mess-table, the quarrels and scandal of the ladies of the
regiment! It was unbearable, shameful. “O Amelia, Ame-
lia,” he thought, “you to whom I have been so faithful,—you
reproach me! It is because you cannot feel for me, that I
drag on this wearisome life. And you reward me after years
of devotion by giving me your blessing upon my marriage,
forsooth, with this flaunting Irish girl!” Sick and sorry felt
poor William: more than ever wretched and lonely. He
would like to have done with life and its vanity altogether,—
so bootless and unsatisfactory the struggle, so cheerless and
dreary the prospect seemed to him. He lay all that night
sleepless, and yearning to go home. Amelia’s letter had fallen
as a blank upon him. No fidelity, no constant truth and pas-
sion, could move her into warmth. She would not see that
he loved her. Tossing in his bed, he spoke out to her. “Good
God, Amelia!” he said, “don’t you know that I only love you
in the world,—you, who are a stone to me,—you, whom I
tended through months and months of illness and grief, and
who bade me farewell with a smile on your face, and forgot
me before the door shut between us!” The native servants
lying outside his verandas beheld with wonder the Major, so
cold and quiet ordinarily, at present so passionately moved
and cast down. Would she have pitied him had she seen him?
He read over and over all the letters which he ever had from
her,—letters of business relative to the little property which
he had made her believe her husband had left to her,—brief
notes of invitation,—every scrap of writing that she had ever
sent to him,—how cold, how kind, how hopeless, how selfish
they were!

Had there been some kind, gentle soul near at hand who
could read and appreciate this silent, generous heart, who
knows but that the reign of Amelia might have been over,
and that friend William’s love might have flowed into a kinder
channel? But there was only Glorvina of the jetty ringlets
with whom his intercourse was familiar, and this dashing
94 VANITY FAIR.

young woman was not bent upon loving the Major, but rather
on making the Major admire her,—a most vain and hopeless
task, too, at least considering the means that the poor girl
possessed to carry it out. She curled her hair and showed her
shoulders at him, as much as to say, did ye ever see such
jet ringlets and such a complexion? She grinned at him so
that he might see that every tooth in her head was sound,—
and he never heeded all these charms. Very soon after the
arrival of the box of millinery, and perhaps indeed in honor of
it, Lady O’Dowd and the ladies of the King’s Regiment gave
a ball to the Company’s Regiments and the civilians at the
station. Glorvina sported the killing pink frock, and the
Major, who attended the party and walked very ruefully up
and down the rooms, never so much as perceived the pink
garment. Glorvina danced past him in a fury with all the
young subalterns of the station, and the Major was not in the
least jealous of her performance, or angry because Captain
Bangles of the Cavalry handed her to supper. It was not
jealousy, or frocks or shoulders, that could move him, and
Glorvina had nothing more.

So these two were each exemplifying the Vanity of this
life, and each longing for what he or she could not get. Glor-
vina cried with rage at the failure. She had set her mind on
the Major “more than on any of the others,” she owned,
sobbing, “He'll break my heart, he will, Peggy,” she would
whimper to her sister-in-law when they were good friends;
“sure every one of me frocks must be taken in,—it’s such a
skeleton ’m growing.” Fat or thin, laughing or melancholy,
on horse-back or the music-stool, it was all the same to the
Major. And the Colonel, puffing his pipe and listening to
these complaints, would suggest that Glory should have some
black frocks out in the next box from London, and told a
mysterious story of a lady in Ireland who died of grief for
the loss of her husband before she got e’er a one.

While the Major was going on in this tantalizing way, not
proposing, and declining to fall in love, there came another
ship from Europe bringing letters on board, and amongst
them some more for the heartless man. These were home let-
ters bearing an earlier post-mark than that of the former
packets, and as Major Dobbin recognized among his the hand-
writing of his sister, who always crossed and recrossed her let-
ters to her brother,—gathered together all the possible bad
news which she could collect, abused him and read him lec-
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 95

tures with sisterly frankness, and always left him miserable
for the day after “dearest William” had achieved the perusal
of one of her epistles—the truth must be told that dearest
William did not hurry himself to break the seal of Miss Dob-
bin’s letter, but waited for a particularly favorable day and
mood for doing so. A fortnight before, moreover, he had
written to scold her for telling those absurd stories to Mrs.
Osborne, and had despatched a letter in reply to that lady,
undeceiving her with respect to the reports concerning him,
and assuring her that “he had no sort of present intention of
altering his condition.”

Two or three nights after the arrival of the second package
of letters, the Major had passed the evening pretty cheerfully
at Lady O’Dowd’s house, where Glorvina thought that he lis-
tened with rather more attention than usual to the Meeting
of the Wathers, the Minsthrel Boy, and one or two other speci-
mens of song with which she favored him (the truth is, he
was no more listening to Glorvina than to the howling of
the jackals in the moonlight outside, and the delusion was hers
as usual), and having played his game at chess with her (crib-
bage with the surgeon was Lady O’Dowd’s favorite evening
pastime), Major Dobbin took leave of the Colonel’s family
at his usual hour, and retired to his own house.

There on his table his sister’s letter lay reproaching him.
He took it up, ashamed rather of his negligence regarding it,
and prepared himself for a disagreeable hour’s communing
with that crabbed-headed absent relative. .... It may have
been an hour after the Major’s departure from the Colonel’s
house,—Sir Michael was sleeping the sleep of the just; Glor-
vina had arranged her black ringlets in the innumerable little
bits of paper in which it was her habit to confine them; Lady
O’Dowd, too, had gone to her bed in the nuptial chamber,
on the ground-floor, and had tucked her mosquito curtains
round her fair form, when the guard at the gates of the Com-
manding-officer’s compound beheld Major Dobbin, in the
moonlight, rushing towards the house with a swift step and
a very agitated countenance, and he passed the sentinel and
went up to the windows of the Colonel’s bedchamber.

“Q’Dowd,—Colonel!” said Dobbin, and kept up a great
shouting.

“Heavens, Meejor!” said Glorvina of the curl-papers, put-
ting out her head, too, from her window.

“What is it, Dob, me boy?” said the Colonel, expecting there
96 VANITY FAIR,

was a fire in the station, or that the route had come from
headquarters.

“IT—I must have leave of absence. I must go to England,—
on the most urgent private affairs,’ Dobbin said.

“Good heavens, what has happened!” thought Glorvina,
trembling with all the papillotes. ;

“T want to be off—now—to-night,” Dobbin continued; and
the Colonel, getting up, came out to parley with him.

In the postscript of Miss Dobbin’s cross-letter, the Major
had just come upon a paragraph, to the following effect:—
“T drove yesterday to see your old acquaintance, Mrs. Os-
borne. The wretched place they live at, since they were
bankrupts, you know—Mr. &., to judge from a brass plate on
the door of his hut (it is little better), is a coal-merchant.
The little boy, your godson, is certainly a fine child, though
forward, and inclined to be saucy and self-willed. But we
have taken notice of him, as you wish it, and have introduced
him to his aunt, Miss O., who was rather pleased with him.
Perhaps his grandpapa, not the bankrupt one, who is almost
doting, but Mr. Osborne, of Russell Square, may be induced
to relent towards the child of your friend, his erring and self-
willed son. And Amelia will not be ill-disposed to give him
up. The widow is consoled, and is about to marry a reverend
gentleman, the Rev. Mr. Binny, one of the curates of Bromp-
ton. A poor match. But Mrs. O. is getting old, and I saw
a great deal of gray in her hair—she was in very good spirits;
and your little godson overate himself at our house. Mamma
sends her love with that of your affectionate Ann Dobbin.”

CHAPTER X.

A ROUNDABOUT CHAPTER BETWEEN LONDON AND HAMP-
SHIRE.

Our old friends the Crawleys’ family house, in Great Gaunt
Street, still bore over its front the hatchment which had been
placed there as a token of mourning for Sir Pitt Crawley’s
demise, yet this heraldic emblem was in itself a very splendid
and gaudy piece of furniture, and all the rest of the mansion
became more brilliant than it had ever been during the late
Baronet’s reign. The black outer coating of the bricks was
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO, 97

removed, and they appeared with a cheerful, blushing face
streaked with white; the old bronze lions of the knocker
were gilt handsomely, the railings painted; and the dismallest
house in Great Gaunt Street became the smartest in the whole
quarter, before the green leaves in Hampshire had replaced
those yellowing ones which were on the trees in Queen’s Craw-
ley avenue when old Sir Pitt Crawley passed under them for
the last time.

A little woman, with a carriage to correspond, was per-
petually seen about this mansion; an elderly spinster, accom-
panied by a little boy, also might be remarked coming thither
daily. It was Miss Briggs and little Rawdon, whose business
it was to see to the inward renovation of Sir Pitt’s house, to
superintend the female band engaged in stitching the blinds
and hangings, to poke and rummage in the drawers and cup-
boards crammed with the dirty relics and congregated trump-
eries of a couple of generations of Lady Crawleys, and to take
inventories of the china, the glass, and other properties in the
closets and store-rooms.

Mrs. Rawdon Crawley was general-in-chief over these ar-
rangements with full orders from Sir Pitt to sell, barter, con-
fiscate, or purchase furniture; and she enjoyed herself not a
little in an occupation which gave full scope to her taste and
ingenuity. The renovation of the house was determined
upon when Sir Pitt came to town in November to see his
lawyers, and when he passed nearly a week in Curzon Street,
under the roof of his affectionate brother and sister.

He had put up at an hotel at first; but Becky, as soon as
she heard of the Baronet’s arrival, went off alone to greet him,
and returned in an hour to Curzon Street with Sir Pitt in the
carriage by her side. It was impossible sometimes to resist
this artless little creature’s hospitalities, so kindly were they
pressed, so frankly and amiably offered. Becky seized Pitt’s
hand in a transport of gratitude when he agreed to come.
“Thank you,” she said, squeezing it, and looking into the
Baronet’s eyes, who blushed a good deal; “how happy this
will make Rawdon.” She bustled up to Pitt’s bedroom, lead-
ing on the servants, who were carrying his trunks thither.
She came in herself laughing, with a coal-scuttle out of her
own room.

A fire was blazing already in Sir Pitt’s apartment (it was
Miss Briggs’s room, by the way, who was sent up stairs to sleep
with the maid). “I knew I should bring you,” she said, with

Vol, 11.—7
98 VANITY FAIR.

pleasure beaming in her glance. Indeed, she was really sin-
cerely happy at having him for a guest.

Becky made Rawdon dine out once or twice on business,
while Pitt stayed with them, and the Baronet passed the happy
evening alone with her and Briggs. She went down stairs to
the kitchen and actually cooked little dishes for him. ‘“‘Isn’t
it a good salmi?” she said; “I made it for you. J can make
you better dishes than that: and will when you come to see
me.”

“Everything you do, you do well,” said the Baronet, gal-
lantly. “The salmi is excellent indeed.”

“A poor man’s wife,” Rebecca replied gayly, “must make
herself useful, you know:” on which her brother-in-law vowed
that “she was fit to be the wife of an Emperor, and that to
be skillful in domestic duties was surely one of the most
charming of woman’s qualities.” And Sir Pitt thought, with
something like mortification, of Lady Jane at home, and of
a certain pie which she had insisted on making, and serving
to him at dinner,—a most abominable pie.

Besides the salmi, which was made of Lord Steyne’s pheas-
ants from his Lordship’s cottage of Stillbrook, Becky gave
her brother-in-law a bottle of white wine, some that Rawdon
had brought with him from France, and had picked up for
nothing, the little story-teller said; whereas the liquor was,
in truth, some White Hermitage from the Marquis of Steyne’s
famous cellars, which brought fire into the Baronet’s pallid
cheeks and a glow into his feeble frame.

Then when he had drunk up the bottle of petit vin blanc
she gave him her hand and took him up to the drawing-room,
and made him snug on the sofa by the fire, and let him talk
as she listened with the tenderest kindly interest, sitting by
him, and hemming a shirt for her dear little boy. When-
ever Mrs. Rawdon wished to be particularly humble and
virtuous, this little shirt used to come out of her work-box..
It had got to be too small for Rawdon long before it was
finished, though.

Well, Rebecca listened to Pitt, she talked to him, she sang
to him, she coaxed him, and cuddled him, so that he found
himself more and more glad every day to get back from the
lawyer’s at Gray’s Inn to the blazing fire in Curzon Street,—
a gladness in which the men of law likewise participated, for
Pitt’s harangues were of the longest,—and so that when he
went away he felt quite a pang at departing. How pretty
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO, 99

she looked kissing her hand to him from the carriage and
waving her handkerchief when he had taken his place in the
mail! She put the handkerchief to her eyes once. He pulled
his sealskin cap over his, as the coach drove away, and, sink-
ing back, he thought to himself how she respected him and
how he deserved it, and how Rawdon was a foolish dull fel-
low who didn’t half appreciate his wife: and how mum and
stupid his own wife was compared to that brilliant little
Becky. Becky had hinted every one of these things her-
self, perhaps, but so delicately and gently that you hardly
knew when or where. And, before they parted, it was agreed
that the house in London should be redecorated for the next
season, and that the brothers’ families should meet again in
the country at Christmas.

“I wish you could have got a little money out of him,”
Rawdon said to his wife, moodily, when the Baronet was
gone. “TI should like to give something to old Raggles,
hanged if I shouldn’t. It ain’t right, you know, that the
old fellow should be kept out of all his money. It may be
inconvenient, and he might let to somebody else besides us,
you know.”

“Tell him,” said Becky, “that as soon ag Sir Pitt’s affairs
are settled everybody will be paid, and give him a little some-
thing on account. Here’s a check that Pitt left for the boy;”
and she took from her bag and gave her husband a paper
which his brother had handed over to her, on behalf of the
little son and heir of the younger branch of the Crawleys.

The truth is, she had tried personally the ground on which
her husband had expressed a wish that she should venture,
—tried it ever so delicately, and found it unsafe. Even at
a hint about embarrassments, Sir Pitt Crawley was off and
alarmed. And he began a long speech, explaining how strait-
ened he himself was in money matters; how the tenants would
not pay; how his father’s affairs, and the expenses attendant
upon the demise of the old gentleman, had involved him;
how he wanted to pay off encumbrances; and how the bank-
ers and agents were overdrawn; and Pitt Crawley ended by
making a compromise with his sister-in-law, and giving her
a very small sum for the benefit of her little boy.

Pitt knew how poor his brother and his brother’s family
must be. It could not have escaped the notice of such a cool
and experienced old diplomatist, that Rawdon’s family had
noes to live upon, and that houses and carriages are not
100 VANITY FAIR.

to be kept for nothing. He knew very well that he was the
proprietor or appropriator of the money, which, according
to all proper calculation, ought to have fallen to his younger
brother, and he had, we may be sure, some secret pangs of
remorse within him, which warned him that he ought to per-
form some act of justice, or, let us say, compensation, towards
these disappointed relations. A just, decent man, not with-
out brains, who said his prayers, and knew his catechism, and
did his duty outwardly through life, he could not be other-
wise than aware that something was due to his brother at his
hands, and that morally he was Rawdon’s debtor.

But as one reads in the columns of the Times newspaper
every now and then, queer announcements from the Chancel-
lor of the Exchequer, acknowledging the receipt of £50 from
A. B., or £10 from W. T., as conscience-money, on account
of taxes due by the said A. B. or W. T., which payments the
penitents beg the Right Honorable gentleman to acknowledge
through the medium of the public press;—so is the Chancellor
no doubt, and the reader likewise always perfectly sure that
the above-named A. B. and W. T. are only paying a very
small installment of what they really owe, and that the man
who sends up a twenty-pound note has very likely hundreds
or thousands more for which he ought to account. Such,
at least, are my feelings, when I see A. B. or W. T.’s insuffi-
cient acts of repentance. And I have no doubt that Pitt
Crawley’s contrition, or kindness, if you will, towards his
younger brother, by whom he had so much profited, was only
a very small dividend upon the capital sum in which he was
indebted to Rawdon. Not everybody is willing to pay even
so much. To part with money is a sacrifice beyond almost
all men endowed with a sense of order. There is scarcely
any man alive who does not think himself meritorious for
giving his neighbor five pounds. Thriftless gives, not from
a beneficent pleasure in giving, but from a lazy delight in
spending. He would not deny himself one enjoyment; not
his opera-stall, not his horse, not his dinner, not even the
pleasure of giving Lazarus the five pounds. Thrifty, who is
good, wise, just, and owes no man a penny, turns from a
beggar, haggles with a hackney-coachman, or denies a poor
relation, and I doubt which is the most selfish of the two.
Money has only a different value in the eyes of each.

So, in a word, Pitt Crawley thought he would do some-
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO, 101

thing for his brother, and then thought that he would think
about it some other time.

And with regard to Becky, she was not a woman who ex-
pected too much from the generosity of her neighbors, and
so was quite content with all that Pitt Crawley had done
for her. She was acknowledged by the head of the family.
If Pitt would not give her anything, he would get something
for her some day. If she got no money from her brother-
in-law, she got what was as good as money,—credit. Rag-
gles was made rather easy in his mind by the spectacle of the
union between the brothers, by a small payment on the spot,
and by the promise of a much larger sum speedily to be as-
signed to him. And Rebecca told Miss Briggs, whose Christ-
mas dividend upon the little sum lent by her Becky paid with
an air of candid joy, and as if her exchequer was brimming
over with gold,—Rebecca, we say, told Miss Briggs, in strict
confidence, that she had conferred with Sir Pitt, who was
famous as a financier, on Briggs’s special behalf, as to the most
profitable investment of Miss B.’s remaining capital; that Sir
Pitt, after much consideration, had thought of a most safe
and advantageous way in which Briggs could lay out her
money; that, being especially interested in her as an attached
friend of the late Miss Crawley, and of the whole family,
and that long before he left town, he had recommended
that she should be ready with the money at a moment’s no-
tice, so as to purchase at the most favorable opportunity the
shares which Sir Pitt had in his eye. Poor Miss Briggs was
very grateful for this mark of Sir Pitt’s attention,—it came
so unsolicited, she said, for she never should have thought of
removing the money from the funds,—and the delicacy en-
hanced the kindness of the office; and she promised to see
her man of business immediately, and be ready with her little
cash at the proper hour.

And this worthy woman was so grateful for the kindness
of Rebecca in the matter, and for that of her generous bene-
factor, the Colonel, that she went out and spent a great part
of her half-year’s dividend in the purchase of a black velvet
coat for little Rawdon, who, by the way, was grown almost
too big for black velvet now, and was of a size and age be-
fitting him for the assumption of the virile jacket and panta-
loons.

He was a fine, open-faced boy, with blue eyes and waving
flaxen hair, sturdy in limb, but generous and soft in heart:
102 VANITY FAIR.

fondly attaching himself to all who were good to him,—to
the pony,—to Lord Southdown, who gave him the horse (he
used to blush and glow all over when he saw that kind young
nobleman),—to the groom who had charge of the pony,—to
Molly, the cook, who crammed him with ghost stories at night,
and with good things from the dinner,—to Briggs, whom he
plagued and laughed at,—and to his father especially, whose
attachment towards the lad was curious too to witness. Here,
as he grew to be about eight years old, his attachments may
be said to have ended. The beautiful mother-vision had
faded away after a while. During near two years she had
scarcely spoken to the child. She disliked him. He had the
measles and the whooping-cough. He bored her. One day
when he was standing at the landing-place, having crept
down from the upper regions, attracted by the sound of his
mother’s voice, who was singing to Lord Steyne, the drawing-
room door opening suddenly discovered the little spy, who
but a moment before had been rapt in delight, and listening
to the music.

His mother came out and struck him violently a couple of
boxes on the ear. He heard a laugh from the Marquis in the
inner room (who was amused by this free and artless exhi-
bition of Becky’s temper), and fled down below to his friends
of the kitchen, bursting in an agony of grief.

“Tt is not because it hurts me,” little Rawdon gasped out—
“only—only”—sobs and tears wound up the sentence in a
storm. It was the little boy’s heart that was bleeding. “Why
mayn’t I hear her singing? Why don’t she ever sing to me
—as she does to that bald-headed man with the large teeth?”
He gasped out at various intervals these exclamations of rage
and grief. The cook looked at the housemaid; the house-
maid looked knowingly at the footman; the awful kitchen
inquisition which sits in judgment in every house, and knows
everything, sat on Rebecca at that moment.

After this incident, the mother’s dislike increased to hatred:
the consciousness that the child was in the house was a re-
proach anda pain to her. His very sight annoyed her. Fear,
doubt, and resistance sprang up, too, in the boy’s own bosom.
They were separated from that day of the boxes on the ear.

Lord Steyne also heartily disliked the boy. When they
met by mischance, he made sarcastic bows or remarks to the
child, or glared at him with savage-looking eyes. Rawdon
used to stare him in the face, and double his little fists in
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 103

return. He knew his enemy; and this gentleman, of all who
came to the house, was the one who angered him most. One
day the footman found him squaring his fists at Lord Steyne’s
hat in the hall. The footman told the circumstance as a
good joke to Lord Steyne’s coachman; that officer imparted
it to Lord Steyne’s gentleman, and to the servants’ hall in
general. And very soon afterwards, when Mrs. Rawdon Craw-
ley made her appearance at Gaunt House, the porter who
unbarred the gates, the servants of all uniforms in the hall,
the functionaries in white waistcoats, who bawled out from
landing to landing the names of Colonel and Mrs. Rawdon
Crawley, knew about her, or fancied they did. The man
who brought her refreshment and stood behind her chair had
talked her character over with the large gentleman in motley-
colored clothes at his side. Bon Dieu! it is awful, that serv-
ants’ inquisition! You see a woman in a great party in a
splendid saloon, surrounded by her faithful admirers, dis-
tributing sparkling glances, dressed to perfection, curled,
rouged, smiling and happy:—Discovery walks respectfully up
to her, in the shape of a huge powdered man with large calves
and a tray of ices,—with Calumny (which is as fatal as truth)
behind him, in the shape of the hulking fellow carrying the
wafer-biscuits. Madam, your secret will be talked over by
those men at their club at the public-house to-night. Jeames
will tell Chawls his notions about you over their pipes and
pewter beer-pots. Some people ought to have mutes for
servants in Vanity Fair,—mutes who could not write. If
you are guilty, tremble. That fellow behind your chair may
be a Janissary with a bowstring in his plush breeches-pocket.
Jf you are not guilty, have a care of appearances: which are
as ruinous as guilt.

“Was Rebecca guilty or not?” the Vehmgericht of the
servants’ hall had pronounced against her.

And, I shame to say, she would not have got credit had they
not believed her to be guilty. It was the sight of the Marquis
of Steyne’s carriage-lamps at her door, contemplated by Rag-
gles, burning in the blackness of midnight, “that kep him
up,” as he afterwards said; that, even more than Rebecca’s
arts and coaxings. .

And so—guiltless very likely—she was writhing and push-
ing onward towards what they call “a position in society,”
and the servants were pointing at her as Jost and ruined. So
you see Molly, the housemaid, of a morning, watching a spider
104 VANITY FAIR.

in the door-post lay his thread and laboriously crawl up it,
until, tired of the sport, she raises her broom and sweeps away
the thread and the artificer.

A day or two before Christmas, Becky, her husband, and her
son made ready and went to pass the holidays at the seat of
their ancestors at Queen’s Crawley. Becky would have liked to
leave the little brat behind, and would have done so but for
Lady Jane’s urgent invitations to the youngster; and the
symptoms of revolt and discontent which Rawdon manifested
at her neglect of her son. ‘“He’s the finest boy in England,”
the father said, in a tone of reproach to her, “and you don’t
seem to care for him, Becky, as much as you do for your
spaniel. He shan’t bother you much; at home he will be
away from you in the nursery, and he shall go outside on the
coach with me.” .

“Where you go yourself because you want to smoke those
filthy cigars,” replied Mrs. Rawdon.

“T remember when you liked ’em though,” answered the
husband.

Becky laughed; she was almost always good-humored.
“That was when I was on my promotion, Goosey,” she said.
“Take Rawdon outside with you, and give him a cigar too if
you like.”

Rawdon did not warm his little son for the winter’s jour-
ney in this way, but he and Briggs wrapped up the child in
shawls and comforters, and he was hoisted respectfully on to
the roof of the coach in the dark morning, under the lamps
of the White Horse Cellar; and with no small delight he
watched the dawn rise, and made his first journey to the place
which his father still called home. It was a journey of in-
finite pleasure to the boy, to whom the incidents of the road
afforded endless interest; his father answering to him all
questions connected with it, and telling him who lived in the
great white house to the right, and whom the park belonged
to. His mother, inside the vehicle with her maid and her
furs, her wrappers, and her scent-bottles, made such a to-do
that you would have thought she never had been in a stage-
coach before,—much less, that she had been turned out of
this very one to make room for a paying passenger on a cer-
tain journey performed some half-score years ago.

It was dark again when little Rawdon was wakened up to
enter his uncle’s carriage at Mudbury, and he sat and looked
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 105

out of it wondering as the great iron gates flew open, and at
the white trunks of the limes as they swept by, until they
stopped, at length, before the light windows of the Hall, which
were blazing and comfortable with Christmas welcome. The
hall door was flung open,—a big fire was burning in the great
old fire-place,—a carpet was down over the checkered black
flags,—“It’s the old Turkey one that used to be in the Ladies’
Gallery,” thought Rebecca, and the next instant was kissing
Lady Jane.

She and Sir Pitt performed the same salute with great
gravity; but Rawdon, having been smoking, hung back rather
from his sister-in-law, whose two children came up to their
cousin; and, while Matilda held out her hand and kissed him,
Pitt Binkie Southdown, the son and heir, stood aloof rather,
and examined him as a little dog does a big dog.

Then the kind hostess conducted her guests to the snug
apartments blazing with cheerful fires. Then the young la-
dies came and knocked at Mrs. Rawdon’s door, under the pre-
tense that they were desirous to be useful, but in reality to
have the pleasure of inspecting the contents of her band and
bonnet boxes, and her dresses, which, though black, were of
the newest fashion. And they told her how much the Hall
was changed for the better, and how old Lady Southdown
was gone, and how Pitt was taking his station in the country,
as became a Crawley in fact. Then, the great dinner-bell
having rung, the family assembled at dinner, at which meal
Rawdon Junior was placed by his aunt, the good-natured lady
of the house; Sir Pitt being uncommonly attentive to his
sister-in-law at his own right hand.

Little Rawdon exhibited a fine appetite, and showed a gen-
tlemanlike behavior.

“T like to dine here,” he said to his aunt, when he had com-
pleted his meal, at the conclusion of which, and after a decent
grace by Sir Pitt, the younger son and heir was introduced,
and was perched on a high-chair by the Baronet’s side, while
the daughter took possession of the place and the little wine-
glass prepared for her near her mother. “TI like to dine here,”
said Rawdon Minor, looking up at his relation’s kind face.

“Why?” said the good Lady Jane.

“T dine in the kitchen when J am at home,” replied Rawdon
Minor, “or else with Briggs.” But Becky was so engaged
with the Baronet, her host, pouring out a flood of compli-
ments and delights and raptures, and admiring young Pitt
106 VANITY FAIR,

Binkie, whom she declared to be the most beautiful, intelli-
gent, noble-looking little creature, and so like his father, that
she did not hear the remarks of her own flesh and blood at
the other end of the broad shining table.

As a guest, and it being the first night of his arrival, Raw-
don the Second was allowed to sit up until the hour when,
tea being over, and a great gilt book being laid on the table
before Sir Pitt, all the domestics of the family streamed in,
and Sir Pitt read prayers. It was the first time the poor little
boy had ever witnessed or heard of such a ceremonial.

The house had been much improved even since the Baro-
net’s brief reign, and was pronounced by Becky to be perfect,
charming, delightful, when she surveyed it in his company.
As for little Rawdon, who examined it with the children for
his guides, it seemed to him a perfect palace of enchantment
and wonder. There were long galleries, and ancient state-
bedrooms; there were pictures and old China, and armor.
There were the rooms in which grandpapa died, and by which
‘the children walked with terrified looks. “Who was grand-
papa?” he asked; and they told him how he used to be very
old, and used to be wheeled about in a garden chair; and
they showed him the garden chair one day rotting in the out-
house in which it had lain since the old gentleman had been
wheeled away yonder to the church, of which the spire was
glittering over the park elms.

The brothers had good occupation for several mornings in
examining the improvements which had been effected by Sir
Pitt’s genius and economy. And as they walked or rode,
and looked at them, they could talk without too much boring
each other. And Pitt took care to tell Rawdon what a heavy
outlay of money these improvements had occasioned; and that
a man of landed and funded property was often very hard
pressed for twenty pounds. “There is that new lodge-gate,”
said Pitt, pointing to it humbly with the bamboo cane; “I
can no more pay for it before the dividends in January than I
can fly.”

“I can lend you, Pitt, till then,” Rawdon answered rather
ruefully; and they went in and looked at the restored lodge,
where the family arms were just new scraped in stone; and
where old Mrs. Lock, for the first time these many long years,
had tight doors, sound roofs, and whole windows.
 

 

THE ARRIVAL AT QUEEN'S CRAWLEY
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 107

CHAPTER XI.

BETWEEN HAMPSHIRE AND LONDON,

Sir Pitt Crawley had done more than repair fences and re-
store dilapidated lodges on the Queen’s Crawley estate. Like
a wise man he had set to work to rebuild the injured popu-
larity of his house, and stop up the gaps and ruins in which
his name had been left by the disreputable and thriftless old
predecessor. He was elected for the borough speedily after
his father’s demise; a magistrate, a member of Parliament,
a county magnate and representative of an ancient family, he
made it his duty to show himself before the Hampshire pub-
lic, subscribed handsomely to the county charities, called as-
siduously upon all the county folks, and laid himself out in
a word to take that position in Hampshire, and in the empire
afterwards, to which he thought his prodigious talents justly
entitled him. Lady Jane was instructed to be friendly with
the Fuddlestones, and the Wapshots, and the other famous
baronets, their neighbors. Their carriages might frequently
be seen in the Queen’s Crawley avenue now; they dined pretty
frequently at the Hall (where the cookery was so good that
it was clear Lady Jane very seldom had a hand in it), and
in return Pitt and his wife most energetically dined out in
all sorts of weather, and at all sorts of distances. For though
Pitt did not care for joviality, being a frigid man of poor
health and appetite, yet he considered that to be hospitable
and condescending was quite incumbent on his station, and
every time that he got a headache from too long an after-
dinner sitting, he felt that he was a martyr to duty. He
talked about crops, corn-laws, politics, with the best country
gentlemen. He (who had been formerly inclined to be a
sad freethinker on these points) entered into poaching and
game preserving with ardor. He didn’t hunt; he wasn’t a
hunting man; he was a man of books and peaceful habits;
but he thought that the breed of horses must be kept up in
the country, and that the breed of foxes must therefore be
looked to, and for his part, if his friend, Sir Huddlestone
Fuddlestone, liked to draw his country, and meet as of old
the F, hounds used to do at Queen’s Crawley, he should be
108 VANITY FAIR.

happy to see him there, and the gentlemen of the Fuddlestone
hunt. And to Lady Southdown’s dismay too he became or-
thodox in his tendencies every day: gave up preaching in
public and attending meeting-houses; went stoutly to Church;
called on the Bishop and all the clergy of Winchester; and
made no objection when the Venerable Archdeacon Trumper
asked for a game of whist. What pangs must have been those
of Lady Southdown, and what an utter castaway she must
have thought her son-in-law for permitting such a godless
diversion! and when, on the return of the family from an
oratorio at Winchester, the Baronet announced to the young
ladies that he should next year very probably take them to
the “county balls,” they worshiped him for his kindness.
Lady Jane was only too obedient, and perhaps glad herself to
go. The Dowager wrote off the direst descriptions of her
daughter’s worldly behavior to the authoress of the “Washer-
woman of Finchley Common” at the Cape; and her house in
Brighton being about this time unoccupied, returned to that
watering-place, her absence being not very much deplored
by her children. We may suppose, too, that Rebecca, on
paying a second visit to Queen’s Crawley, did not feel par-
ticularly grieved at the absence of the lady of the medicine-
chest; though she wrote a Christmas letter to her Ladyship,
in which she respectfully recalled herself to Lady South-
down’s recollection, spoke with gratitude of the delight which
her Ladyship’s conversation had given her on the former
visit, dilated on the kindness with which her Ladyship had
treated her in sickness, and declared that everything at
Queen’s Crawley reminded her of her absent friend.

A great part of the altered demeanor and popularity of Sir
Pitt Crawley might have been traced to the counsels of that
astute little lady of Curzon Street. “You remain a baronet,
—you consent to be a mere country gentleman,” she said to
him, while he had been her guest in London. “No, Sir Pitt
Crawley, I know you better. I know your talents and your
ambition. You fancy you hide them both; but you can con-
ceal neither from me. I showed Lord Steyne your pamphlet
on malt. He was familiar with it; and said it was in the
opinion of the whole Cabinet the most masterly thing that
had appeared on the subject. The Ministry has its eye upon
you, and I know what you want. You want to distinguish
yourself in Parliament; every one says you are the finest
speaker in England (for your speeches at Oxford are still re-
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 109

membered). You want to be Member for the County, where,
with your own vote and your borough at your back, you can
command anything. And you want to be Baron Crawley of
Queen’s Crawley, and will be before you die. I saw it all.
I could read your heart, Sir Pitt. If I had a husband who
possessed your intellect as he does your name, I sometimes
think I should not be unworthy of him,—but—but I am
your kinswoman now,” she added, with a laugh. “Poor little
penniless I have got a little interest,—and who knows, per-
haps the mouse may be able to aid the lion.”

Pitt Crawley was amazed and enraptured with her speech.
“How that woman comprehends me!” he said. “I never
could get Jane to read three pages of the malt-pamphlet. She
has no idea that I have commanding talents or secret am-
bition. So they remember my speaking at Oxford, do they?
The rascals! now that I represent my borough and may sit
for the county, they begin to recollect me! Why, Lord
Steyne cut me at the levee last year: they are beginning to
find out that Pitt Crawley is some one at last. Yes, the man
was always the same whom these people neglected: it was
only the opportunity that was wanting, and I will show them
now that I can speak and act as well as write. Achilles did
not declare himself until they gave him the sword. I hold
it now, and the world shall yet hear of Pitt Crawley.

Therefore it was that this roguish diplomatist had grown
so hospitable; that he was so civil to oratorios and hospitals;
so kind to Deans and Chapters; so generous in giving and
accepting dinners; so uncommonly gracious to farmers on
market-days; and so much interested about county business;
and that the Christmas at the Hall was the gayest which had
been known there for many along day. _

On Christmas day a great family gathering took place. All
the Crawleys from the Rectory came to dine. Rebecca was
as frank and fond of Mrs. Bute, as if the other had never been
her enemy: she was affectionately interested in the dear girls,
and surprised at the progress which they had made in music
since her time: and insisted upon encoring one of the duets
out of the great song-books which Jim, grumbling, had been
forced to bring under his arm from the Rectory. Mrs. Bute,

erforce, was obliged to adopt a decent demeanor towards
the little adventuress,—of course being free to discourse with
her daughters afterwards about the absurd respect with which
Sir Pitt treated his sister-in-law, But Jim, who had sat next
110 VANITY FAIR.

to her at dinner, declared she was a trump; and one and all
of the Rector’s family agreed that the little Rawdon was a
fine boy. They respected a possible baronet in the boy, be-
tween whom and the title there was only the little sickly pale
Pitt Binkie.

The children were very good friends. Pitt Binkie was too
little a dog for such a big dog as Rawdon to play with: and
Matilda, being only a girl, of course not fit companion for a
young gentleman who was near eight years old, and going
into jackets very soon. He took command of this small party
at once,—the little girl and the little boy following him about
with great reverence at such times as he condescended to
sport with them. His happiness and pleasure in the coun-
try were extreme. The kitchen garden pleased him hugely,
the flowers moderately, but the pigeons and the poultry, and
the stables when he was allowed to visit them, were delightful
objects to him. He resisted being kissed by the Miss Craw-
leys: but he allowed Lady Jane sometimes to embrace him:
and it was by her side that he liked to sit, when, the signal
to retire to the drawing-room being given, the ladies left the
gentlemen to their claret,—by her side rather than by his
mother. For Rebecca, seeing that tenderness was the fashion,
called Rawdon to her one evening, and stooped down and
kissed him in the presence of all the ladies.

He looked her full in the face after the operation, trembling
and turning very red, as his wont was when moved. “You
never kiss me at home, mamma,” he said; at which there
was a general silence and consternation, and a by no means
pleasant look in Becky’s eyes.

Rawdon was fond of his sister-in-law, for her regard for
his son. Lady Jane and Becky did not get on quite so well
at this visit as on the occasion of the former one when the
Colonel’s wife was bent upon pleasing. Those two speeches of
the child struck rather a chill. Perhaps Sir Pitt was rather
too attentive to her.

But Rawdon, as became his age and size, was fonder of the
society of the men than of the women; and never wearied
of accompanying his sire to the stables, whither the Colonel
retired to smoke his cigar,—Jim, the Rector’s son, sometimes
joining his cousin in that and other amusements. He and
the Baronet’s keeper were very close friends, their mutual
taste for “dawgs” bringing them much together. On
one day, Mr. James, the Colonel, and Horn, the keeper, went
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. Wi

and shot pheasants, taking little Rawdon with them. On an-
other most blissful morning, these four gentlemen partook
of the amusement of rat-hunting in a barn, than which sport
Rawdon as yet had never seen anything more noble. They
stopped up the ends of certain drains in the barn, into the
other openings of which ferrets were inserted; and then stood
silently aloof with uplifted stakes in their hands, and an anx-
ious little terrier (Mr. James’s celebrated “dawg” Forceps, in-
deed) scarcely breathing from excitement, listening motionless
on three legs, to the faint squeaking of rats below. Desper-
ately bold at last, the persecuted animals bolted above-ground:
the terrier accounted for one, the keeper for another, Rawdon,
from flurry and excitement, missed his rat, but, on the other
hand, he half murdered a ferret.

But the greatest day of all was that on which Sir Huddle-
stone Fuddlestone’s hounds met upon the lawn at Queen’s
Crawley.

That was a famous sight for little Rawdon. At half past
ten, Tom Moody, Sir Huddlestone Fuddlestone’s huntsman,
was seen trotting up the avenue, followed by the noble pack
of hounds in a compact body; the rear being brought up by
the two whips clad in stained scarlet frocks,—light, hard-
featured lads on well-bred, lean horses, possessing marvelous
dexterity in casting the points of their long, heavy whips at
the thinnest part of any dog’s skin who dares to straggle from
the main body, or to take the slightest notice, or even so
much as wink at the hares and rabbits starting under their
noses.

Next comes boy Jack, Tom Moody’s son, who weighs five
stone, measures eight-and-forty inches, and will never be any
bigger. He is perched on a large, raw-boned hunter, half
covered by a capacious saddle. This animal is Sir Huddle-
stone Fuddlestone’s favorite horse,—the Nob. Other horses,
ridden by other small boys, arrive from time to time, await-
ing their masters, who will come cantering on anon.

Tom Moody rides up to the door of the hall, where he is
welcomed by the butler, who offers him a drink, which he de-
clines. He and his pack then draw off into a sheltered cor-
ner of the lawn, where the dogs roll on the grass, and play
or growl angrily at one another, ever and anon breaking out
into furious fight, speedily to be quelled by Tom’s voice, un-
matched at rating, or the snaky thongs of the whips.

Many young gentlemen canter up on thorough-bred hacks,
112 VANITY FAIR.

spatter-dashed to the knee, and enter the house to drink cher-
ry-brandy and pay their respects to the ladies, or, more mod-
est and sportsman-like, divest themselves of their mud-boots,
exchange their hacks for their hunters, and warm their blood
by a preliminary gallop round the lawn. Then they collect
round the pack in the corner, and talk with Tom Moody of
past sport, and the merits of Sniveller and Diamond, and of
the state of the country, and of the wretched breed of foxes.

Sir Huddlestone presently appears mounted on a clever cob,
and rides up to the Hall, where he enters and does the civil
thing by the ladies, after which, being a man of few words,
he proceeds to business. The hounds are drawn up to the
hall door, and little Rawdon descends amongst them, excited,
yet half alarmed by the caresses which they bestow upon him,
at the thumps he receives from their waving tails, and at
their canine bickerings, scarcely restrained by Tom Moody’s
tongue and lash.

Meanwhile, Sir Huddlestone has hoisted himself unwieldily
on the Nob. “Let’s try Sowster’s Spinney, Tom,” says the
Baronet; “Farmer Mangle tells me there are two foxes in it.”
Tom blows his horn and trots off, followed by the pack, by
the whips, by the young gents from Winchester, by the farm-
ers of the neighborhood, by the laborers of the parish on foot,
with whom the day is a great holiday; Sir Huddlestone bring-
ing up the rear with Colonel Crawley, and the whole cortege
disappears down the avenue.

The Reverend Buie Crawley (who has been too modest to
appear at the public meet before his nephew’s windows), and
whom Tom Moody remembers forty years back a slender di-
vine riding the wildest horses, jumping the widest brooks,
and larking over the newest gates in the country,—his Rever-
ence, we say, happens to trot out from the Rectory Lane on
his powerful black horse, just as Sir Huddlestone passes; he
joins the worthy Baronet. Hounds and horsemen disappear,
and little Rawdon remains on the door-steps, wondering and
happy.

During the progress of this memorable holiday, little Raw-
don, if he had got no special liking for his uncle, always aw-
ful and cold, and locked up in his study, plunged in justice-
business and surrounded by bailiffs and farmers, has gained
the good graces of his married and maiden aunts, of the two
little folks of the Hall, and of Jim of the Rectory, whom
Sir Pitt is encouraging to pay his addresses to one of the
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 118

young ladies, with an understanding, doubtless, that he shall
be presented to the living when it shall be vacated by his fox-
hunting old sire. Jim has given up that sport himself, and
confines himself to a little harmless duck or snipe shooting,
or a little quiet trifling with the rats during the Christmas
holidays, after which he will return to the University, and
try and not be plucked, once more. He has already eschewed
green coats, red neckcloths, and other worldly ornaments,
and is preparing himself for a change in his condition. In
this cheap and thrifty way, Sir Pitt tries to pay off his debt
to his family.

Also, before this merry Christmas was over, the Baronet
had screwed up courage enough to give his brother another
draft on his bankers, and for no less a sum than a hundred
pounds,—an act which caused Sir Pitt cruel pangs at first,
but which made him glow afterwards to think himself one
of the most generous of men. Rawdon and his son went
away with the utmost heaviness of heart. Becky and the
ladies parted with some alacrity, however; and our friend
returned to London to commence those avocations with which
we find her occupied when this chapter begins. Under her
care, the Crawley House in Great Gaunt Street was quite
rejuvenescent, and ready for the reception of Sir Pitt and his
family, when the Baronet came to London to attend to his
duties in Parliament, and to assume that position in the coun-
try for which his vast genius fitted him.

‘For the first session, this profound dissembler hid his pro-
jects and never opened his lips but to present a petition from
Mudbury. But he attended assiduously in his place, and
learned thoroughly the routine and business of the house.
At home, he gave himself up to the perusal of Blue Books,
to the alarm and wonder of Lady Jane, who thought he was
killing himself by late hours and intense application.
And he made acquaintance with the ministers, and the chiefs
of his party, determining to rank as one of them before many
years were over. wer

Lady Jane’s sweetness and kindness had inspired Rebecca
with such a contempt for her Ladyship as the little woman
found no small difficulty in concealing. That sort of good-
ness and simplicity which Lady Jane possessed annoyed our
friend Becky, and it was impossible for her at times not to
show, or to let the other divine her scorn. Her presence, _

Vol. I1.—8
114 VANITY FAIR.

too, rendered Lady Jane uneasy. Her husband talked con-
stantly with Becky. Signs of intelligence seemed to pass be-
tween them; and Pitt spoke with her on subjects on which
he never thought of discoursing with Lady Jane. The latter
did not understand them, to be sure, but it was mortifying
to remain silent; still more mortifying to know that you had
nothing to say, and hear that little audacious Mrs. Rawdon
dashing on from subject to subject, with a word for every
man, and a joke always pat; and to sit in one’s own house
alone, by the fireside, and watching all the men round your
rival.

In the country, when Lady Jane was telling stories to the,
children, who clustered about her knees (little Rawdon into
the bargain, who was very fond of her), and Becky came into
the room, sneering with green, scornful eyes, poor Lady Jane
grew silent under those baleful glances. Her simple little
fancies shrank away tremulously, as fairies in the story-books
before a superior bad angel. She could not go on, although
Rebecca, with the smallest inflection of sarcasm in her voice,
besought her to continue that charming story. And, on her
side, gentle thoughts and simple pleasures were odious to
Mrs. Becky; they discorded with her; she hated people for
liking them; she spurned children and children-lovers. “I
have no taste for bread and butter,” she would say, when
caricaturing Lady Jane and her ways to my Lord Steyne.

“No more has a certain person for holy water,” his Lord-
ship replied, with a bow and a grin, anda great jarring laugh
afterwards.

So these two ladies did not see much of each other except
upon those occasions when the younger brother’s wife, hav-
ing an object to gain from the other, frequented her. They
my-loved and my-deared each other assiduously, but kept
apart generally; whereas Sir Pitt, in the midst of his multi-
plied avocations, found daily time to see his sister-in-law.

On the occasion of his first Speaker’s dinner, Sir Pitt took
the opportunity of appearing before his sister-in-law in his
uniform,—that old diplomatic suit which he had worn when
attaché to the Pumpernickel legation.

Becky complimented him upon that dress, and admired him
almost as much as his own wife and children, to whom he
displayed himself before he set out. She said that it was
only the thorough-bred gentleman who could wear the Court
suit with advantage; it was only your men of ancient race
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO, 115

whom the cwlotte courte became. Pitt looked down with
complacency at his legs, which had not, in truth, much more
symmetry or swell than the lean court sword which dangled
by his side,—looked down at his legs, and thought in his
heart that he was killing.

When he was gone Mrs. Becky made a caricature of his
figure, which she showed to Lord Steyne when he arrived.
His Lordship carried off the sketch, delighted with the ac-
curacy of the resemblance. He had done Sir Pitt Crawley
the honor to meet him at Mrs. Becky’s house, and had been
most gracious to the new Baronet and member. Pitt was
struck, too, by the deference with which the great peer treated
his sister-in-law, by her ease and sprightliness in the conver-
sation, and by the delight with which the other men of the
party listened to her talk. Lord Steyne made no doubt but
that the Baronet had only commenced his career in public
life, and expected rather anxiously to hear him as an orator;
as they were neighbors (for Great Gaunt Street leads into
Gaunt Square, whereof Gaunt House, as everybody knows,
forms one side) my Lord hoped that as soon as Lady Steyne
arrived in London she would have the honor of making the
acquaintance of Lady Crawley. He left a card upon his
neighbor in the course of a day of two; having never thought
fit to notice his predecessor, though they had lived near each
other for near a century past.

In the midst of these intrigues and fine parties and wise
and brilliant personages, Rawdon felt himself more and more
isolated every day. He was allowed to go to the club more;
to dine abroad with bachelor friends; to come and go when
he liked, without any questions being asked. And he and
Rawdon the younger many a time would walk to Gaunt Street,
and sit with the lady and the children there while Sir Pitt
was closeted with Rebecca, on his way to the House, or on
his return from it.

The ex-Colonel would sit for hours in his brother’s house
very silent, and thinking and doing as little as possible. He
was glad to be employed of an errand; to go and make in-
quiries about a horse or a servant, or to carve the roast mut-
ton for the dinner of the children. He was beat and cowed
into laziness and submission. Delilah had imprisoned him
and cut his hair off, too. The bold and reckless young blood
of ten years back was subjugated, and was turned into a torpid,
submissive, middle-aged, stout gentleman.
116 VANITY FAIR.

And poor Lady Jane was aware that Rebecca had captivated
her husband: although she and Mrs. Rawdon my-deared and
my-loved each other every day they met.

CHAPTER XII.
STRUGGLES AND TRIALS.

Our friends at Brompton were meanwhile passing their
Christmas after their fashion, and in a manner by no means
too cheerful.

Out of the hundred pounds a year, which was about the
amount of her income, the widow Osborne had been in the
habit of giving up nearly three-fourths to her father and
mother, for the expenses of herself and her little boy. With
£120 more, supplied by Jos, this family of four people, at-
tended by a single Irish servant who also did for Clapp and
his wife, might manage to live in decent comfort through the
year, and hold up their heads yet, and be able to give a
friend a dish of tea still, after the storms and disappointments
of their early life. Sedley still maintained his ascendency
over the family of Mr. Clapp, his ex-clerk. Clapp remem-
bered the time when, sitting on the edge of the chair, he
tossed off a bumper to the health of “Mrs. 8 , Miss Emmy,
and Mr. Joseph in India,” at the merchant’s rich table in
Russell Square. Time magnified the splendor of those recol-
lections in the honest clerk’s bosom. Whenever he came up
from the kitchen-parlor to the drawing-room, and partook
of tea or gin-and-water with Mr. Sedley, he would say, “This
wag not what you was accustomed to once, sir,” and as gravely
and reverentially drink the health of the ladies as he had
done in the days of their utmost prosperity. He thought Miss
*Melia’s playing the divinest music ever performed, and her
the finest lady. He never would sit down before Sedley
at the club even, nor would he have that gentleman’s character
abused by any member of the society. He had seen the first
men in London shaking hands with Mr. 8 5 he said,
“He’d known him in times when Rothschild might be seen
on Change with him any day, and he owed him personally
everythink.”

Clapp, with the best of characters and handwritings, had

 

 
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO, 117

been able very soon after his master’s disaster to find other
employment for himself. “Such a little fish as me can swim
in any bucket,” he used to remark, and a member of the
house from which old Sedley had seceded was very glad to
make use of Mr. Clapp’s services, and to reward them with a
comfortable salary. In fine, all Sedley’s wealthy friends had
dropped off one by one, and this poor ex-dependant still re-
mained faithfully attached to him.

Out of the small residue of her income which Amelia kept
back for herself, the widow had need of all the thrift and care
possible in order to enable her to keep her darling boy dressed
in such a manner as became George Osborne’s son, and to
defray the expenses of the little school to which, after much
misgiving and reluctance, and many secret pangs and fears
on her own part, she had been induced to send the lad. She
had sat up of nights conning lessons and spelling over crabbed
grammars and geography books in order to teach them to
Georgy. She had worked even at the Latin accidence, fondly
hoping that she might be capable of instructing him in that
language. To part with him all day; to send him out to the
mercy of a schoolmaster’s cane and his schoolfellows’ rough-
ness, was almost like weaning him over again to that weak
mother, so tremulous and full of sensibility. He, for his part,
rushed off to the school with the utmost happiness. He was
longing for the change. That childish gladness wounded his
mother, who was herself so grieved to part with him. She
would rather have had him more sorry, she thought: and
then was deeply repentant within herself for daring to be so
selfish as to wish her own son to be unhappy.

Georgy made great progress in the school, which was kept
by a friend of his mother’s constant admirer, the Rev. Mr.
Binney. He brought home numberless prizes and testimon-
ials of ability. He told his mother countless stories every
night about his school-companions: and what a fine fellow
Lyons was, and what a sneak Sniffin was; and how Steele’s
father actually supplied the meat for the establishment,
whereas Golding’s mother came in a carriage to fetch him
every Saturday; and how Neat had straps to his trousers—
might he have straps?—and how Bull Major was so strong
(though only in Eutropius) that it was believed he could lick
the Usher, Mr. Ward, himself. So Amelia learned to know
every one of the boys in that school as well as Georgy himself:
and of nights she used to help him in his exercises and puzzle
118 VANITY FAIR.

her little head over his lessons as eagerly as if she was herself
going in the morning into the presence of the master. Once,
after a certain combat with Master Smith, George came home
to his mother with a black eye, and bragged prodigiously to his
parent and his delighted old grandfather about his valor in
the fight, in which, if the truth was known, he did not be-
have with particular heroism, and in which he decidedly had
the worst. But Amelia has never forgiven that Smith to this
day, though he is now a peaceful apothecary near Leicester
Square.

In these quiet labors and harmless cares the gentle widow’s
life was passing away, a silver hair or two marking the progress
of time on her head, and a line deepening ever so little on her
fair forehead. She used to smile at these marks of time.
“What matters it,” she asked, “for an old woman like me?”
All she hoped for was to live and see her son great, famous,
and glorious, as he deserved to be. She kept his copy-books,
his drawings, and compositions, and showed them about in
her little circle as if they were miracles of genius. She con-
fided some of these specimens to Miss Dobbin; to show them
to Miss Osborne, George’s aunt, to show them to Mr. Osborne
himself—to make that old man repent of his cruelty and ill-
feeling towards him who was gone. All her husband’s faults
and foibles she had buried in the grave with him; she only
remembered the lover, who had married her at all sacrifices;
the noble husband so brave and beautiful, in whose arms she
had hung on the morning when he had gone away to fight,
and die gloriously for his king. From heaven the hero must
be smiling down upon that paragon of a boy whom he had
left to comfort and console her.

We have seen how one of George’s grandfathers (Mr. Os-
borne), in his easy-chair in Russell Square, daily grew more
violent and moody, and how his daughter, with her fine car-
riage, and her fine horses, and her name on half the public
charity-lists of the town, was a lonely, miserable, persecuted
old maid. She thought again and again of the beautiful little
boy, her brother’s son, whom she had seen. She longed to be
allowed to drive in the fine carriage to the house in which he
lived; and she used to look out day after day as she took her
solitary drive in the Park, in hopes that she might see him.
Her sister, the banker’s lady, occasionally condescended to pay
her old home and companion a visit in Russell Square. She
brought a couple of sickly children attended by a prim nurse,
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 119

and in a faint genteel giggling tone cackled to her sister about
her fine acquaintance, and how her little Frederick was the
image of Lord Claud Lollypop, and her sweet Maria had been
noticed by the Baroness as they were driving in their donkey-
chaise at Roehampton. She urged her to make her papa do
something for the darlings. Frederick she had determined
should go into the Guards; and if they made an elder son
of him (and Mr. Bullock was positively ruining and pinching
himself to death to buy land), how was the darling girl to be
provided for? “I expect you, dear,” Mrs. Bullock would say,
“for of course my share of our papa’s property must go to
the head of the house, you know. Dear Rhoda Macmull will
disengage the whole of the Castletoddy property as soon as
poor dear Lord Castletoddy dies, who is quite epileptic; and
little Macduff Maemull will be Viscount Castletoddy. Both
the Mr. Bludyers of Mincing Lane have settled their fortunes
on Fanny Bludyer’s little boy. My darling Frederick must
positively be an eldest son; and—and do ask papa to bring
us back his account in Lombard Street, will you, dear? It
doesn’t look well, his going to Stumpy and Rowdy’s.” After
which kind of speeches, in which fashion and the main chance
were blended together, and after a kiss, which was like the
contact of an oyster,—Mrs. Frederick Bullock would gather
her starched nurslings, and simper hack into her carriage.

Every visit which this leader of fon paid to her family was
more unlucky for her. Her father paid more money into
Stumpy and Rowdy’s. Her patronage became more and
more insufferable. The poor widow in the little cottage at
Brompton, guarding her treasure there, little knew how eag-
erly some people coveted it.

On that night when Jane Osborne had told her father that
she had seen his grandson, the old man had made her no
reply; but he had shown no anger, and had bade her good
night, on going himself to his room, in rather a kindly voice.
And he must have meditated on what she said, and have made
some inquiries of the Dobbin family regarding her visit; for
a fortnight after it took place he asked her where was her
little French watch and chain she used to wear?

“T bought it with my money, sir,” she said in a great
fright.

“Go and order another like it, or a better if you can get it,”
said the old gentleman, and lapsed again into silence.

Of late the Miss Dobbins more than once repeated their
120 VANITY FAIR.

entreaties to Amelia to allow George to visit them. His aunt
had shown her inclination; perhaps his grandfather himself,
they hinted, might be disposed to be reconciled to him. Surely
Amelia could not refuse such advantageous chances for the
boy. Nor could she: but she acceded to their overtures with
a very heavy and suspicious heart, was always uneasy during
the child’s absence from her, and weleomed him back as if he
was rescued out of some danger. He brought back money and
toys, at which the widow looked with alarm and jealousy:
she asked him always if he had seen any gentleman,—“Only
old Sir William, who drove him about in the four-wheeled
chaise, and Mr. Dobbin, who arrived on the beautiful bay
horse in the afternoon,—in the green coat and pink neck-
cloth, with the gold-headed whip, who promised to show
him the Tower of London, and take him out with the Surrey
hounds.” At last, he said, “There was an old gentleman, with
thick eyebrows and a broad hat, and large chain and seals.
He came one day as the coachman was lunging Georgy round
the lawn on the gray pony. He looked at me very much. He
shook very much. I said ‘My name is Norval’ after dinner.
My aunt began to cry. She is always crying.” Such was
George’s report on that night.

Then Amelia knew that the boy had seen his grandfather:
and looked out feverishly for a proposal which she was sure
would follow, and which came, in fact, in a few days after-
wards. Mr. Osborne formally offered to take the boy, and
make him heir to the fortune which he had intended that his
father should inherit. He would make Mrs. George Osborne
an allowance, such as to assure her a decent competency. If
Mrs. George Osborne proposed to marry again, as Mr. O.
heard was her intention, he would not withdraw that allow-
ance. But it must be understood that the child would live
entirely with his grandfather in Russell Square, or at whatever
other place Mr. O. should select; and that he would be occa-
sionally permitted to see Mrs. George Osborne at her own
residence. This message was brought or read to her in a letter
one day, when her mother was from home, and her father ab-
sent as usual, in the City.

She was never seen angry but twice or thrice in her life,
and it was in one of these moods that Mrs. Osborne’s attorney
had the fortune to behold her. She rose up trembling and
flushing very much as soon as, after reading the letter, Mr.
Poe handed it to her, and she tore the paper into a hundred
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO, 121

fragments, which she trod on. “I marry again!—I take mon-
ey to part from my child! Who dares insult me by proposing
such a thing? Tell Mr. Osborne it is a cowardly letter, sir;
a cowardly letter—I will not answer it. 1 wish you good
morning, sir,’—“And she bowed me out of the room like a
tragedy Queen,” said the lawyer who told the story.

Her parents never remarked her agitation on that day, and
she never told them of the interview. They had their own
affairs to interest them, affairs which deeply interested this
innocent and unconscious lady. The old gentleman, her
father, was always dabbling in speculation. We have seen how
the Wine Company and the Coal Company had failed him.
But, prowling about the City always eagerly and restlessly
still, he lighted upon some other scheme, of which he thought
so well that he embarked in it in spite of the remonstrances
of Mz. Clapp, to whom indeed he never dared to tell how
far he had engaged himself in it. And as it was always Mr.
Sedley’s maxim not to talk about money matters before wom-
en, they ha(\ no inkling of the misfortunes that were in store
for them, until the unhappy old gentleman was forced to make
gradual confessions.

The bills of the little household, which had been settled
weekly, first fell into arrear. The remittances had not arrived
from India, Mr. Sedley told his wife with a disturbed face.
As she had paid her bills very regularly hitherto, one or two
of the tradesmen to whom the poor lady was obliged to go
round asking for time were very angry at a delay, to which
they were perfectly used from more irregular customers. Em-
my’s contribution, paid over cheerfully without any questions,
kept the little company in half rations, however. And the
first six months passed away pretty easily: old Sedley still
keeping up with the notion that his shares must
rise and that all would be well. No sixty pounds,
however, came to help the household at the end of the
half year; and it fell deeper and deeper into trouble,—Mrs.
Sedley, who was growing infirm and was much shaken, re-
mained silent, or wept a great deal with Mrs. Clapp in the
kitchen. The butcher was particularly surly: the grocer in-
solent: once or twice little Georgy had grumbled about the
dinners: and Amelia, who still would have been satisfied with
a slice of bread for her own dinner, could not but perceive
that her son was neglected, and purchased little things out of
her private purse to keep the boy in health,
122 VANITY FAIR.

At last they told her, or told her such a garbled story as
people in difficulties tell. One day, her own money having
been received, and Amelia about to pay it over: she, who had
kept an account of the moneys expended by her, proposed to
keep a certain portion back out of her dividend, having con-
tracted engagements for a new suit for Georgy.

Then it came out that Jos’s remittances were not paid;
that the house was in difficulties which Amelia ought to have
seen before, her mother said, but she cared for nothing or
nobody except Georgy. At this she passed all of her money
across the table, without a word, to her mother, and returned
to her room to cry her eyes out. She had a great access of
sensibility too that day, when obliged to go and countermand
the clothes, the darling clothes on which she had set her heart
for Christmas day, and the cut and fashion of which she
had arranged in many conversations with a small milliner,
her friend.

Hardest of all, she had to break the matter to Georgy, who
made a loud outcry. Everybody had new clothes at Christ-
mas. The others would laugh at him. He would have new
clothes. She had promised them to him. The poor widow
had only kisses to give him. She darned the old suit in tears.
She cast about among her little ornaments to see could she
sell anything to procure the desired novelties. There was her
India shawl that Dobbin had sent her. She remembered in
former days going with her mother to a fine India shop on
Ludgate Hill, where the ladies had all sorts of dealings and
bargains in these articles. Her cheeks flushed and her eyes
shone with pleasure as she thought of this resource, and she
kissed away George to school in the morning, smiling brightly
after him. The boy felt that there was good news in her look.

Packing up her shawl in a handkerchief (another of the
gifts of the good Major), she hid them under her cloak, and
walked flushed and eager all the way to Ludgate Hill, tripping
along by the Park wall, and running over the crossings, so
that many a man turned as she hurried by him, and looked
after her rosy pretty face. She calculated how she should
spend the proceeds of her shawl; how, besides the clothes,
she would buy the books that he longed for, and pay his half-
year’s schooling; and how she would buy a cloak for her
father instead of that old great-coat which he wore. She was
not mistaken as to the value of the Major’s gift. It was a very
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 123

fine and beautiful web: and the merchant made a very good
bargain when he gave her twenty guineas for her shawl.

She ran on amazed and flurried with her riches to Darton’s
shop in St. Paul’s Church Yard, and there purchased the
“Parent’s Assistant,’ and the “Sanford and Merton” Georgy
longed for, and got into the coach there with her parcel, and
went home exulting. And she pleased herself by writing in
the fly-leaf in her neatest little hand, “George Osborne, A
Christmas gift from his affectionate mother.” The books are
extant to this day, with the fair, delicate superscription.

She was going from her own room with the books in her
hand to place them on George’s table, where he might find
them on his return from school, when in the passage she and
her mother met. The gilt bindings of the seven handsome lit-
tle volumes caught the old lady’s eye.

“What are those?” she said.

“Some books for Georgy,” Amelia replied; “I—I promised
them to him at Christmas.”

“Books!” cried the elder lady, indignantly,—“books, when
the whole house wants bread! Books, when to keep you and
your son in luxury, and your dear father out of jail, ve sold
every trinket I had, the India shawl from my back,—even
down to the very spoons, that our tradesmen mightn’t insult
us, and that Mr. Clapp, which indeed he is justly entitled,
being not a hard landlord, and a civil man, and a father,
might have his rent. O Amelia! you break my heart with
your books and that boy of yours, whom you are ruining,
though part with him you will not. O Amelia, may God send
you a move dutiful child than I have had. There’s Jos deserts
his father in his old age; and there’s George, who might be
provided for, and who might be rich, going to school like a
lord, with a gold watch and chain round his neck,—while
my dear, dear old man is without a sh , shilling.” Hysteric
sobs and cries ended Mrs. Sedley’s speech; it echoed through
every room in the small house, whereof the other female
inmates heard every word of the colloquy.

“OQ mother, mother!” cried the poor Amelia, in reply. “You
told me nothing. I—TI promised him the books. I—I only
sold my shawl this morning. Take the money,—take every-
thing,”’—and with quivering hands she took out her silver,
and her sovereigns,—her precious golden sovereigns, which
she thrust into the hands of her mother, whence they over-
flowed and tumbled, rolling down the stairs.

 
124 VANITY FAIR,

And then she went into her room, and sank down in de-
spair and utter misery. She saw it all now. Her selfishness
was sacrificing the boy. But for her he might have wealth,
station, education, and his father’s place, which the elder
George had forfeited for her sake. She had but to speak the
words, and her father was restored to competency; and the boy
raised to fortune. O what a conviction it was to that tender
and stricken heart!

CHAPTER XIII.

GAUNT HOUSE,

All the world knows that Lord Steyne’s town palace stands
in Gaunt Square, out of which Great Gaunt Street leads,
whither we first conducted Rebecca, in the time of the de-
parted Sir Pitt Crawley. Peering over the railings and
through the black trees into the garden of the Square, you see
a few miserable governesses with wan-faced pupils wandering
round and round it, and round the dreary grass-plot in the
center of which rises the statue of Lord Gaunt, who fought
at Minden, in a three-tailed wig, and otherwise habited like
a Roman Emperor. Gaunt House occupies nearly a side of the
Square. The remaining three sides are composed of mansions
that have passed away into dowagerism,—tall, dark houses,
with window-frames of stone, or picked out of a lighter red.
Little light seems to be behind those lean, comfortless case-
ments now; and hospitality to have passed away from those
doors as much as the laced lackeys and link-boys of old times,
who used to put out their torches in the blank iron ex-
tinguishers that still flank the lamps over the steps. Brass
plates have penetrated into the Square—Doctors, the Diddle-
sex Bank, Western Branch,—the English and European Re-
union, etc. It has a dreary look,—nor is my Lord Steyne’s
palace less dreary. All I have ever seen of it is the vast wall
in front, with the rustic columns at the great gate, through
which an old porter peers sometimes with a fat and gloomy
red face; and over the wall the garret and bedroom windows,
and the chimneys, out of which there seldom comes any smoke
now. For the present Lord Steyne lives at Naples, preferring
the view of the Bay and Capri and Vesuvius to the dreary
aspect of the wall in Gaunt Square.
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO, 125

_ A few score yards down New Gaunt Street, and leading
into Gaunt Mews indeed, is a little modest back door, which
you would not remark from that of any of the other stables.
But many a little close carriage has stopped at that door, as
my informant (little Tom Eaves, who knows everything, and
who showed me the place) told me. “The Prince and Perdita
have been in and out of that door, sir,” he has often told me}
“Marianne Clarke has entered it with the Duke of it
conducts to the famous petits appartements of Lord Steyne,—
one, sir, fitted up all in ivory and white satin, another in ebony
and black velvet; there is a little banqueting-room taken from
Sallust’s house at Pompeii, and painted by Cosway,—a little
private kitchen, in which every saucepan was silver, and all
the spits were gold. It was there that Egalité Orleans roasted
partridges on the night when he and the Marquis of Steyne
won a hundred thousand from a great personage at Hombre.
Half of the money went to the French Revolution, half to pur-
chase Lord Gaunt’s Marquisate and Garter,—and the remain-
der—” But it forms no part of our scheme to tell what be-
came of the remainder, for every shilling of which, and a
great deal more, little Tom Eaves, who knows everybody’s
affairs, is ready to account.

Besides his town palace, the Marquis had castles and palaces
in various quarters of the three kingdoms, whereof the de-
scriptions may be found in the Road-books,—Castle Strong-
bow, with its woods, on the Shannon shore; Gaunt Castle, in
Carmarthenshire, where Richard II. was taken prisoner,—
Gauntly Hall in Yorkshire, where I have been informed there
were two hundred silver teapots for the breakfasts of the
guests of the house, with everything to correspond in splendor;
and Stillbrook in Hampshire, which was my Lord’s farm, an
humble place of residence, of which we all remember the won-
derful furniture which was sold at my Lord’s demise by a
late celebrated auctioneer.

The Marchioness of Steyne was of the renowned and ancient
family of the Caerlyons, Marquises of Camelot, who have pre-
served the old faith ever since the conversion of the venerable
Druid, their first ancestor, and whose pedigree goes far be-
yond the date of the arrival of King Brute in these islands.
Pendragon is the title of the eldest son of the house. The
sons have been called Arthurs, Uthers, and Caradoes, from im-
memorial time. Their heads have fallen in many a loyal con-
spiracy. Elizabeth chopped off the head of the Arthur of her

 
126 VANITY FAIR.

day, who had been Chamberlain to Philip and Mary, and car-
ried letters between the Queen of Scots and her uncles the
Guises. A cadet of the house was an officer of the great Duke,
and distinguished in the famous Saint Bartholomew conspir-
acy. During the whole of Mary’s confinement, the house of
Camelot conspired in her behalf. It was as much injured by
its charges in fitting out an armament against the Spaniards,
during the time of the Armada, as by the fines and confisca-
tions levied on it by Elizabeth for harboring of priests, ob-
stinate recusancy, and Popish misdoings. A recreant of
James’s time was momentarily perverted from his religion by
the arguments of that great theologian, and the fortunes of
the family somewhat restored by his timely weakness. But
the Earl of Camelot, of the reign of Charles, returned to the
old creed of his family, and they continued to fight for it,
and ruin themselves for it, as long as there was a Stuart left
to head or to instigate a rebellion.

Lady Mary Caerlyon was brought up at a Parisian convent;
the Dauphiness Marie Antoinette was her godmother. In the
pride of her beauty she had been married—sold, it was said
—to Lord Gaunt, then at Paris, who won vast sums from the
lady’s brother at some of Philip of Orleans’s banquets. The
Earl of Gaunt’s famous duel with the Count de la Marche, of
the Gray Musketeers, was attributed by common report to
the pretensions of that officer (who had been a page, and re-
mained a favorite of the Queen) to the hand of the beautiful
Lady Mary Caerlyon. She was married to Lord Gaunt while
the Count lay ill of his wound, and came to dwell at Gaunt
House, and to figure for a short time in the splendid Court of
the Prince of Wales. Fox had toasted her. Morris and Sheri-
dan had written songs about her. Malmsbury had made her
his best bow; Walpole had pronounced her charming; Devon-
shire had been almost jealous of her; but she was scared by
the wild pleasures and gayeties of the society into which she
was flung, and, after she had borne a couple of sons, shrank
away into a life of devout seclusion. No wonder that my Lord
Steyne, who liked pleasure and cheerfulness, was not often
seen after their marriage by the side of this trembling, silent,
superstitious, unhappy lady.

The before-mentioned Tom Eaves (who has no part in this
history, except that he knew all the great folks in London,
and the stories and mysteries of each family) had further in-
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 12?

formation regarding my Lady Steyne, which may or may not
be true. “The humiliations,” Tom used to say, “which that
woman has been made to undergo, in her own house, have been
frightful; Lord Steyne has made her sit down to table with
women with whom I would rather die than allow Mrs. Eaves
to associate,—with Lady Crackenbury, with Mrs. Chippen-
ham, with Madame de la Cruchecassée, the French secretary’s
wife,” (from every one of which ladies Tom Eaves—who would
have sacrificed his wife for knowing them—was too glad to
get a bow or a dinner,) “with the reigning favorite, in a word.
And do you suppose that that woman, of that family, who are
as proud as the Bourbons, and to whom the Steynes are but
lackeys, mushrooms of yesterday (for after all, they are not of
the Old Gaunts, but of a minor and doubtful branch of the
house); do you suppose, I say,” (the reader must bear in mind
that it is always Tom Eaves who speaks,) “that the March-
ioness of Steyne, the haughtiest woman in England, would
bend down to her husband so submissively, if there were not
some cause? Pooh! I tell you there are secret reasons. I
tell you that, in the emigration, the Abbé de la Marche who
was here, and who was employed in the Quiberoon business
with Puisaye and Tinteniac, was the same Colonel of Mous-
quetaires Gris with whom Steyne fought in the year ’86,—that
he and the Marchioness met again: that it was after the Rev-
erend Colonel was shot in Brittany, that Lady Steyne took to
those extreme practices of devotion which she carries on now;
for she is closeted with her director every day,—she is at ser-
vice at Spanish Place, every morning, ve watched her there,
—that is, ’'ve happened to be passing there,—and, depend on
it, there’s a mystery in the case. People are not so unhappy
unless they have something to repent of,’ added
Tom Eaves, with a knowing wag of his head; “and,
depend on it, that woman would not be so submissive as she
is, if the Marquis had not some sword to hold over her.”

So, if Mr. Eaves’s information be correct, it is very likely
that this lady, in her high station, had to submit to many a pri-
vate indignity, and to hide many secret griefs under a calm
face. And let us, my brethren who have not our names in the
Red Book, console ourselves by thinking comfortably how mis-
erable our betters may be, and that Damocles, who sits on satin
cushions, and is served on gold plate, has an awful sword
hanging over his head in the shape of a bailiff, or an hereditary
disease, or a family secret, which peeps out every now and
128 VANITY FAIR,

then from the embroidered arras in a ghastly manner, and
will be sure to drop one day or the other in the right place.

In comparing, too, the poor man’s situation with that of
the great, there is (always according to Mr. Eaves) another
source of comfort for the former. You, who have little or no
patrimony to bequeath or to inherit, may be on good terms
with your father or your son, whereas the heir of a great prince,
such as my Lord Steyne, must naturally be angry at being
kept out of his kingdom, and eye the occupant of it with no
very agreeable glances. “Take it as a rule,” this sardonic
old Eaves would say, “the fathers and elder sons of all great
families hate each other. The Crown Prince is always in op-
position to the crown or hankering after it. Shakespeare knew
the world, my good sir, and when he describes Prince Hal
(from whose family the Gaunts pretend to be descended,
though they are no more related to John of Gaunt than you
are) trying on his father’s coronet, he gives you a natural
description of all heirs-apparent. If you were heir to a duke-
dom and a thousand pounds a day, do you mean to say you
would not wish for possession? Pooh! And it stands to rea-
son that every great man, having experienced this feeling
towards his father, must be aware that his son entertains it
towards himself; and so they can’t but be suspicious and hos-
tile.

“Then again, as to the feeling of elder towards younger
sons. My dear sir, you ought to know that every elder brother
looks upon the cadets of the house as his natural enemies,
who deprive him of so much ready money which ought to
be his by right. I have often heard George Mac Turk, Lord
Bajazet’s eldest son, say that if he had his will when he came
to the title, he would do what the sultans do, and clear the
estate by chopping off all his younger brothers’ heads at once;
and so the case is, more or less, with them all. I tell you
they are all Turks in their hearts. Pooh! sir, they know the
world.” And here, haply, a great man coming up, Tom Eaves’s
hat would drop off his head, and he would rush forward with
a bow and a grin, which showed that he knew the world too,
—in the Tomeavesian way, that is. And having laid out every
shilling of his fortune on an annuity, Tom could afford to
bear no malice to his nephews and nieces, and to have no other
feeling with regard to his betters but a constant and generous
desire to dine with them.

Between the Marchioness and the natural and tender re-
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 128

gard of mother for children, there was that eruel barrier placed
of difference of faith. The very love which she might feel
for her sons only served to render the timid and pious lady
more fearful and unhappy. The gulf which separated them
was fatal and impassable. She could not stretch her weak
arms across it, or draw her children over to that side away
from which her belief told her there was no safety. During
the youth of his sons, Lord Steyne, who was a good scholar
and amateur casuist, had no better sport in the evening after
dinner in the country than in setting the boys’ tutor, the
Reverend Mr. Trail (now my Lord Bishop of Ealing), on her
Ladyship’s direcor, Father Mole, over their wine, and in put-
ting Oxford against St. Acheul. He cried “Bravo, Latimer!
Well said, Loyola!” alternately; he promised Mole a bishopric
if he would come over; and vowed he would use all his in-
fluence to get Trail a cardinal’s hat if he would secede.
Neither divine allowed himself to be conquered; and though
the fond mother hoped that her youngest and favorite son
would be reconciled to her church,—his mother church,—a sad
and awful disappointment awaited the devout lady,—a dis-
appointment which seemed to be a judgment upon her for the
sin of her marriage.

My Lord Gaunt married, as every person who frequents
the Peerage knows, the Lady Blanche Thistlewood, a daugh-
ter of the noble house of Bareacres, before mentioned in this
veracious history. A wing of Gaunt House was assigned to
this couple; for the head of the family chose to govern it,
and while he reigned to reign supreme; his son and heir, how-
ever, living little at home, disagreeing with his wife, borrow-
ing upon post-obits such moneys as he required beyond the
very moderate sums which his father was disposed to allow
him. The Marquis knew every shilling of his son’s debts. At
his lamented demise, he was found himself to be possessor of
many of his heir’s bonds, purchased for their benefit, and de-
vised by his Lordship to the children of his younger son.

As, to my Lord Gaunt’s dismay, and the chuckling delight
of hig natural enemy and father, the Lady Gaunt had no
children,—Lord George Gaunt was desired to re-
turn from Vienna, where he was engaged in waltzing
and diplomacy, and to contract a matrimonial alhance with
the Honorable Joan, only daughter of John Johnes, First
Baron Helvellyn, and head of the firm of Jones, Brown, and
Robinson, of Threadneedle Street, Bankers; from which

Vol, IL—9
130 VANITY FAIR,

union sprang several sons and daughters, whose doings do not
appertain to this story.

The marriage at first was a happy and prosperous one. My
Lord George Gaunt could not only read, but write pretty cor-
rectly. He spoke French with considerable fluency; and was
one of the finest waltzers in Europe. With these talents, and
his interests at home, there was little doubt that his Lordship
would rise to the highest dignities in his profession. The
lady, his wife, felt that courts were her sphere; and her wealth
enabled her to receive splendidly in those continental towns
whither her husband’s diplomatic duties led him. There was
talk of appointing him minister, and bets were laid at the
Travelers’ that he would be ambassador erelong, when, of a
sudden, rumors arrived of the secretary’s extraordinary be-
havior. At a grand diplomatic dinner given by his chief he
had started up, and declared that a pate de foiegras was pois-
oned. He went toa ball at the hotel of the Bavarian envoy,
the Count de Springbock-Hohenlaufen, with his head shaved,
and dressed as a Capuchin friar. It was not a masked ball,
as some folks wanted to persuade you. It was something queer,
people whispered. His grandfather was so. It was in the
family.

His wife and family returned to this country, and took up
their abode at Gaunt House. Lord George gave up his post
on the European continent, and was gazetted to Brazil. But
people knew better; he never returned from that Brazil ex-
pedition,—never died there,—never lived there,—never was
there at all. He was nowhere; he was gone out altogether.
“Brazil,” said one gossip to another, with a grin,—“Brazil is
St. John’s Wood. Rio Janeiro is a cottage surrounded by
four walls; and George Gaunt is accredited to a keeper, who
has invested him with the order of the Strait Waistcoat.”
These are the kinds of epitaphs which men pass over one an-
other in Vanity Fair.

Twice or thrice in a week, in the earliest morning, the poor
mother went for her sins and saw the poor invalid. Some-
times he laughed at her (and his laughter was more pitiful
than to hear him cry); sometimes she found the brilliant
dandy diplomatist of the Congress of Vienna dragging about
a child’s toy, or nursing the keeper’s baby’s doll. Sometimes
he knew her and Father Mole, her director and companion,
oftener he forgot her as he had done wife, children, love, am-
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO, 191

bition, vanity. But he remembered his dinner-hour, and used
to cry if his wine-and-water was not strong enough.

It was the mysterious taint of the blood; the poor mother
had brought it from her own ancient race. The evil had
broken out once or twice in the father’s family, long before
Lady Steyne’s sins had begun, or her fasts and tears and
penances had been offered in their expiation. The pride of
the race was struck down as the firstborn of Pharaoh. The
dark mark of fate and doom was on the threshold,—the tall
old threshold surmounted by coronets and carved heraldry.

The absent Lord’s children meanwhile prattled and grew
on quite unconscious that the doom was over them too. First
they talked of their father, and devised plans against his re-
turn. Then the name of the living dead man was less fre-
quently in their mouth,—then not mentioned at all. But the
stricken old grandmother trembled to think that these too
were the inheritors of their father’s shame as well as of his
honors; and watched sickening for the day when the awful
ancestral curse should come down on them.

This dark presentiment also haunted Lord Steyne. He
tried to lay the horrid bedside ghost in Red Seas of wine and
jollity, and lost sight of it sometimes in the crowd and rout
of his pleasures. But it always came back to him when alone,
and seemed to grow more threatening with years. “I have
taken your son,” it said, “why not you? I may shut you up
in a prison some day like your son George. I may tap you on
the head to-morrow, and away go pleasure and honors, feasts
and beauty, friends, flatterers, French cooks, fine horses and
houses,—in exchange for a prison, a keeper, and a straw mat-
tress like George Gaunt’s.” And then my Lord would defy
the ghost which threatened him; for he knew of a remedy
by which he could balk his enemy.

So there was splendor and wealth, but no great happiness
perchance, behind the tall carved portals of Gaunt House with
its smoky coronets and ciphers. The feasts there were of the
grandest in London, but there was not overmuch content
therewith, except among the guests who sat at my Lord’s table.
Had he not been so great a Prince very few possibly would have
visited him; but in Vanity Fair the sins of very great person-
ages are looked at indulgently. ‘‘Mous régardons @ deux fois.”
(as the French lady said) before we condemn a person of my
Lord’s undoubted quality. Some notorious carpers and

32
182 VANITY FAIR,

squeamish moralists might be sulky with Lord Steyne, but
they were glad enough to come when he asked them.

“Lord Steyne is really too bad,” Lady Slingstone said, “but
everybody goes, and of course I shall see that my girls come
to no harm.” “His Lordship is a man to whom I owe much,
everything in life,” said the Right Reverend Doctor Trail,
thinking that the Archbishop was rather shaky; and Mrs.
Trail and the young ladies would as soon have missed going
to church as to one of his Lordship’s parties. “His morals
are bad,” said little Lord Southdown to his sister, who meekly
expostulated, having heard terrific legends from her mamma
with respect to the doings at Gaunt House; “but, hang it,
he’s got the best dry Sillery in Europe!” And as for Sir Pitt
Crawley, Bart..—Sir Pitt, that pattern of decorum, Sir Pitt
who led off at missionary meetings,—he never for one mo-
ment thought of not going too. “Where you see such persons
as the Bishop of Ealing and the Countess of Slingstone, you
may be pretty sure, Jane,” the Baronet would say, “that we
cannot be wrong. The great rank and station of Lord Steyne
put him in a position to command people in our station in
life. The Lord Lieutenant of a County, my dear, is a respect-
able man. Besides George Gaunt and I were intimate in early
life: he was my junior when we were attachés at Pumper-
nickel together.”

In a word, everybody went to wait upon this great man,—
everybody who was asked; as you the reader (do not say nay),
or I the writer hereof, would go if we had an invitation.

CHAPTER XIV.

IN WHICH THE READER IS INTRODUCED TO THE VERY
BEST OF COMPANY.

At last Becky’s kindness and attention to the chief of her
husband’s family were destined to meet with an exceeding
great reward; a reward which, though certainly somewhat
unsubstantial, the little woman coveted with greater eager-
ness than more positive benefits. If she did not wish to lead
a virtuous life, at least she desired to enjoy a character for
virtue, and we know that no lady in the genteel world can
possess this desideratum, until she has put on a train and
feathers, and has been presented to her Sovereign at Court.
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO, 138

From that august interview they come out stamped as honest
women. The Lord Chamberlain gives them a certificate of vir-
tue. And as dubious goods or letters are passed through an
oven at quarantine, sprinkled with aromatic vinegar, and then
pronounced clean,—many a lady whose reputation would be
doubtful otherwise, and lable to give infection, passes through
the wholesome ordeal of the Royal presence, and issues from
it free from all taint.

It might be very well for my Lady Bareacres, my Lady Tuf-
to, Mrs. Bute Crawley in the country, and other ladies who
had come into contact with Mrs. Rawdon Crawley, to cry fie
at the idea of the odious little adventuress making her courtesy
before the Sovereign; and to declare that, if dear, good Queen
Charlotte had been alive, she never would have admitted such
an extremely ill-regulated personage into her chaste draw-
ing-room. But when we consider that it was the First Gentle-
man in Europe in whose high presence Mrs. Rawdon passed.
her examination, and, as it were, took her degree in reputation,
it surely must be flat disloyalty to doubt any more about her
virtue. I, for my part, look back with love and awe to that
Great Character in history. Ah, what a high anf noble ap-
preciation of Gentlewomanhood there must have been in
Vanity Fair, when that revered and august being was invested,
by the universal acclaim of the refined and educated portion
of this empire, with the title of Premier Gentilhomme of his
Kingdom. Do you remember, dear M , O friend of my
youth, how one blissful night, five-and-twenty years since, the
Hypocrite being acted, Elliston being manager, Dowton and
Liston performers, two boys had leave from their loyal mas-
ters to go out from Slaughter House School where they were
educated, and to appear on Drury Lane stage, amongst a
crowd which assembled there to greet the king? THE KING!
There he was. Beef-eaters were before the august box; the
Marquis of Steyne (Lord of the Powder Closet) and other
great. officers of state were behind the chair on which he sat,
He sat,—florid of face, portly of person, covered with orders,
and in a rich curling head of hair. How we sang God save
him! How the house rocked and shouted with that magnifi-
cent music. How they cheered, and cried, and waved hand-
kerchiefs. Ladies wept; mothers clasped their children; some
fainted with emotion. People were suffocated in the pit,
shrieks and groans rising up amidst the writhing and shout-
ing mass there of his people who were, and indeed showed

 
134 VANITY FAIR.

themselves almost to be, ready to die for him. Yes, we saw
him. Fate cannot deprive us of that. Others have seen Napo-
leon. Some few still exist who have beheld Frederick the
Great, Doctor Johnson, Marie Antoinette, ete—be it our
reasonable boast to our children, that we saw George the Good,
the Magnificent, the Great.

Well, there came a happy day in Mrs. Rawdon Crawley’s
existence, when this angel was admitted into the paradise of
a Court which she coveted; her sister-in-law acting as her
godmother. On the appointed day, Sir Pitt and his lady, in
their great family carriage (just newly built, and ready for
the Baronet’s assumption of the office of High Sheriff of his
country), drove up to the little house in Curzon Street, to the
edification of Raggles who was watching from his green-gro-
cer’s shop, and saw fine plumes within, and enormous bunches
of flowers in the breasts of the new livery-coats of the foot-
men.

Sir Pitt, in a glittering uniform, descended and went into
Curzon Street, his sword between his legs. Little Rawdon
stood with his face against the parlor window-panes, smiling
and nodding with all his might to his aunt in the carriage
within; and presently Sir Pitt issued forth from the house
again, leading forth a lady with grand feathers, covered in a
white shawl, and holding up daintily a train of magnificent
brocade. She stepped into the vehicle as if she were a Prin-
cess and accustomed all her life to go to Court, smiling graci-
ously on the footman at the door, and on Sir Pitt, who fol-
lowed her into the carriage.

Then Rawdon followed in his old Guard’s uniform, which
had grown wofully shabby, and was much too tight. He was
to have followed the procession, and waited upon his sovereign
in a cab; but that his good-natured sister-in-law insisted that
they should be a family party. The coach was large, the ladies
not very big, they would hold their trains in their laps.
Finally, the four went fraternally together; and their carriage
presently joined the line of loyal equipages which was making
its way down Piccadilly and St. James’s Street, towards the old
brick palace where the Star of Brunswick was in waiting to
receive his nobles and gentlefolks.

Becky felt as if she could bless the people out of the car-
riage windows, so elated was she in spirit, and so strong a
sense had she of the dignified position which she had at last
attained in life. Even our Becky had her weaknesses, and
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 185

as one often sees how men pride themselves upon excellences
which others are slow to perceive: how, for instance, Comus
firmly believes that he is the greatest tragic actor in England;
how Brown, the famous novelist, longs to be considered, not
aman of genius, but a man of fashion; while Robinson, the
great lawyer, does not in the least care about his reputation
in Westminster Hall, but believes himself incomparable across
country,and at a five-barred gate,—so to be,and to be thought,
a respectable woman, was Becky’s aim in life, and she got up
the genteel with amazing assiduity, readiness, and success.
We have said, there were times when she believed herself
to be a fine lady, and forgot that there was no money in the
chest at home,—duns round the gate, tradesmen to coax and
wheedle,—no ground to walk upon, in a word. And as she
went to court in the carriage, the family carriage, she adopted
a demeanor so grand, self-satisfied, deliberate, and imposing,
that it made even Lady Jane laugh. She walked into the royal
apartments with a toss of the head which would have befitted
an empress, and I have no doubt, had she been one, she would
have become the character perfectly.

We are authorized to state that Mrs. Rawdon Crawley’s
costume de cour on the occasion of her presentation to the
Sovereign was of the most elegant and brilliant description.
Some ladies we may have seen,—we who wear stars and cor-
dons, and attend the St. James’s assemblies, or we, who, in
muddy boots, dawdle up and down Pall Mall, and peep into
the coaches as they drive up with the great folks in their
feathers,—some ladies of fashion, I say, we may have seen,
about two o’clock of the forenoon of a levee day, as the laced-
jacketed band of the Life Guards are blowing triumphal
marches seated on those prancing music-stools, their cream-
colored chargers,—who are by no means lovely and enticing
objects at that early period of noon. A stout countess of
sixty, décolleté, painted, wrinkled, with rouge up to her
drooping eyelids, and diamonds twinkling in her wig, is a
wholesome and edifying, but not a pleasant sight. She has
the faded look of a St. James’s street illumination, as it mav
be seen of an early morning, when half the lamps are out, and
the others are blinking wanly; as if they were about to vanish
like ghosts before the dawn. Such charms as those of which
we catch glimpses while her ladyship’s carriage passes should
appear abroad at night alone. If even Cynthia looks haggard
of an afternoon, as we may see her sometimes in the present
136 VANITY FAIR.

winter season, with Phoebus staring her out of countenance
from the opposite side of the heavens, how much more can old
Lady Castlemouldy keep her head up when the sun is shining
full upon it through the chariot windows, and showing all
the chinks and crannies with which time has marked her face?
No. Drawing-rooms should be announced for November,
or the first foggy day: or the elderly sultanas of our Vanity
Fair should drive up in closed litters, descend in a covered
way, and make their courtesy to the Sovereign under the pro-
tection of lamplight.

Our beloved Rebecca had no need, however, of any such a
friendly halo to set off her beauty. Her complexion could
bear any sunshine as yet; and her dress, though, if you were
to see it now, any present lady of Vanity Fair would pro-
nounce it to be the most foolish and preposterous attire ever
worn, was as handsome in her eyes and those of the public,
some five-and-twenty years since, as the most brilliant cos-
tume of the most famous beauty of the present season. A
score of years hence that, too, that milliner’s wonder, will
have passed into the domain of the absurd, along with all pre-
vious vanities. But we are wandering too much. Mrs. Raw-
don’s dress was pronounced to be charmante on the eventful
day of her presentation. Even good little Lady Jane was
forced to acknowledge this effect, as she looked at her kins-
woman; and owned sorrowfully to herself that she was quite
inferior in taste to Mrs. Becky.

She did not know how much care, thought, and genius
Mrs. Rawdon had bestowed upon that garment. Rebecca had
as good taste as any milliner in Europe, and such a clever
way of doing things as Lady Jane little understood. The
latter quickly spied out the magnificence of the brocade of
Becky’s train, and the splendor of the lace on her dress.

The brocade was an old remnant, Becky said; and as for the
lace, it was a great bargain. She had had it these hundred
years.

“My dear Mrs. Crawley, it must have cost a little fortune,”
Lady Jane said, looking down at her own lace, which was not
nearly so good; and then, examining the quality of the ancient
brocade which formed the material of Mrs. Rawdon’s court
dress, she felt inclined to say that she could not afford such
fine clothing, but checked that speech, with an effort, as one
uncharitable to her kinswoman.

And yet, if Lady Jane had known all, I think even her kind-
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 137

ly temper would have failed her. The fact is, when she was
putting Sir Pitt’s house in order, Mrs. Rawdon had found
the lace and the brocade in old wardrobes, the property of the
former ladies of the house, and had quietly carried the goods
home, and had suited them to her own little person. Briggs
saw her take them, asked no questions, told no stories; but
I believe quite sympathized with her on this matter, and so
would many another honest woman.

And the diamonds,—“Where the doose did you get the dia-
monds, Becky?” said her husband, admiring some jewels
which he had never seen before, and which sparkled in her
ears and on her neck with brilliance and profusion.

Becky blushed a little, and looked at him hard for a mo-
ment. Pitt Crawley blushed a little too, and looked out of
window. The fact is, he had given her a very small portion
of the brilliants; a pretty diamond clasp, which confined a
pearl necklace which she wore; and the Baronet had omitted
to mention the circumstance to his lady.

Becky looked at her husband, and then at Sir Pitt, with an
air of saucy triumph,—as much as to say, “Shall I betray
your”

“Guess!” she said to her husband. “Why you silly man,”
she continued, “where do you suppose I got them?—all ex-
cept the little clasp, which a dear friend of mine gave me
long ago. I hired them, to be sure. I hired them at Mr.
Polonius’s, in Coventry Street. You don’t suppose that all
the diamonds which go to court belong to the owners; like
those beautiful stones which Lady Jane has, and which are
much handsomer than any which I have, I am certain.”

“They are family jewels,” said Sir Pitt, again looking un-
easy. And in this family conversation the carriage rolled
down the street, until its cargo was finally discharged at the
gates of the palace where the Sovereign was sitting in state.

The diamonds, which had created Rawdon’s admiration,
never went back to Mr. Polonius, of Coventry Street, and that
gentleman never applied for their restoration, but they retired
into a little private repository, in an old desk, which Amelia
Sedley had given her years and years ago, and in which Becky
kept a number of useful and, perhaps, valuable things, about
which her husband knew nothing. To know nothing, or little,
is in the nature of some husbands. To hide, in the nature of
how many women? O ladies! how many of you have
surreptitious milliners’ bills? How many of you
138 VANITY FAIR,

have gowns and bracelets, which you daren’t show, or
which you wear trembling?—trembling, and coaxing with
smiles the husband by your side, who does not know the new
velvet gown from the old one, or the new bracelet from the.
last year’s, or has any notion that the ragged-looking yel-
low lace scarf cost forty guineas, and that Madame Bobinot is
writing dunning letters every week for the money!

Thus Rawdon knew nothing about the brilliant diamond
ear-rings, or the superb brilliant ornament which decorated the
fair bosom of his lady; but Lord Steyne, who was in his place
at court, as Lord of the Powder Closet, and one of the great
dignitaries and illustrious defenses of the throne of England,
and came up with all his stars, garters, collars, and cordons,
and paid particular attention to the little woman, knew
whence the jewels came, and who paid for them.

As he bowed over her he smiled, and quoted the hackneyed
and beautiful lines, from the Rape of the Lock, about Belin-
_ da’s diamonds, “which Jews might kiss and infidels adore.”

“But I hope your Lordship is orthodox,” said the little lady,
with a toss of her head. And many ladies round about whis-
pered and talked, and many gentlemen nodded and whispered,
as they saw what marked attention the great nobleman was
paying to the little adventuress.

What were the circumstances of the interview between Re-
becca Crawley, née Sharp, and her Imperial Master, it does not
become such a feeble and inexperienced pen as mine to at-
tempt to relate. The dazzled eyes close before that Magnifi-
cent Ideal. Loyal respect and decency tell even the imagina-
tion not to look too keenly and audaciously about the sacred
audience-chamber, but to back away rapidly, silently, and
respectfully, making profound bows out of the August Pres-
ence.

This may be said, that in all London there was no more
loyal heart than Becky’s after this interview. The name of
her king was always on her lips, and he was proclaimed by her
to be the most charming of men. She went to Colnaghi’s
and ordered the finest portrait of him that art had produced,
and credit could supply. She chose that famous one in which
the best of monarchs is represented in a frock-coat with a fur
collar, and breeches and silk stockings, simpering on a sofa
from under his curly brown wig. She had him painted in a
brooch and wore it,—indeed she amused and somewhat pes-
tered her acquaintance with her perpetual talk about his ur-
 

 

 

BECKY IN LOMBARD STREET
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 139

banity and beauty. Who knows? Perhaps the little woman
sOnene she might play the part of a Maintenon or a Pompa-
our.

But the finest sport of all after her presentation was to hear
her talk virtuously. She had a few female acquaintances, not,
it must be owned, of the very highest reputation in Vanity
Fair. But being made an honest woman of, so to speak.
Becky would not consort any longer with these dubious ones,
and cut Lady Crackenbury when the latter nodded to her
from her opera-box; and gave Mrs. Washington White the
go-by in the Ring. “One must, my dear, show one is some-
body,” she said. “One mustn’t be seen with doubtful people.
I pity Lady Crackenbury from my heart; and Mrs. Washington
White may be a very good-natured person. You may go and
dine with them, as you like your rubber. But I mustn’t, and
won’t; aud you will have the goodness to tell Smith to say
I am not at home when either of them calls.”

The particulars of Becky’s costume were in the newspapers,
—feathers, lappets, superb diamonds, and all the rest. Mrs.
Crackenbury read the paragraph in bitterness of spirit, and
discoursed to her followers about the airs which that woman
was giving herself. Mrs. Bute Crawley and her young ladies
in the country had a copy of the Morning Post from town;
and gave a vent to their honest indignation. “If you had
been sandy-haired, green-eyed, and a French rope-dancer’s
daughter,” Mrs. Bute said to her eldest girl (who, on the con-
trary, was a very swarthy, short, and snub-nosed young lady),
“you might have had superb diamonds forsooth, and have
been presented at court by your cousin, the Lady Jane. But
yow’re only a gentlewoman, my poor dear child. You have
only some of the best blood in England in your veins, and
good principles and piety for your portion. I, myself, the
wife of a Baronet’s younger brother, too, never thought of such
a thing as going to court,—nor would other people, if good
Queen Charlotte had been alive.” In this way the worthy
Rectoress consoled herself; and her daughters sighed and sat

over the Peerage all night.

A few days after the famous presentation, another great and
exceeding honor was vouchsafed to the virtuous Becky. Lady
Steyne’s carriage drove up to Mr. Rawdon Crawley’s door,
and the footman, instead of driving down the front of the
house, as by his tremendous knocking he appeared to be in-
140 VANITY FAIR.

clined to do, relented, and only delivered in a couple of cards
on which were engraven the names of the Marchioness of
Steyne and the Countess of Gaunt. If these bits of paste-
board had been beautiful pictures, or had had a hundred yards
of Malines lace rolled round them, worth twice the number
of guineas, Becky could not have regarded them with more
pleasure. You may be sure they occupied a conspicuous place
in the china bowl on the drawing-room table, where Becky
kept the cards of her visitors; lord! lord! how poor Mrs.
Washington White’s card and Lady Crackenbury’s card, which
our little friend had been glad enough to get a few months
back, and of which the silly little creature was rather proud
once,—lord! lord! I say, how soon, at the appearance of these
grand court cards, did those poor little neglected deuces sink
down to the bottom of the pack. Steyne! Bareacres, Johnes
of Helvellyn! and Caerlyon of Camelot! we may be sure that
Becky and Briggs looked out those august names in the Peer-
age, and followed the noble races up through all the rami-
fications of the family tree.

My Lord Steyne coming to call a couple of hours after-
wards, and looking about him, and observing everything as
was his wont, found his lady’s cards already ranged as the
trumps of Becky’s hand, and grinned, as this old cynic always
did at any naive display of human weakness. Becky came
down to him presently; whenever the dear girl expected his
Lordship, her toilet was prepared, her hair in perfect order,
her mouchoirs, aprons, scarfs, little morocco slippers, and
other female grimcracks arranged, and she seated in some art-
less and agreeable posture ready to receive him,—whenever
she was surprised, of course she had to fly to her apartment
to take a rapid survey of matters in the glass, and to trip down
again to wait upon the great Peer.

She found him grinning over the bowl. She was discovered,
and she blushed a little. “Thank you, Monseigneur,” she said.
“You see your ladies have been here. How good of you! I
couldn’t come before,—I was in the kitchen making a pud-
ding.”

i know you were, I saw you through the area-railings as I
drove up,” replied the old gentleman.

“You see everything,” she replied.

“A few things, but not that, my pretty lady,” he said good
naturedly. “You silly little fibster! I heard you in the room
overhead, where I have no doubt you were putting a little
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 141

rouge on; you must give some of yours to my Lady Gaunt,
whose complexion is quite preposterous; and I heard the bed-
room door open, and then you came down stairs.”

“Is it a crime to try and look my best when you come here?”
answered Mrs. Rawdon, plaintively, and she rubbed her cheek
with her handkerchief as if to show there was no rouge at all,
only genuine blushes and modesty in her case. About this who
can tell? I know there is some rouge that won’t come off on
a pocket-handkerchief; and some so good that even tears will
not disturb it.

“Well,” said the old gentleman, twiddling round his wife’s
ecard, “you are bent on becoming a fine lady. You pester my
poor old life out to get you into the world. You won’t be able
to hold your own there, you silly little fool. You’ve got no
money.”

“You will get us a place,” interposed Becky, as quick as
possible.

“You’ve got no money, and you want to compete with those
who have. You poor little earthen-ware pipkin, you want to
swim down the stream along with the great copper kettles.
All women are alike. Everybody is striving for what is not
worth the having! Gad! I dined with the King yesterday,
and we had neck of mutton and turnips. A dinner of herbs
is better than a stalled ox very often. You will go to Gaunt
House. You give an old fellow no rest until you get there.
It’s not half so nice ag here. You'll be bored there. I am.
My wife is as gay as Lady Macbeth, and my daughters as cheer-
ful as Regan and Goneril. I daren’t sleep in what they call my
bedroom. The bed is like the baldaquin of St. Peter’s, and
the pictures frighten me. I have a little brass bed in a dress-
ing-room: and a little hair mattress like an anchorite. I am
an anchorite. Ho! ho! You'll be asked to dinner next week.
And gare auc femmes, look out and hold your own! How
the women will bully you!” This was a very long speech for
a man of few words like my Lord Steyne; nor was it the first
which he uttered for Becky’s benefit on that day.

Briggs looked up from the worktable at which she was
seated in the farther room, and gave a deep sigh as she heard
the great Marquis speak so lightly of her sex. :

“Tf you don’t turn off that abominable sheep-dog,” said
Lord Steyne, with a savage look over his shoulder at her, “I
will have her poisoned.” ;

“J always give my dog dinner from my own plate,” said
142 VANITY FAIR.

Rebecca, laughing mischievously; and having enjoyed for
some time the discomfiture of my Lord, who hated poor Briggs
for interrupting his téte-a-téte with the fair Colonel’s wife,
Mrs. Rawdon at length had pity upon her admirer, and, calling
to Briggs, praised the fineness of the weather to her, and
bade her to take out the child for a walk.

“T can’t send her away,” Becky said presently, after a pause,
and in a-very sad voice. Her eyes filled with tears as she
spoke, and she turned away her head.

“You owe her her wages? I suppose,” said the Peer.

“Worse than that,” said Becky, still casting down her eyes,
“T have ruined her.”

“Ruined her?—then why don’t you turn her out?” the gen-
tleman asked.

“Men do that,” Becky answered bitterly. “Women are not
so bad as you. Last year, when we were reduced to our last
guinea, she gave us everything. She shall never leave me
until we are ruined utterly ourselves, which does not seem far
off, or until I can pay her the utmost farthing.”

ss it, how much is it?” said the Peer, with an oath.
And Becky, reflecting on the largeness of his means, men-
tioned not only the sum which she had borrowed from Miss
Briggs, but one of nearly double the amount.

This caused the Lord Steyne to break out in another brief
and energetic expression of anger, at which Rebecca held
down her head the more, and cried bitterly. “I could not
help it. It was my only chance. I dare not tell my husband.
He would kill me if I told him what I have done. I have kept
it a secret from everybody but you,—and you forced it from
me. Ah, what shall I do, Lord Steyne? for I am very, very
unhappy!”

Lord Steyne made no reply except by beating the Devil’s
tattoo, and biting his nails. At last he clapped his hat on his
head, and flung out of the room. Rebecca did not rise from
her attitude of misery until the door slammed upon him, and
his carriage whirled away. Then she rose up with the queer-
est expression of victorious mischief glittering in her green
eyes. She burst out laughing once or twice to herself, ag she
sat at work: and, sitting down to the piano, she rattled away
a triumphant voluntary on the keys, which made the people
pause under her window to listen to her brilliant music.

That night, there came two notes from Gaunt House for
the little woman, the one containing a card of invitation from

 
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 143

Lord and Lady Steyne to a dinner at Gaunt House next Fri-
day: while the other enclosed a slip of gray paper bearing
Lord Steyne’s signature and the address of Messrs. Jones,
Brown, and Robinson, Lombard Street.

Rawdon heard Becky laughing in the night once or twice.
It was only her delight at going to Gaunt House and facing
the ladies there, she said, which amused her so. But the
truth was, that she was occupied with a great number of other
thoughts. Should she pay off old Briggs and give her her
conge? Should she astonish Raggles by settling his account?
She turned over all these thoughts on her pillow, and on the
next day, when Rawdon went out to pay his morning visit to
the Club, Mrs. Crawley (in a modest dress with a veil on)
whipped off in a hackney-coach to the City: and, being landed
at Messrs. Jones and Robinson’s bank, presented a document
there to the authority at the desk, who, in reply, asked her
“How she would take it?”

She gently said “she would take a hundred and fifty pounds
in small notes and the remainder in one note”: and, passing
through St. Paul’s Church Yard, stopped there and bought
the handsomest black silk gown for Briggs which money could
buy; and which, with a kiss and the kindest speeches, she
presented to the simple old spinster.

Then she walked to Mr. Raggles, inquired about his chil-
dren affectionately, and gave him fifty pounds on account.
Then she went to the liveryman from whom she jobbed her
carriages, and gratified him with a similar sum. “And I hope
this will be a lesson to you, Spavin,” she said, “and that on
the next drawing-room day my brother, Sir Pitt, will not be
inconvenienced by being obliged to take four of us in his
carriage to wait upon His Majesty, because my own carriage
is not forthcoming.” It appears there had been a difference
on the last drawing-room day. Hence the degradation which
the Colonel had almost suffered, of being obliged to enter the
presence of his Sovereign in a hack-cab.

These arrangements concluded, Becky paid a visit up stairs
to the before-mentioned desk, which Amelia Sedley had given
her years and years ago, and which contained a number of
useful and valuable little things: in which private museum
she placed the one note which Messrs. Jones and Robinson’s
cashier had given her.
144 VANITY FAIR.

CHAPTER XV.

IN WHICH WE ENJOY THREE COURSES AND A DESSERT.

When the ladies of Gaunt House were at breakfast that
morning, Lord Steyne (who took his chocolate in private, and
seldom disturbed the females of his household, or saw them
except.upon public days, or when they crossed each other in
the hall, or when from his pit-box at the opera he surveyed
them in their box on the grand tier),—his Lordship, we say,
appeared among the ladies and the children who were as-
sembled over the tea and toast, and a battle royal ensued
apropos of Rebecca.

“My Lady Steyne,” he said, “I want to see the list for your
dinner on Friday; and I want you, if you please, to write a
card for Colonel and Mrs. Crawley.”

“Blanche writes them,” Lady Steyne said, in a flutter.
“Lady Gaunt writes them.”

“T will not write to that person,” Lady Gaunt said, a tall
and stately lady, who looked up for an instant and then down
again after she had spoken. It was not good to meet Lord
Steyne’s eyes for those who had offended him.

“Send the children out of the room. Go!” said he, pulling
at the bell-rope. The urchins, always frightened before him,
retired: their mother would have followed too. “Not you,”
he said. “You stop.”

“My Lady Steyne,” he said, “once more will you have the
goodness to go to the desk, and write that card for your dinner
on Friday?”

“My Lord, I will not be present at it,” Lady Gaunt said;
“T will go home.”

“T wish you would, and stay there. You will find the
bailiffs at Bareacres very pleasant company, and I shall be
freed from lending money to your relations, and from your
own damned tragedy airs. Who are you to give orders here?
You have no money. You’ve got no brains. You were here
to have children, and you have not had any. Gaunt’s tired
of you; and George’s wife is the only person in the family
who doesn’t wish you were dead. Gaunt would marry again
if you were.”
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 145

; “I wish I were,” her Ladyship answered, with tears and rage
in her eyes.

“You, forsooth, must give yourself airs of virtue; while my
wife, who is an immaculate saint, as everybody knows, and
never did wrong in her life, has no objection to meet my
young friend Mrs. Crawley. My Lady Steyne knows that ap-
pearances are sometimes against the best of women; that lies
are often told about the most innocent of them. Pray,
madam, shall I tell you some little anecdotes about my Lady
Bareacres, your mamma?”

“You may strike me if you like, sir, or hit any cruel blow,”
Lady Gaunt said. To see his wife and daughter suffering
always put his Lordship into a good humor.

“My sweet Blanche,” he said, “I am a gentleman, and
never lay my hand upon a woman, save in the way of kind-
ness. I only wish to correct little faults in your character.
You women are too proud, and sadly lack humility, as Father
Mole, ’m sure, would tell my Lady Steyne if he were here.
You mustn’t give yourself airs: you must be meek and humble,
my blessings. For all Lady Steyne knows, this calumniated,
simple, good-humored Mrs. Crawley is quite innocent,—even
more innocent than herself. Her husband’s character is not
good, but it is as good as Bareacres’, who has played a little
and not paid a great deal, who cheated you out of the only
legacy you ever had, and left you a pauper on my hands. And
Mrs. Crawley is not very well born; but she is not worse than
Fanny’s illustrious ancestor, the first de la Jones.”

“The money which I brought into the family, sir,” Lady
George cried out—

“You purchased a contingent reversion with it,” the Mar-
quis said darkly. “If Gaunt dies, your husband may come to
his honors; your little boys may inherit them, and who knows
what besides? In the meanwhile, ladies, be as proud and
virtuous as you like abroad, but don’t give me any airs. As
for Mrs. Crawley’s character, J sha’n’t demean myself or that
most spotless and perfectly irreproachable lady, by even hint-
ing that it requires a defense. You will be pleased to receive
her with the utmost cordiality, as you will receive all persons
whom I present in this house. This house?” He broke out
with a laugh. “Who is the master of it? and whatisit? This
Temple of Virtue belongs to me. And if I invite all Newgate
or all Bedlam here, by they shall be welcome.”

Vol. I1—10

 
146 VANITY FAIR.

After this vigorous allocution, to one of which sort Lord
Steyne treated his “Hareem,” whenever symptoms of insub-
ordination appeared in his household, the crestfallen women
had nothing for it but to obey. Lady Gaunt wrote the invita-
tion which his Lordship required, and she and her mother-
in-law drove in person, and with bitter and humiliated hearts,
to leave the cards on Mrs. Rawdon, the reception of which
caused that innocent woman so much pleasure.

There were families in London who would have sacrificed
a year’s income to receive such an honor at the hands of those
great ladies. Mrs. Frederick Bullock, for instance, would have
gone on her knees from Mayfair to Lombard Street, if Lady
Steyne and Lady Gaunt had been waiting in the City to raise
her up, and say, “Come to us next Friday,’”—not to one of the
great crushes and grand balls of Gaunt House, whither every-
body went, but to the sacred, unapproachable, mysterious,
delicious entertainments, to be admitted to one of which was
a privilege, and an honor, and a blessing indeed.

Severe, spotless, and beautiful, Lady Gaunt held the very
highest rank in Vanity Fair. The distinguished courtesy with
which Lord Steyne treated her charmed everybody who wit-
nessed his behavior, caused the severest critics to admit how
perfect a gentleman he was, and to own that his Lordship’s
heart at least was in the nght place.

The ladies of Gaunt House called Lady Bareacres in to
their aid, in order to repulse the common enemy. One of
Lady Gaunt’s carriages went to Hill Street for her Ladyship’s
mother, all whose equipages were in the hands of the bailiffs,
whose very jewels and wardrobe, it was said, had been seized
by those inexorable Israelites. Bareacres Castle was theirs,
too, with all its costly pictures, furniture, and articles of
vertu,—the magnificent Vandykes; the noble Reynolds pic-
tures; the Lawrence portraits, tawdry and beautiful, and,
thirty years ago, deemed as precious as works of real genius;
the matchless Dancing Nymph of Canova, for wnich Lady
Bareacres had sat in her youth,—Lady Bareacres splendid
then, and radiant in wealth, rank, and beauty,—a toothless,
bald old woman now, a mere rag of a former robe of state.
Her lord, painted at the same time by Lawrence, as waving
his saber in front of Bareacres Castle, and clothed in his uni-
form as Colonel of the Thistlewood Yeomanry, was a with-
ered, old, lean man in a great-coat and a Brutus wig, slinking
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 147

about Gray’s Inn of mornings chiefly, and dining alone at
clubs. He did not like to dine with Steyne now. They had
run races of pleasure together in youth, when Bareacres was
the winner. But Steyne had more bottom than he, and had
lasted him out. The Marquis was ten times a greater man now
than the young Lord Gaunt of ’85; and Bareacres nowhere
in the race,—old, beaten, bankrupt, and broken down. He
had borrowed too much money of Steyne to find it pleasant to
meet his old comrade often. The latter, whenever he wished
to be merry, used jeeringly to ask Lady Gaunt why her father
had not come to see her. “He has not been here for four
months,” Lord Steyne would say. “I can always tell by my
check-book afterwards when I get a visit from Bareacres.
What a comfort it is, my ladies, I bank with one of my sons’
fathers-in-law, and the other banks with me!’

Of the other illustrious persons whom Becky had the honor
to encounter on this her first presentation to the grand world,
it does not become the present historian to say much. There
was his Excellency the Prince of Peterwaradin, with his prin-
cess; a nobleman tightly girthed, with a large military chest,
on which the plaque of his order shone magnificently, and
wearing the red collar of the Golden Fleece round his neck.
He was the owner of countless flocks. “Look at his face. I
think he must be descended from a sheep,” Becky whispered
to Lord Steyne. Indeed, his Excellency’s countenance, long,
solemn, and white with the ornament round his neck, bore
some resemblance to that of a venerable bell-wether.

There was Mr. Paul John Jefferson Jones, titularly attached
to the American Embassy, and correspondent of the New
York Demagogue; who, by way of making himself agreeable
to the company, asked Lady Steyne, during a pause in the
conversation at dinner, how his dear friend, George Gaunt,
liked the Brazils? He and George had been most intimate
at Naples, and had gone up Vesuvius together. Mr. Jones
wrote a full and particular account of the dinner, which ap-
peared duly in the Demagogue. He mentioned the names and
titles of all the guests, giving biographical sketches of the
principal people. He described the persons of the ladies with
great eloquence; the service of the table; the size and costume
of the servants; enumerated the dishes and wines served; the
ornaments of the sideboard, and the probable value of the
plate. Such a dinner he calculated could not be dished up

under fifteen or eighteen dollars per head. And he was in
33
148 VANITY FAIR.
4

the habit, until very lately, of sending over protégés, with
letters of recommendation to the present Marquis of Steyne,
encouraged to do so by the intimate terms on which he had
lived with his dear friend, the late Lord. He was most in-
dignant that a young and insignificant aristocrat, the Karl of
Southdown, should have taken the pas of him in their pro-
cession to the dining-room. “Just as I was stepping up to
offer my hand to a very pleasing and witty fashionable, the
brilliant and exclusive Mrs. Rawdon Crawley,” he wrote, “the
young patrician interposed between me and the lady, and
whisked my Helen off without a word of apology. I was fain
to bring up the rear with the Colonel, the lady’s husband, a
stout, red-faced warrior, who distinguished himself at Water-
loo, where he had better luck than befell some of his brother
red-coats at New Orleans.”

The Colonel’s countenance on coming into this polite society
wore as many blushes as the face of a boy of sixteen assumes
when he is confronted with his sister’s school-fellows. It has
been told before that honest Rawdon had not been much used
at any period of his life to ladies’ company. With the men at
the Club or the Messroom, he was well enough; and could
ride, bet, smoke, or play at billiards with the boldest of them.
He had had his time for female friendships too; but that was
twenty years ago, and the ladies were of the rank of those with
whom Young Marlow in the comedy is represented as having
been familiar before he became abashed in the presence of
Miss Hardcastle. The times are such that one scarcely dares
to allude to that kind of company which thousands of our
young men in Vanity Fair are frequenting every day, which
nightly fills casinos and dancing-rooms, which is known to
exist as well as the Ring in Hyde Park or the Congregation at
St. James’s; but which the most squeamish if not the most
moral of societies is determined to ignore. In a word, al-
though Colonel Crawley was now five-and-forty years of age,
it had not been his lot in life to meet with a half-dozen good
women, besides his paragon of a wife. All except her and his
kind sister Lady Jane, whose gentle nature had tamed and
won him, scared the worthy Colonel; and on occasion of his
first dinner at Gaunt House he was not heard to make a single
remark except to state that the weather was very hot. Indeed
Becky would have left him at home, but that virtue ordained
that her husband should be by her side to protect the timid
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO, 149

and fluttering little creature on her first appearance in polite
society.

_ On her first appearance Lord Steyne stepped forward, tak-
ing her hand, and greeting her with great courtesy, and pre-
senting her to Lady Steyne, and their Ladyships, her daugh-
ters. Their Ladyships made three stately courtesies, and the
elder lady, to be sure, gave her hand to the new-comer, but
it was as cold and lifeless as marble.

Becky took it, however, with grateful humility; and per-
forming a reverence which would have done credit to the best
dancing-master, put herself at Lady Steyne’s feet, as it were,
by saying that his Lordship had been her father’s earliest
friend and patron, and that she, Becky, had learned to honor
and respect the Steyne family from the days of her childhood.
The fact is, that Lord Steyne had once purchased a couple of
pictures of the late Sharp, and the affectionate orphan could
never forget her gratitude for that favor.

The Lady Bareacres then came under Becky’s cognizance,—
to whom the Colonel’s lady made also a most respectful
obeisance; it was returned with severe dignity by the exalted
person in question.

“T had the pleasure of making your Ladyship’s acquaintance
at Brussels, ten years ago,” Becky said, in the most winning
manner. “I had the good fortune to meet Lady Bareacres at
the Duchess of Richmond’s ball, the night before the battle
of Waterloo. And I recollect your Ladyship, and my Lady
Blanche, your daughter, sitting in the carriage in the porte-
cochére at the Inn, waiting for horses. I hope your ladyship’s
diamonds are safe,”

Everybody’s eyes looked into their neighbor’s. The famous
diamonds had undergone a famous seizure, it appears, about
which Becky, of course, knew nothing. Rawdon Crawley re-
treated with Lord Southdown into a window, where the latter
was heard to laugh immoderately, as Rawdon told him the
story of Lady Bareacres wanting horses, and “knuckling down,
by Jove,’ to Mrs. Crawley. “I think I needn’t be afraid of
that woman,” Becky thought. Indeed, Lady Bareacres ex-
changed terrified and angry looks with her daughter and re-
treated to a table, where she began to look at pictures with
great energy.

When the Potentate from the Danube made his appearance,
the conversation was carried on in the French language, and
the Lady Bareacres and the younger ladies found, to their
150 VANITY FAIR.

further mortification, that Mrs. Crawley was much better ac-
quainted with that tongue, and spoke it with a much better
accent, than they. Becky had met other Hungarian magnates
with the army in France, in 1816-17. She asked after her
friends with great interest. The foreign personages thought
that she was a lady of great distinction; and the Prince and
the Princess asked severally of Lord Steyne and the Marchion-
ess, whom they conducted to dinner, who was that petite dame
who spoke so well?

Finally, the procession being formed in the order described
by the American diplomatist, they marched into the apart-
ment where the banquet was served: and which, as I have
promised the reader he shall enjoy it, he shall have the liberty
of ordering himself so as to suit his fancy.

But it was when the ladies were alone that Becky knew the
tug of war would come. And then indeed the little woman
found herself in such a situation as made her acknowledge the
correctness of Lord Steyne’s caution to her to beware of the
society of ladies above her own sphere. As they say the per-
sons who hate Irishmen most are Irishmen; 80, assuredly, the
greatest tyrants over women are women. When poor little
Becky, alone with the ladies, went up to the fireplace whither
the great ladies had repaired, the great ladies marched away
and took possession of a table of drawings. When Becky fol-
lowed them to the table of drawings, they dropped off one by
one to the fire again. She tried to speak to one of the children
(of whom she was commonly fond in public places), but
Master George Gaunt was called away by his mamma; and the
stranger was treated with such cruelty, finally, that even Lady
Steyne herself pitied her, and went up to speak to the friend-
less little woman.

“Lord Steyne,” said her Ladyship, as her wan cheeks glowed
with a blush, “says you sing and play very beautifully, Mrs.
Crawley. J wish you would do me the kindness to sing to
me.”

“T will do anything that may give pleasure to my Lord
Steyne or to you,” said Rebecca, sincerely grateful, and, seat-
ing herself at the piano, began to sing.

She sang religious songs of Mozart, which had been early
favorites of Lady Steyne, and with such sweetness and ten-
derness that the lady, lingering round the piano, sat down by
its side, and listened until the tears rolled down her eyes. It
is true that the opposition ladies at the other end of the room
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 151

kept up a loud and ceaseless buzzing and talking; but the
Lady Steyne did not hear those rumors. She was a child
again,—and had wandered back through a forty years’ wilder-
ness to her Convent Garden. The chapel organ had pealed
the same tones, the organist, the sister whom she loved best
of the community, had taught them to her in those early
happy days. She was a girl once more, and the brief period
of her happiness bloomed out again for an hour. She started
when the jarring doors were flung open, and, with a loud
laugh from Lord Steyne, the men of the party entered full
of gayety.

He saw at a glance what had happened in his absence; and
was grateful to his wife for once. He went and spoke to her,
and called her by her Christian name, so as again to bring
blushes to her pale face. “My wife says you have been singing
lke an angel,” he said to Becky. Now there are angels of two
kinds, and both sorts, it is said, are charming in their way.

Whatever the previous portion of the evening had been, the
rest of that night was a great triumph for Becky. She sang
her very best, and it was so good that every one of the men
came and crowded round the piano. The women, her enemies,
were left quite alone. And Mr. Paul Jefferson Jones thought
he had made a conquest of Lady Gaunt by going up to her
Ladyship, and praising her delightful friend’s first-rate sing-
ing.

CHAPTER XVI.

CONTAINS A VULGAR INCIDENT.

The Muse, whoever she be, who presides over this Comic
History, must now descend from the genteel heights in which
she has been soaring and have the goodness to drop down
upon the lowly roof of John Sedley at Brompton, and describe
what events are taking place there. Here, too, in this humble
tenement, live care, and distrust, and dismay. Mrs. Clapp in
the kitchen is grumbling in secret to her husband about the
rent, and urging the good fellow to rebel against his old friend
and patron and his present lodger. Mrs. Sedley has ceased to
visit her landlady in the lower regions now, and indeed is in a
position to patronize Mrs. Clapp no longer. How can one be
condescending to a lady to whom one owes a matter of forty
152 VANITY FAIR.

pound, and who is perpetually throwing out hints for the
money? The Irish maid-servant has not altered in the least
in her kind and respectful behavior; but Mrs. Sedley fancies
that she is growing insolent and ungrateful, and, as the guilty
thief who fears each bush an officer, sees threatening innuen-
does and hints of capture in all the girl’s speeches and an-
swers. Miss Clapp, grown quite a young woman now, is de-
clared by the soured old lady to be an unbearable and
impudent little minx. Why Amelia can be so fond of her,
or have her in her room so much, or walk out with her so
constantly, Mrs. Sedley cannot conceive. The bitterness of
poverty has poisoned the life of the once cheerful and kindly
woman. She is thankless for Amelia’s constant and gentle
bearing towards her; carps at her for her efforts at kindness
or service; rails at her for her silly pride in her child, and
her neglect of her parents. Georgy’s house is not a very lively
one since Uncle Jos’s annuity has been withdrawn, and the
little family are almost upon famine diet.

Amelia thinks, and thinks, and racks her brain, to find
some means of increasing the small pittance upon which the
household is starving. Can she give lessons in anything?
paint card-racks? do fine work? She finds that women are
working hard, and better than she can, for twopence a day.
She buys a couple of begilt Bristol boards at the Fancy Sta-
tioner’s, and paints her very best upon them,—a shepherd
with a red waist-coat on one, and a pink face smiling in the
midst of a pencil landscape,—a shepherdess on the other,
crossing a little bridge, with a little dog, nicely shaded. The
man of the Fancy Repository and Brompton Emporium of
Fine Arts (of whom she bought the screens, vainly hoping
that he would repurchase them when ornamented by her
hand) can hardly hide the sneer with which he examines these
feeble works of art. He looks askance at the lady who waits
in the shop, and ties up the cards again in their envelope of
whity-brown paper, and hands them to the poor widow and
Miss Clapp, who had never seen such beautiful things in her
life, and had been quite confident that the man must give at
least two guineas for the screens. They try at other shops in
the interior of London, with faint, sickening hopes. “Don’t
want ’em,” says one. “Be.off,” says another, fiercely. Three
and sixpence have been spent in vain,—the screens retire to
Miss Clapp’s bedroom, who persists in thinking them lovely.

She writes out a little card in her neatest hand, and after
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 153

long thought and labor of composition; in which the public
is informed that “A Lady, who hag some time at her disposal,
wishes to undertake the education of some little girls, whom
she would instruct in English, in French, in Geography, in
History, and in Music,—address A. O., at Mr. Brown’s”; and
she confides the card to the gentleman of the Fine Art Re-
pository, who consents to allow it to lie upon the counter,
where it grows dingy and flyblown. Amelia passes the door
wistfully many a time, in hopes that Mr. Brown will have
some news to give her; but he never beckons her in. When
she goes to make little purchases, there is no news for her.
Poor, simple lady, tender and weak,—how are you to battle
with the struggling, violent world?

She grows daily more care-worn and sad; fixing upon her
child alarmed eyes whereof the little boy cannot interpret the
expression. She starts up of a night and peeps into his room
stealthily, to see that he is sleeping and not stolen away. She
sleeps but little now. A constant thought and terror is haunt-
ing her. How she weeps and prays in the long silent nights,
how she tries to hide from herself the thought which will re-
turn to her, that she ought to part with the boy, that she is
the only barrier between him and prosperity. She can’t, she
can’t. Not now, at least. Some other day. Oh! it is too hard
to think of and to bear.

A thought comes over her which makes her blush and turn
from herself,—her parents might keep the annuity,—the
curate would marry her and give a home to her and the boy.
But George’s picture and dearest memory are there to rebuke
her. Shame and love say no to the sacrifice. She shrinks from
it as from something unholy; and such thoughts never found
a resting-place in that pure and gentle bosom.

The combat, which we describe in a sentence or two, lasted
for many weeks in poor Amelia’s heart: during which, she
had no confidante; indeed, she could have none; as she would
not allow herself the possibility of yielding; though she was
giving way daily before the enemy with whom she had to
battle. One truth after another was marshalling itself silently
against her, and keeping its ground. Poverty and misery for
all, want and degradation for her parents, injustice to the
boy,—one by one, the outworks of the little citadel were taken,
in which the poor soul passionately guarded her only love and
treasure.

At the beginning of the struggle, she had written off a
154 VANITY FAIR.

letter of tender supplication to her brother at Calcutta, im-
ploring him not to withdraw the support which he had granted
to their parents, and painting in terms of artless pathos their
lonely and hapless condition. She did not know the truth of
the matter. The payment of Jos’s annuity was still regular:
but it was a money-lender in the City who was receiving it:
old Sedley had sold it for a sum of money wherewith to prose-
cute his bootless schemes. Emmy was calculating eagerly the
time that would elapse before the letter would arrive and be
answered. She had written down the date in her pocket-book
of the day when she despatched it. To her son’s guardian,
the good Major at Madras, she had not communicated any of
her griefs and perplexities. She had not written to him since
she wrote to congratulate him on his approaching marriage.
She thought, with sickening despondency, that that friend—
the only one, the one who had felt such a regard for her—was
fallen away.

One day, when things had come to a very bad pass,—when
the creditors were pressing, the mother in hysteric grief, the
father in more than usual gloom, the inmates of the family
avoiding each other, each secretly oppressed with his private
unhappiness and notion of wrong,—the father and daughter
happened to be left alone together; and Amelia thought to
comfort her father by telling him what she had done. She
had written to Joseph,—an answer must come in three or four
months. He was always generous, though careless. He could.
not refuse, when he knew how straitened were the circum-
stances of his parents.

Then the poor old gentleman revealed the whole truth to
her,—that his son was still paying the annuity, which his own
imprudence had flung away. He had not dared to tell it
sooner. He thought Amelia’s ghastly and terrified look, when
with a trembling, miserable voice he made the confession, con-
veyed reproaches to him for his concealment. “Ah!” said he,
with quivering lips and turning away, “you despise your old
father now!”

“O papa! it is not that,” Amelia cried out, falling on his
neck, and kissing him many times. ‘You are always good and
kind. You did it for the best. It is not for the money—it is
—O my God! my God! have mercy upon me, and give me
strength to bear this trial;” and she kissed him again wildly,
and went away.

Still the father did not know what that explanation meant,
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 185

and the burst of anguish with which the poor girl left him.
It was that she was conquered. The sentence was passed.
The child must go from her—to others—to forget her. Her
heart and her treasure,—her joy, hope, love, worship,—her
God, almost! She must give him up; and then she would go
to George: and they would watch over the child, and wait for
him until he came to them in heaven.

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

2 “Nothing, my child,” she said, and stooped down and kissed
im.

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

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

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

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

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

“Get the room over mine—his room that was—ready,” he
said. “Yes, sir,” his daughter replied in a tremble. It was
George’s room. It had not been opened for more than ten
years. Some of his clothes, papers, handkerchiefs, whips and
caps, fishing-rods and sporting gear, were still there. An
army list of 1814, with his name written on the cover, a little
dictionary he was wont to use in writing, and the Bible his
mother had given him, were on the mantel-piece; with a pair
of spurs, and a dried inkstand covered with the dust of ten
‘A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 167

years. Ah! since that ink was wet, what days and people had
passed away! The writing-book, still on the table, was blotted
with his hand.

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

“You had better send that woman some money,” Mr. Os-
borne said before he went out. “She sha’n’t want for noth-
ing. Send her a hundred pound.”

“And T’ll go and see her to-morrow?” Miss Osborne asked.

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

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

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

George was kept from school the next day, and saw his
aunt. Amelia left them alone together, and went to her
158 VANITY FAIR.

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

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

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

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

I know few things more affecting than that timorous debase-
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 159

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

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

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

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

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

about Georgy.
160 VANITY FAIR.

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

CHAPTER XVII.

IN WHICH A CHARADE IS ACTED WHICH MAY OR MAY NOT
PUZZLE THH READER,

After Becky’s appearance at my Lord Steyne’s private and
select parties the claims of that estimable woman as regards
fashion were settled; and some of the very greatest and tallest
doors in the metropolis were speedily opened to her,—doors
so great and tall that the beloved reader and writer hereof may
hope in vain to enter at them. Dear brethren, let us tremble
before those august portals. I fancy them guarded by grooms
of the chamber with flaming silver forks with which they
prong all those who have not the right of the entrée. They
say the honest newspaper-fellow who sits in the hall and
takes down the names of the guests dies after a little time.
He can’t survive the glare of fashion long. It scorches him
up, as the presence of Jupiter in full dress wasted that poor
imprudent Semele,—-a giddy moth of a creature who ruined
herself by venturing out of her natural atmosphere. Her
myth ought to be taken to heart amongst the Tyburnians, the
Belgravians,—her story, and perhaps Becky’s too, Ah, ladies!
~~ask the Reverend Mr. Thurifer if Belgravia is not a sound-
ing brass, and Tyburnia a tinkling cymbal. These are vanities.
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 161

Even these will pass away. And some day or other (but it will
be after our time, thank goodness,) Hyde Park Gardens will
be no better known than the celebrated horticultural outskirts
of Babylon; and Belgrave Square will be as desolate as Baker
Street, or Tadmor in the wilderness.

Ladies, are you aware that the great Pitt lived in Baker
Street? What would not your grandmothers have given to
be asked to Lady Hester’s parties in that now decayed man-
sion? I have dined in it,— mot guivous parle. I peopled the
chamber with ghosts of the mighty dead. As we sat soberly
drinking claret there with men of to-day, the spirits of the
departed came in and took their places round the darksome
board. The pilot who weathered the storm tossed off great
bumpers of spiritual port; the shade of Dundas did not leave
the ghost of a heeltap.—Addington sat bowing and smirking
in a ghastly manner, and would not be behindhand when the
noiseless bottle went round; Scott, from under bushy eye-
brows, winked at the apparition of a bee’s wing; Wilberforce’s
eyes went up to the ceiling, so that he did not seem to know
how his glass went up full to his mouth and came down
empty,——up to the ceiling which was above us only yesterday,
and which the great of the last days have all looked at. They
let the house as a furnished lodging now. Yes, Lady Hester
once lived in Baker Street, and lies asleep in the wilderness.
Eothen saw her there,—not in Baker Street; but in the other
solitude.

It is all vanity, to be sure; but who will not own to liking” ~~

a little of it? I should like to know what well-constituted
mind, merely because it is transitory, dislikes roast beef? That .
isa vanity; but may every man who reads this have a whole- .
some portion of it through life, I beg; ay, though my readers |
were five hundred thousand, Sit down, gentlemen, and fall ©
to, with a good hearty appetite; the fat, the lean, the gravy, |
the horseradish ag you like it,—-don’t spare it. Another glass -
of wine, Jones, my boy,—~a little bit of the Sunday side. Yes, —
let us eat our fill of the vain thing, and be thankful therefor,
And let us make-the best.of Becky’s-aristoeratic-pleasures-like-
wise; for these too, like all other mortal delights, were but
transitory.

The upshot of her visit to Lord Steyne was, that his High-
ness the Prince of Peterwaradin took occasion to renew his
acquaintance with Colonel Crawley, when they met on the

Vol. IL.—tt 2
162 VANITY FAIR.

next day at the Club, and to compliment Mrs. Crawley in the
Ring of Hyde Park with a profound salute of the hat. She
and her husband were invited immediately to one of the
Prince’s small parties at Levant House, then occupied by his
Highness during the temporary absence from England of its
noble proprietor. She sang after dinner to a very little
comité. The Marquis of Steyne was present, paternally su-
perintending the progress of his pupil.

At Levant House Becky met one of the finest gentlemen
and greatest ministers that Europe has produced,—the Duc
de la Jabotiére, then Ambassador from the Most Christian
King, and subsequently Minister to that monarch. I declare
I swell with pride as these august names are transcribed by my
pen; and I think in what brilliant company my dear Becky
is moving. She became a constant guest at the French Em-
bassy, where no party was considered to be complete without
the presence of the charming Madame Rawdon Crawley.

Messieurs de Truffigny (of the Périgord family) and Cham-
pignac, both attachés of the Embassy, were straightway smit-
ten by the charms of the fair Colonel’s wife; and both de-
clared, according to the wont of their nation, (for who ever
yet met a Frenchman, come out of England, that has not left
half a dozen families miserable, and brought away as many
hearts in his pocket-book?) both, I saw, declared that they
were aux mieux with the charming Madame Ravdonn.

But I doubt the correctness of the assertion. Champignac
was very fond of écarté, and made many parties with the Col-
onel of evenings, while Becky was singing to Lord Steyne in
the other room; and as for Truffigny, it is a well-known fact
that he dared not go to the Travelers’, where he owed money
to the waiters, and, if he had not had the Embassy as a dining-
place, the worthy young gentleman must have starved. I
doubt, I say, that Becky would have selected either of these
young men as a person on whom she would bestow her special
regard. They ran of her messages, purchased her gloves and
flowers, went in debt for opera-boxes for her, and made them-
selves amiable in a thousand ways. And they talked English
with adorable simplicity, and to the constant amusement of
Becky and my Lord Steyne. She would mimic one or other
to his face, and compliment him on his advance in the English
language with a gravity which never failed to tickle the Mar-
quis, her sardonic old patron. Truffigny gave Briggs a shawl
by way of winning over Becky’s confidante, and asked her to
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 163

take charge of a letter which the simple spinster handed over
in public to the person to whom it was addressed; and the
composition of which amused everybody who read it greatly.
Lord Steyne read it,—everybody but honest Rawdon, to whom
it was not necessary to tell everything that passed in the little
house in May Fair.

_ Here, before long, Becky received not only “the best” for-
eigners (as the phrase is in our noble and admirable society
slang), but some of the best English people too. I don’t mean
the most virtuous, or indeed the least virtuous, or the cleverest,
or the stupidest, or the richest, or the best born, but “the
best,’—in a word, people about whom there is no question,—
such as the great Lady Fitz-Willis, that Patron Saint of Al-
mack’s, the great Lady Slowbore, the great Lady Grizzel Mac-
beth (she was Lady G. Glowry, daughter of Lord Grey of
Glowry), and the like. When the Countess of Fitz-Willis (her
Ladyship is of the Kingstreet family, see Debrett and Burke)
takes up a person, he or she is safe. There is no question
about them any more. Not that my Lady Fitz-Willis is any
better than anybody else, being, on the contrary, a faded per-
son, fifty-seven years of age, and neither handsome, nor
wealthy, nor entertaining; but it is agreed on all sides that
she is of the “best people.” Those who go to her are of the
best: and from an old grudge probably to Lady Steyne (for
whose coronet her Ladyship, then the youthful Georgina
Frederica, daughter of the Prince of Wales’s favorite, the Earl
of Portansherry, had once tried), this great and famous leader
of the fashion chose to acknowledge Mrs. Rawdon Crawley:
made her a most marked courtesy at the assembly over which
she presided: and not only encouraged her son, St. Kitts (his
Lordship got his place through Lord Steyne’s interest), to fre-
quent Mrs. Crawley’s house, but asked her to her own man-
sion, and spoke to her twice in the most public and conde-
scending manner during dinner. The important fact was
known all over London that night. People who had been cry-
ing fie about Mrs. Crawley were silent. Wenham, the wit and
lawyer, Lord Steyne’s righthand man, went about everywhere
praising her: some who had hesitated came forward at once
and welcomed her: little Tom Toady, who had warned South-
down about visiting such an abandoned woman, now besought
to be introduced to her. In a word, she was admitted to be
among the “best” people. Ah, my beloved readers and
brethren, do not envy poor Becky prematurely,—glory like
164 VANITY FAIR.

this is said to be fugitive. It is currently reported that, even
in the very inmost circles, they are no happier than the poor
wanderers outside the zone; and Becky, who penetrated into
the very center of fashion, and saw the great George IV.
face to face, has owned since that there too was Vanity.

We must be brief in descanting upon this part of her career.
As I cannot describe the mysteries of freemasonry, although
I have a shrewd idea that it is a humbug: so an uninitiated
man cannot take upon himself to portray the great world ac-
curately, and had best keep his opinions to himself, whatever
they are.

Becky has often spoken in subsequent years of this season
of her life, when she moved among the very greatest circles
of the London fashion. Her success excited, elated, and then
bored her. At first no occupation was more pleasant than to
invent and procure (the latter a work of no small trouble and
ingenuity, by the way, in a person of Mrs. Rawdon Crawley’s
very narrow means),—to procure, we say, the prettiest new
dresses and ornaments; to drive to fine dinner-parties, where
she was welcomed by great people; and from the fine dinner-
parties to fine assemblies, whither the same people came with
whom she had been dining, whom she had met the night be-
fore, and would see on the morrow—the young men faultless-
ly appointed, handsomely cravatted, with the neatest glossy
boots and white gloves; the elders portly, brass-buttoned,
noble-looking, polite, and prosy; the young ladies blond,
timid, and in pink; the mothers grand, beautiful, sumptuous,
solemn, and in diamonds. They talked in English, not in
bad French, as they do in the novels. They talked about
each others’ houses, and characters, and families: just ag the
Joneses do about the Smiths. Becky’s former acquaintances
hated and envied her: the poor woman herself was yawning
in spirit. “I wish I were out of it,” she said to herself. “TI
would rather be a parson’s wife, and teach a Sunday School,
than this; or a sergeant’s lady, and ride in the regimental
wagon; or, O how much gayer it would be to wear spangles
and trousers, and dance before a booth at a fair.”

“You would do it very well,” said Lord Steyne, laughing,
She used to tell the great man her ennuis and perplexities in
her artless way,—they amused him.

“Rawdon would make a very good Ecuyer,—Master of the
Ceremonies,—what do you call him,—the man in the large
boots and the uniform, who goes round the ring cracking the
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 165

whip? He is large, heavy, and of a military figure. I recol-
lect,” Becky continued pensively, “my father took me to see
a show at Brookgreen Fair when I was a child; and when
we came home I made myself a pair of stilts, and danced in
the studio to the wonder of all the pupils.”

“I should have liked to see it,’ said Lord Steyne.

“T should like to do it now,” Becky continued. “How Lady
Blinkey would open her eyes, and Lady Grizzel Macbeth would
stare! Hush! silence! there is Pasta beginning to sing.”
Becky always made a point of being conspicuously polite to
the professional ladies and gentlemen who attended at these
aristocratic parties,—of following them into the corners where
they sat in silence, and shaking hands with them, and smil-
ing in the view of all persons, She was an artist herself, as
she said very truly; there was a frankness and humility in the
manner in which she acknowledged her origin, which pro-
voked, or disarmed, or amused lookers-on, as the case might
be. “How cool that woman is,” said one; “what airs of in-
dependence she assumes, where she ought to sit still and be
thankful if anybody speaks to her.” ‘What an honest and
good-natured soul she is,” said another. “What an artful
little minx,” said a third. They were all right very likely;
but Becky went her own way, and so fascinated the profes-
sional personages, that they would leave off their sore throats
in order to sing at her parties, and give her lessons for noth-
ing.

Yes, she gave parties in the little house in Curzon Street,
Many scores of carriages, with blazing lamps, blocked up the
street, to the disgust of No. 100, who could not rest for the
thunder of the knocking, and of 102, who could not sleep for
envy. The gigantic footmen who accompanied the vehicles
were too big to be contained in Becky’s little hall, and were
billited off in the neighboring public-houses, whence, when
they were wanted, call-boys summoned them from their heer.
Scores of the great dandies of London squeezed and trod on
each other on the little stairs, laughing to find themselves
there; and many spotless and severe ladies of ¢on were seated
in the little drawing-room, listening to the professional sing-
ers, who were singing according to their wont, and as if they
wished to blow the windows down. And the day after there
appeared among the fashionable reunions in the “Morning
Post,” a paragraph to the following effect:

‘Yesterday, Colonel and Mrs. Crawley entertained a select
166 VANITY FAIR.

party at dinner at their house in May Fair. Their Excellen-
cies the Prince and Princess of Peterwaradin, H. E. Papoosh
Pasha, the Turkish Ambassador (attended by Kibob Bey,
dragoman of the mission), the Marquess of Steyne, Earl of
Southdown, Sir Pitt and Lady Jane Crawley, Mr. Wagg, etc.
After dinner Mrs. Crawley had an assembly which was at-
tended by the Duchess (Dowager) of Stilton, Duc de la Gru-
yére, Marchioness of Cheshire, Marchese Alessandro Stra-
chino, Comte de Brie, Baron Schapzuger, Chevalier Tosti,
Countess of Slingstone, and Lady F. Macadam, Major-General
and Lady G. Macbeth, and (2) Miss Macheths; Viscount Pad-
dington, Sir Horace Fogey, Hon. Sands Bedwin, Bobbachy
Bahawder,” and an eic., which the reader may fill at his pleas-
ure through a dozen close lines of small type. ‘

And in her commerce with the great our dear friend
showed the same frankness which distinguished her transac-
tions with the lowly in station. On one occasion, when out
at a very fine house, Rebecca was (perhaps rather ostentatious-
ly) holding a conversation in the French language with a. cele-
brated tenor singer of that nation, while the Lady Grizzel Mac-
beth looked over her shoulder scowling at the pair.

“How very well you speak French,” Lady Grizzel said,
who herself spoke the tongue in an Edinburgh accent most re-
markable to hear.

“T ought to know it,” Becky modestly said, casting down
her eyes. “I taught it in a school, and my mother was a
Frenchwoman.”

Lady Grizzel was won by her humility, and was mollified
towards the little woman. She deplored the fatal leveling
tendencies of the age, which admitted persons of all classes
into the society of their superiors; but her Ladyship owned,
that this one at least was well behaved and never forgot her
place in life. She was a very good woman; good to the poor;
stupid, blameless, unsuspicious.—It is not her Ladyship’s
fault that she fancies herself better than you and me. The
skirts of her ancestors’ garments have been kissed for cen-
turies; it is a thousand years, they say, since the tartans of the
head of the family were embraced by the defunct Duncan’s
lords and councilors, when the great ancestor of the House
became King of Scotland.

Lady Steyne, after the music scene, succumbed before
Becky, and perhaps was not disinclined to her. The younger
ladies of the house of Gaunt were also compelled into sub-
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 167

mission. Once or twice they set people at her, but they failed.
The brilliant Lady Stunnington tried a passage of arms with
her, but was routed with great slaughter by the intrepid little
Becky. When attacked sometimes, Becky had a knack of
adopting a demure ingénue air under which she was most
dangerous. She said the wickedest things with the most sim-
ple, unaffected air when in this mood, and would take care
artlessly to apologize for her blunders, so that all the world
should know that she had made them.

Mr. Wagg, the celebrated wit, and a led-captain and trench-
er-man of my Lord Steyne, was caused by the ladies to charge
her; and the worthy fellow, leering at his patronesses, and
giving them a wink, as much as to say, “Now look out for
sport,” one evening began an assault upon Becky, who was
unsuspiciously eating her dinner. The little woman, attacked
on a sudden, but never without arms, lighted up in an instant,
parried and reposted with a home-thrust, which made Wagg’s
face tingle with shame; then she returned to her soup with
the most perfect calm and a quiet smile on her face. Wagg’s
great patron, who gave him dinners and lent him a little mon-
ey sometimes, and whose election, newsnaper, and other jobs
Wagg did, gave the luckless fellow such a savage glance with
the eyes as almost made him sink under the table and burst
into tears. He looked piteously at my Lord, who never spoke
to him during dinner, and at the ladies, who disowned him.
At last Becky herself took compassion upon him, and tried
to engage him in talk. He was not asked to dinner again for
six weeks; and Fiche, my Lord’s confidential man, to whom
Wagg naturally paid a good deal of court, was instructed to
tell him that if he ever dared to say a rude thing to Mrs.
Crawley again, or make her the butt of his stupid jokes, Milor
would put every one of his notes of hand into his lawyer’s
hands, and sell him up without mercy. Wagg wept before
Fiche, and implored his dear friend to intercede for him.
He wrote a poem in favor of Mrs. R. C., which appeared in
the very next number of the “Harum-scarum Magazine,”
which he conducted. He implored her good-will at parties
where he met her. He cringed and coaxed Rawdon at the club.
He was allowed to come back to Gaunt House after a while.
Becky was always good to him, always amused, never angry.

His lordship’s vizier and chief confidential servant (with
a seat in Parliament and at the dinner-table), Mr. Wenham,
was much more prudent in his behavior and opinions than Mr.
168 VANITY FAIR.

Wagg. However much he might be disposed to hate all par-
venus (Mr. Wenham himself was a stanch old True Blue
Tory, and his father a small coal-merchant in the north of
England), this aide-de-camp of the Marquis never showed
any sort of hostility to the new favorite; but pursued her
with stealthy kindnesses, and a sly and deferential politeness,
which somehow made Becky more uneasy than other people’s
overt hostilities.

How the Crawleys got the money which was spent upon
the entertainments with which they treated the polite world,
was a mystery which gave rise to some conversation at the
time, and probably added zest to these little festivities. Some
persons averred that Sir Pitt Crawley gave his brother a hand-
some allowance: if he did, Becky’s power over the Baronet
must have been extraordinary indeed, and his character greatly
changed in his advanced age. Other parties hinted that it was
Becky’s habit to levy contributions on all her husband’s
friends: going to this one in tears with an account that there
was an execution in the house; falling on her knees to that
one, and declaring that the whole family must go to jail or
commit suicide unless such and such a bill could be paid.
Lord Southdown, it was said, had been induced to give many
hundreds through these pathetic representations. Young
Feltham, of the —th Dragoons (and son of the firm of Tiler
and Feltham, hatters and army-accouterment makers), and
whom the Crawleys introduced into fashionable life, was also
cited as one of Becky’s victims in the pecuniary way. Peo-
ple declared that she got money from various simply disposed
persons, under pretense of getting them confidential appoint-
ments under government. Who knows what stories were or
were not told of our dear and innocent friend? Certain it is,
that if she had had all the money which she was said to have
begged or borrowed or stolen, she might have capitalized and
been honest for life, whereas—but this is advancing matters.

The truth is, that by economy and good management—by
a sparing use of ready money and by paying scarcely anybody
—people can manage, for a time at least, to make a great show
with very little means: and it is our belief that Becky’s much-
talked-of parties, which were not, after all was said, very
numerous, cost this lady very little more than the wax candles
which lighted the walls. Stillbrook and Queen’s Crawley sup-
plied her with game and fruit in abundance. Lord Steyne’s
cellars were at her disposal, and that excellent nobleman’s
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 169

famous cooks presided over her little kitchen, or sent by my
Lord’s order the rarest delicacies from their own. I protest
it is quite shameful in the world to abuse a simple creature
as people of her time abused Becky, and I warn the public
against believing one tenth of the stories against her. If every
person is to be banished from society who runs into debt and
cannot pay,—if we are to be peering into everybody’s private
life, speculating upon their income, and cutting them if we
don’t approve of their expenditure,—why, what a howling
wilderness and intolerable dwelling Vanity Fair would be.
Every man’s hand would be against his neighbor in this case,
my dear sir, and the benefits of civilization would be done
away with. We should be quarreling, abusing, avoiding one
another. Our houses would become caverns: and we should
go in rags because we cared for nobody. Rents would go
down. Parties wouldn’t be given any more. All the trades-
men of the town would be bankrupt. Wine, wax-lights,
comestibles, rouge, crinoline-petticoats, diamonds, wigs, Louis-
Quatorze grimcracks, and old china, park hacks, and splendid
high-stepping carriage-horses—all the delights of life, I say
—would go to the deuce, if people did but act upon their silly
principles, and avoid those whom they dislike and abuse.
‘Whereas, by a little charity and mutual forbearance, things
are made to go on pleasantly enough: we may abuse a man
as much as we like, and call him the greatest rascal unhung,—
but do we wish to hang him therefor?—No. We shake hands
when we meet. If his cook is good we forgive him, and go
and dine with him; and we expect he will do the same by us.
Thus trade flourishes; civilization advances; peace is kept;
new dresses are wanted for new assemblies every week; and
the last year’s vintage of Lafitte will remunerate the honest
proprietor who reared it.

At the time whereof we are writing, though the Great
George was on the throne, and ladies wore gigots and large
combs like tortoise-shell shovels in their hair, instead of the
simple sleeves and lovely wreaths which are actually in fash-
ion, the manners of the very polite world were not, I take it,
essentially different from those of the present day; and their
amusements pretty similar. To us, from the outside, gazing
over the policeman’s shoulders at the bewildering beauties as
they pass into Court or ball, they may seem beings of unearthly
splendor, and in the enjoyment of an exquisite happiness by
us unattainable. It is to console some of these dissatisfied
170 VANITY FAIR.

beings, that we are narrating our own Becky’s struggles, and
triumphs, and disappointments, of all of which, indeed, as is
the case with all persons of merit, she had her share.

At this time the amiable amusement of acting charades had
come among us from France; and was considerably in vogue
in this country, enabling the many ladies amongst us who had
beauty to display their charms, and the fewer number who
had cleverness to exhibit their wit. My Lord Steyne was
incited by Becky, who perhaps believed herself endowed with
both the above qualifications, to give an entertainment at
Gaunt House, which should include some of these little
dramas; aud we must take leave to introduce the reader to
this brilliant reunion, and, with a melancholy welcome too,
for it will be among the very last of the fashionable enter-
tainments to which it will be our fortune to conduct him.

A portion of that splendid room, the picture-gallery of
Gaunt House, was arranged as the charade theater. It had
been go used when George III. was king; and a picture of the
Marquis of Gaunt is still extant, with his hair in powder and
a pink ribbon, in a Roman shape, as it was called, enacting
the part of Cato in Mr. Addison’s tragedy of that name, per-
formed before their Royal Highnesses the Prince of Wales,
the Bishop of Osnaburgh, and Prince William Henry, then
children like the actor. One or two of the old properties
were drawn out of the garrets, where they had lain ever since,
and furbished up anew for the present festivities.

Young Bedwin Sands, then an elegant dandy and Eastern
traveler, was manager of the revels. An Eastern traveler was
somebody in those days, and the adventurous Bedwin, who had
published his quarto, and passed some months under the tents
in the desert, was a personage of no small importance. In
his volume there were several pictures of Sands in various
Oriental costumes; and he traveled about with a black at-
tendant of most unprepossessing appearance, just like another
Brian de Bois Guilbert. Bedwin, his costumes, and black
man, were hailed at Gaunt House as very valuable acquisitions.

He led off the first charade. A Turkish officer with an
immense plume of feathers (the Janizaries were supposed to
be still in existence, and the tarboosh had not as yet displaced
the ancient and majestic headdress of the true believers) was
seen couched on a divan, and making believe to puff at a
narghile, in which, however, for the sake of the ladies, only
a fragrant pastille was allowed to smoke. The Turkish dig-
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 171

nity yawns and expresses signs of weariness and idleness. He
claps his hands and Mesrour the Nubian appears, with bare
arms, bangles, yetaghans, and every Eastern ornament,—
gaunt, tall, and hideous. He makes a salaam before my Lord
the Aga.

A thrill of terror and delight runs through the assembly.
The ladies whisper to one another. The black slave was given
to Sands Bedwin by an Egyptian Pasha in exchange for three
dozen of Maraschino. He has sewn up ever so many odalis-
ques in sacks and tilted them into the Nile.

“Bid the slave-merchant enter,” says the Turkish voluptu-
ary, with a wave of his hand. Mesrour conducts the slave-
merchant into my lord’s presence: he brings a veiled female
with him. He removes the veil. A thrill of applause bursts
through the house. It is Mrs. Winkworth (she was a Miss
Absalom) with the beautiful eyes and hair. She is in a gor-
geous Oriental costume; the black braided locks are twined
with innumerable jewels; her dress is covered over with gold
piastres. The odious Mahometan expresses himself charmed
by her beauty. She falls down on her knees, and entreats
him to restore her to the mountains where she was born, and
where her Circassian lover is still deploring the absence of
hig Zuleikah. No entreaties will move the obdurate Hassan.
He laughs at the notion of the Circassian bridegroom. Zu-
leikah covers her face with her hands, and drops down in
an attitude of the most beautiful despair. There seems to
be no hope for her, when—when the Kislar Aga appears.

The Kislar Aga brings a letter from the Sultan. Hassan
receives and places on his head the dread firman. A ghastly
terror seizes him, while on the negro’s face (it is Mesrour again
in another costume) appears a ghastly joy. “Mercy! mercy!”
cries the Pasha: while the Kislar Aga, grinning horribly,
pulls out—a bow-string.

The curtain draws just as he is going to use that awful
weapon. Hassan from within bawls out, “First two syllables,”
—and Mrs. Rawdon Crawley, who is going to act in the cha-
rade, comes forward and compliments Mrs. Winkworth on
the admirable taste and beauty of her costume,

The second part of the charade takes place. It is still an
flastern scene. Hassan, in another dress, is in an attitude
by Zuleikah, who is perfectly reconciled to him. The Kislar
Aga has become a peaceful black slave. It is sunrise on the
desert, and the Turks turn their heads eastwards and bow to
172 VANITY FAIR.

the sand. As there are no dromedaries at hand, the band
facetiously plays “The Camels are coming.” An enormous
Kgyptian head figures in the scene. It is a musical one, and,
to the surprise of the Oriental travelers, sings a comic song,
composed by Mr. Wagg. The Eastern voyagers go off dancing,
like Papageno and the Moorish King, in the Magic Flute.
“Last two syllables,” roars the head.

The last act opens. It is a Grecian tent this time. A tall
and stalwart man reposes on a couch there. Above him hang
his helmet and shield. There is no need for them now. Ilium
is down. Iphigenia is slain. Cassandra is a prisoner in his
outer halls. The king of men (it is Colonel Crawley, who,
indeed, has no notion about the sack of Ilium or the con-
quest of Cassandra), the anax andrén is asleep in his chamber
at Argos. A lamp casts the broad shadow of the sleeping
warrior flickering on the walls—the sword and shield of
Troy glitter in its light. The band plays the awful music of
Don Juan, before the statue enters.

Aegisthus steals in pale and on tiptoe. What is that ghast-
ly face looking out balefully after him from behind the arras?
He raises his dagger to strike the sleeper, who turns in his
bed, and opens his broad chest as if for the blow. He cannot
strike the noble slumbering chieftain. Clytemnestra glides
swiftly into the room like an apparition,—her arms are bare
and white,—her tawny hair floats down her shoulders,—her
face is deadly pale,—and her eyes are lighted up with a smile
so ghastly that people quake as they look at her.

A tremor ran through the room. “Good God!” somebody
said, “it’s Mrs. Rawdon Crawley.”

Scornfully she snatches the dagger out of Aegisthus’ hand,
and advances to the bed. You see it shining over her head
in the glimmer of the lamp, and—and the lamp goes out,
with a groan, and all is dark.

The darkness and the scene frightened people. Rebecca
performed her part so well, and with such ghastly truth, that
the spectators were all dumb, until, with a burst, all the lamps
of the hall blazed out again, when everybody began to shout
applause. “Braval brava!” old Steyne’s strident voice was
heard roaring over all the rest. “By , She’d do it, too,”
he said, between his teeth. The performers were called by the
whole house, which sounded with cries of “Manager! Clytem-
nestral” AGAMEMNON could not be got to show in his
classical tunic, but stood in the background with Aegisthus

 
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 173

and others of the performers of the little play. Mr. Bedwin
Sands led on Zuleikah and Clytemnestra. A great personage
insisted on being presented to the charming Clytemnestra.
“Heigh ha? Run him through the body. Marry somebody
else, hay?” was the apposite remark made by His Royal High-
ness.

“Mrs. Rawdon Crawley was quite killing in the part,” said
Lord Steyne. Becky laughed, gay and saucy-looking, and
swept the prettiest little courtesy ever seen.

Servants brought in salvers covered with numerous cool
dainties, and the performers disappeared to get ready for the
second charade-tableau.

The three syllables of this charade were to be depicted in
pantomime, and the performance took place in the following
Wise :—

First syllable. Colonel] Rawdon Crawley, C. B., with a
slouched hat and a staff, a great-coat, and a lantern borrowed
from the stables, passed across the stage bawling out, as if
warning the inhabitants of the hour. In the lower window
are seen two bagmen playing apparently at the game of crib-
bage, over which they yawn much. To them enters one look-
ing like Boots (the Honorable G. Ringwood), which character
the young gentleman performed to perfection, and divests
them of their lower covering; and presently Chambermaid
(the Right Honorable Lord Southdown) with two candle-
sticks and a warming-pan. She ascends to the upper
apartment, and warms the bed. She uses the warming-
pan as a weapon wherewith she wards off the atten-
tion of the bagmen. She exits. They put on their nightcaps,
and pull down the blinds. Boots comes out and closes the
shutters of the ground-floor chamber. You hear him bolting
and chaining the door within. All the lights go out. The
music plays Dormez, dormez, chers Amours. A voice from
behind the curtains says, “First syllable.”

Second syllable. The lamps are lighted up all of a sud-
den. The music plays the old air from John of Paris,
Ah quel plaisir d’étre en voyage. It is the same scene. Be-
tween the first and second floors of the house represented, you
behold a sign on which the Steyne arms are painted. All the
bells are ringing all over the house. In the lower apartment
you see a man with a long slip of paper presenting it to an-
other, who shakes his fist, threatens, and vows that it is mon-
174 VANITY FAIR.

strous. “Ostler, bring round my gig,” cries another at: the
door. He chucks Chambermaid (the Right Honorable Lord
Southdown) under the chin; she seems to deplore his ab-
sence, as Calypso did that of that other eminent traveler
Ulysses. Boots (the Honorable G. Ringwood) passes with a
wooden box, containing silver flagons, and cries “Pots” with
such exquisite humor and naturalness that the whole house
rings with applause, and a bouquet is thrown to him. Crack,
crack, crack, go the whips. Landlord, chambermaid, waiter
tush to the door; but just as some distinguished guest is ar-
riving, the curtains close, and the invisible theatrical manager
cries out “Second syllable.”

“T think it must be ‘Hotel, ” says Captain Grigg of the
Life Guards; there is a general laugh at the Captain’s clever-
ness. He is not very far from the mark.

While the third syllable is in preparation, the band begins
a nautical medley,—All in the Downs, Cease Rude Boreas,
Rule Britannia, In the Bay of Biscay O. Some maritime
event is about to take place. A bell is heard ringing as the
curtain draws aside. “Now, gents, for the shore!” a voice
exclaims. People take leave of each other. They point
anxiously as if towards the clouds, which are represented by
a dark curtain, and they nod their heads in fear. Lady
Squeams (the Right Honorable Lord Southdown) her lapdog,
her bags, reticules, and husband sit down, and cling hold of
some ropes. It is evidently a ship.

The Captain (Colonel Crawley, C. B.), with a cocked hat
and a telescope, comes in, holding his hat on his head, and
looks out; his coat-tails fly about as if in the wind. When
he leaves go of his hat to use his telescope, his hat flies off,
with immense applause. It is blowing fresh. The music rises
and whistles louder and louder; the mariners go across the
stage staggering, as if the ship was in severe motion. The
Steward (the Honorable G. Ringwood) passes reeling by,
holding six basins. He puts one rapidly by Lord Squeams,—
Lady Squeams, giving a pinch to her dog, which begins to
howl piteously, puts her pocket-handkerchief to her face, and
rushes away as for the cabin. The music rises up to the wild-
est pitch of stormy excitement, and the third syllable is con-
cluded.

There was a little ballet, Le Rossignol, in which Montessu
and Noblet used to be famous in those days, and which Mr.
Wagg transferred to the English stage as an opera, putting
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 175

his verse, of which he was a skillful writer, to the pretty airs
of the ballet. It was dressed in old French costume, and little
Lord Southdown now appeared admirably attired in the dis-
guise of an old woman hobbling about the stage with a fault-
less crooked stick.

Trills of melody were heard behind the scenes, and gurgling
from a sweet pasteboard cottage covered with roses and trellis
work. “Philoméle, Philoméle,” cries the old woman, and
Philoméle comes out.

More applause. It is Mrs. Rawdon Crawley in powder and
patches, the most ravissante little Marquise in the world.

She comes in laughing, humming, and frisks about the
stage with all the innocence of theatrical youth. She makes a
courtesy. Mamma says “Why, child, you are always laughing
and singing,” and away she goes, with—

THE ROSE UPON MY BALCONY.

The rose upon my balcony, the morning air perfuming,
Was leafless all the winter time and pining for the spring;
You ask me why her breath is sweet and why her cheek is bloom-

ing,
It is because the sun is out and birds begin to sing.

The nightingale, whose melody is through the greenwood ringing,

Was silent when the boughs were bare and winds were blowing
keen;

And if, mamma, you ask of me the reason of his singing,

It is because the sun is out and all the leaves are green.

Thus each performs his part, mamma, the birds have found their
voices,

The blowing rose a flush, mamma, her bonny cheek to dye;

And there’s sunshine in my heart, mamma, which wakens and
rejoices,

And so I sing and blush, mamma, and that’s the reason why.

During the intervals of the stanzas of this ditty, the good-
natured personage addressed as mamma by the singer, and
whose large whiskers appeared under her cap, seemed very
anxious to exhibit her maternal affection by embracing the
innocent creature who performed the daughter’s part. Every
caress was received with loud acclamations of laughter by
the sympathizing audience. At its conclusion (while the
music was performing a symphony as if ever so many birds
were warbling) the whole house was unanimous for an encore:
176 VANITY FAIR.

and applause and bouquets without end were showered upon
the NIGHTINGALE of the evening. Lord Steyne’s voice of
applause was loudest of all. Becky, the nightingale, took the
flowers which he threw to her, and pressed them to her heart
with the air of a consummate comedian. Lord Steyne was
frantic with delight. His guests’ enthusiasm harmonized with
his own. Where was the beautiful black-eyed Houri whose
appearance in the first charade had caused such delight? She
was twice as handsome as Becky, but the brilliancy of the lat-
ter had quite eclipsed her. All voices were for her. Stephens,
Caradori, Ronzi de Begnis, people compared her to one or the
other, and agreed with good reason, very likely, that had she
been an actress none on the stage could have surpassed her.
She had reached her culmination: her voice rose trilling and
bright over the storm of applause; and soared as high and
joyful as her triumph. There was a ball after the dramatic
entertainments, and everybody pressed round Becky as the
great point of attraction of the evening. The Royal Person-
age declared with an oath, that she was perfection, and en-
gaged her again and again in conversation. Little Becky’s
soul swelled with pride and delight at these honors; she saw
fortune, fame, fashion before her. Lord Steyne was her slave;
followed her everywhere, and scarcely spoke to any one in
the room beside; and paid her the most marked compliments
and attention. She still appeared in her Marquise costume,
and danced a minuet with Monsieur de Tuffigny, Monsieur
Le Due de la Jabotiére’s attaché; and the Duke, who had all
the tradition of the ancient court, pronounced that Madame
Crawley was worthy to have been a pupil of Vestris, or to have
figured at Versailles. Only a feeling of dignity, the gout, and
the strongest sense of duty and personal sacrifice, prevented
his Excellency from dancing with her himself; and he de-
clared in public, that a Jady who could talk and dance like
Mrs. Rawdon was fit to be ambassadress at any court in Eu-
rope. He was only consoled when he heard that she was half
a Frenchwoman by birth. “None but a compatriot,” his Ex-
cellency declared, “could have performed that majestic dance
in such a way.”

Then she figured in a waltz with Monsieur de Klingenspohr,
the Prince of Peterwaradin’s cousin and attaché. The de-
lighted Prince, having less retenue than his French diplomatic
colleague, insisted upon taking a turn with the charming
creature, and twirled round the ball-room with her, scattering
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 177

the diamonds out of his boot-tassels and hussar jacket until
his Highness was fairly out of breath. Papoosh Pasha him-
self would have liked to dance with her if that amusement
had been the custom of his country. The company made a
circle round her, and applauded as wildly as if she had been
a Noblet or a Taglioni. Everybody was in ecstasy; and
Becky too, you may be sure. She passed by Lady Stunning-
ton with a look of scorn. She patronized Lady Gaunt and her
astonished and mortified sister-in-law; she écraséd all rival
charmers. As for poor Mrs. Winkworth, and her long hair and
great eyes, which had made such an effect at the commence-
ment of the evening; where was she now? Nowhere in the
race. She might tear her long hair and cry her great eyes out;
es there was not a person to heed or to deplore the discomfi-
ure.

The greatest triumph of all was at supper-time. She was
placed at the grand exclusive table with his Royal Highness
the exalted personage before mentioned, and the rest of the
great guests. She was served on gold plate. She might have
had pearls melted into her champagne if she liked,—another
Cleopatra; and the potentate of Peterwaradin would have
given half the brilliants off his jacket for a kind glance from
those dazzling eyes. Jabotiére wrote home about her to his
government. The ladies at the other tables, who supped off
mere silver, and marked Lord Steyne’s constant attention to
her, vowed it was a monstrous infatuation, a gross insult to
ladies of rank. If sarcasm could have killed, Lady Stunning-
ton would have slain her on the spot.

Rawdon Crawley was scared at these triumphs. They
seemed to separate his wife farther than ever from him some-
how. He thought, with a feeling very like pain, how im-
measurably she was his superior.

When the hour of departure came, a crowd of young men
followed her to her carriage, for which the people without
bawled, the cry being caught up by the link-men who were
stationed outside the tall gates of Gaunt House, congratulat-
ing each person who issued from the gate and hoping his Lord-
ship had enjoyed this noble party.

Mrs. Rawdon Crawley’s carriage, coming up to the gate after
due shouting, rattled into the illuminated court-yard, and
drove up to the covered way. Rawdon put his wife into the
carriage, which drove off. Mr. Wenham had proposed to him

Vol. I1.—12.
178 VANITY FAIR.

to walk home, and offered the Colonel the refreshment of a
cigar.

They lighted their cigars by the lamp of one of the many
link-boys outside, and Rawdon walked on with his friend
Wenham. Two persons separated from the crowd and fol-
lowed the two gentlemen; and when they had walked down
Gaunt Square a few score of paces, one of the men came up,
and, touching Rawdon on the shoulder, said, “Beg your par-
don, Colonel, I vish to speak to you most particular.” This
gentleman’s acquaintance gave a loud whistle as the latter
spoke, at which signal a cab came clattering up from those
stationed at the gate of Gaunt House,—and the aide-de-camp
ran round and placed himself in front of Colonel Crawley.

That gallant officer at once knew what had befallen him.
He was in the hands of the bailiffs. He started back, falling
against the man who had first touched him.

“We're three on us—it’s no use bolting,” the man behind
said.

“Tt’s you, Moss, is it?” said the Colonel, who appeared to
know his interlocutor. “How much is it?”

“Only a small thing,” whispered Mr. Moss, of Cursitor
Street, Chancery Lane, and assistant officer to the Sheriff of
Middlesex. “One hundred and sixty-six, six and eightpence,
at the suit of Mr. Nathan.”

“Lend me a hundred, Wenham, for God’s sake,” poor Raw-
don said,—“I’ve got seventy at home.”

“T’ve not got ten pounds in the world,” said poor Mr. Wen-
ham. “Good night, my dear fellow.”

“Good night,” said Rawdon, ruefully. And Wenham walked
away, and Rawdon Crawley finished his cigar as the cab drove
under Temple Bar.

CHAPTER XVIII.

IN WHICH LORD STEYNE SHOWS HIMSELF IN A MOST
AMIABLE LIGHT.

_ When Lord Steyne was benevolently disposed, he did noth-
ing by halves, and his kindness towards the Crawley family
did the greatest honor to his benevolent discrimination. His
Lordship extended his good-will to little Rawdon; he pointed
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 179

out to the boy’s parents the necessity of sendizg him to a
public school; that he was of an age now when emulation, the
first principles of the Latin language, pugilistic exercises, and
the society of his fellow-boys would be of the greatest benefit
to the boy. His father objected that he was not rich enough
to send the child to a good public school; his mother, that
Briggs was a capital mistress for him, and had brought him
on (as, indeed, was the fact) famously in English, the Latin
rudiments, and in general learning; but all these objections
disappeared before the generous perseverance of the Marquis
of Steyne. His Lordship wag one of the governors of that
famous old collegiate institution called the Whitefriars. It
had been a Cistercian Convent in old days, when the Smith-
field, which is contiguous to it, was a tournament ground.
Obstinate heretics used to be brought thither convenient for
burning hard by. Henry VIII., the Defender of the Faith,
seized upon the monastery and its possessions, and hanged and
tortured some of the monks who could not accommodate them-
selves to the pace of his reform. Finally, a great merchant
bought the house and land adjoining, in which, and with
the help of other wealthy endowments of land and money, he
established a famous foundation hospital for old men and
children. An extern school grew round the old, almost mon-
astic foundation, which subsists still with its middle-age cos-
tume and usages; and al] Cistercians pray that it may long
flourish.

Of this famous house, some of the greatest noblemen, pre-
lates, and dignitaries in England are governors; and, as the
boys are very comfortably lodged, fed, and educated, and
subsequently inducted to good scholarships at the University
and livings in the Church, many little gentlemen are devoted
to the ecclesiastical profession from their tenderest years,
and there is considerable emulation to procure nominations
for the foundations. It was originally intended for the sons
of poor and deserving clerics and laics; but many of the noble
governors of the Institution, with an enlarged and rather
capricious benevolence, selected all sorts of objects for their
bounty. To get an education for nothing, and a future liveli-
hood and profession assured, was so excellent a scheme that
some of the richest people did not disdain it; and not only
great men’s relations, but great men themselves, sent their
cons to profit by the chance,—Right Rev. Prelates sent their
own kinsmen or the sons of their clergy, while, on the other

35
180 VANITY FAIR.

hand, some great noblemen did not disdain to patronize the
children of their confidential servants,—so that a lad enter-
ing this establishment had every variety of youthful society
wherewith to mingle.
Rawdon Crawley, though the only book which he studied
was the Racing Calendar, and though his chief recollections
of polite learning were connected with the floggings which
he received at Eton in his early youth, had that decent and
honest reverence for classical learning which all English gen-
tlemen feel, and was glad to think that his son was to have
a provision for life, perhaps, and a certain opportunity of
becoming a scholar. And although his boy was his chief
solace and companion, and endeared to him by a thousand
small ties, about which he did not care to speak to his wife,
who had all along shown the utmost indiffererice to their son,
yet Rawdon agreed at once to part with chim, and to give up
his own greatest comfort and benefit for the sake of the wel-
fare of the little lad. He did not know how fond he was of
the child until it became necessary to let him go away. When
he was gone, he felt more sad and downcast than he cared
to own,—far sadder than the boy himself, who was happy
enough to enter a new career, and find companions of his own
age. Becky burst out laughing once or twice, when the Col-
onel, in his clumsy, incoherent way, tried to express his senti-
mental sorrows at the boy’s departure. The poor fellow felt
that his dearest pleasure and closest friend was taken from
him. He looked often and wistfully at the little vacant bed
in his dressing-room, where the child used to sleep. He missed
him sadly of mornings, and tried in vain to walk in the Park
without him. He did not know how solitary he was until
little Rawdon was gone. He liked the people who were fond
of him; and would go and sit for long hours with his good-
natured sister Lady Jane, and talk to her about the virtues,
and good looks, and hundred good qualities of the child.
Young Rawdon’s aunt, we have said, was very fond of him,
as was her little girl, who wept copiously when the time for
her cousin’s departure came. The elder Rawdon was thank-
ful for the fondness of mother and daughter. The very best
and honestest feelings of the man came out in these artless
outpourings of paternal feeling in which he indulged in theit
presence, and encouraged by their sympathy. He secured not
only Lady Jane’s kindness, but her sincere regard, by the
feelings which he manifested, and which he could not show
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO, 181

to his own wife, The two kinswomen met as seldom as pos-
sible. Becky laughed bitterly at Jane’s feelings and softness;
the other’s kindly and gentle nature could not but revolt
at her sister’s callous behavior.

Ti estranged Rawdon from his wife more than he knew or
acknowledged to himself, She did not care for the estrange-
ment. Indeed, she did not miss him or anybody, She looked
upon him as her errand-man and humble slave. He might
be ever so depressed or sulky, and she did not mark hig de-
meanor, or only treated it with a sneer, She was busy think-
ing about her position or her pleasures or her advancement
in society; she ought to have held a great place in it, that is
certain,

It was honest Briggs who made up the little kit for the boy
which he was to take to school. Molly, the housemaid, blub-
bered in the passage when he went away,—Molly kind and
faithful in spite of a long arrear of unpaid wages. Mrs. Becky
could not let her husband have the carriage to take the boy
to school. Take the horses into the City!—such a thing was
never heard of, Let a cab be brought. She did not offer to
kiss him when he went; nor did the child propose to embrace
her; but gave a kiss to old Briggs (whom, in general, he was
very shy of caressing), and consoled her by pointing out that
he was to come home on Saturdays, when she would have the
benefit of seeing him, As the cab rolled towards the City,
Becky’s carriage rattled off to the Park. She was chattering
and langhing with a score of young dandies by the Serpentine,
as the father and son entered at the old gates of the school,—
where Rawdon left the child, and came away with a sadder,
purer feeling in his heart than perhaps that poor, battered
fellow had ever known since he himself came out of the nurs-

ery.

"He walked all the way home very dismally, and dined alone
with Briggs. He was very kind to her, and grateful for her
love and watchfulness over the boy. His conscience smote
him that he had borrowed Briggs’s money and aided in de-
ceiving her. They talked about little Rawdon a long time,
for Becky only came home to dress and go out to dinner,—
and then he went off, uneasily, to drink tea with Lady Jane,
and tell her of what had happened, and how little Rawdon
went off like a trump, and how he was to wear a gown and
little knee-breeches, and how young Blackball, Jack Black-
182 VANITY FAIR.

ball’s son, of the old regiment, had taken him in charge and
promised to be kind to him.

In the course of a week, young Blackball had constituted
little Rawdon his fag, shoeblack, and breakfast-toaster; in-
itiated him into the mysteries of the Latin Grammar, and
thrashed him three or four times; but not severely. The lit-
tle chap’s good-natured, honest face won his way for him. He
only got that degree of beating which was, no doubt, good
for him; and as for blacking shoes, toasting bread, and fag-
ging in general, were these offices not deemed to be necessary
parts of every young English gentleman’s education?

Our business does not lie with the second generation and
Master Rawdon’s life at school; otherwise, the present tale
might be carried to any indefinite length. The Colonel went
to see his son a short time afterwards, and found the lad suffi-
ciently well and happy, grinning and laughing in his little
black gown and little breeches.

His father sagaciously tipped Blackball, his master, a sover-
eign, and secured that young gentleman’s good-will towards
his fag. As a protégé of the great Lord Steyne, the nephew
of a County member, and son of a Colonel and C. B., whose
name appeared in some of the most fashionable parties in the
Morning Post, perhaps the school authorities were disposed
not to look unkindly on the child. He had plenty of pocket-
money, which he spent in treating his comrades royally to
raspberry tarts, and he was often allowed to come home on
Saturdays to his father, who always made a jubilee of that
day. When free, Rawdon would take him to the play, or
send him thither with the footman; and on Saturdays he went
to church with Briggs and Lady Jane and his cousins. Raw-
don marveled over his stories about school, and fights, and
fagging. Before long, he knew the names of all the masters
and the principal boys as well as little Rawdon himself. He
invited little Rawdon’s crony from school, and made both the
children sick with pastry and oysters and porter after the play.
He tried to look knowing over the Latin grammar when little
Rawdon showed him what part of that work he was “in.”
“Stick to it, my boy,” he said to him with much gravity;
“there’s nothing like a good classical education! nothing!”

Becky’s contempt for her husband grew greater every day.
“Do what you like——dine where you please,—go and have
ginger-beer and sawdust at Astley’s, or psalm-singing with
Lady Jane,—only don’t expect me to busy myself with the
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 183

boy. I have your interests to attend to, as you can’t attend
to them yourself. I should like to know where you would
have been now, and in what sort of a position in society, if I
had not looked after you?” Indeed, nobody wanted poor old
Rawdon at the parties whither Becky used to go. She was
often asked without him now. She talked about great peo-
ple as if she had the fee-simple of May Fair; and when the
Court went into mourning, she always wore black.

Little Rawdon being disposed of, Lord Steyne, who took
such a parental interest in the affairs of this amiable poor
family, thought that their expenses might be very advantage-
ously curtailed by the departure of Miss Briggs; and that
Becky was quite clever enough to take the management of
her own house. It has been narrated in a former chapter,
how the benevolent nobleman had given his protégé money
to pay off her little debt to Miss Briggs, who however, still re-
mained behind with her friends; whence my Lord came to
the painful conclusion that Mrs. Crawley had made some other
use of the money confided to her than that for which her gen-
erous patron had given the loan. However, Lord Steyne was
not so rude as to impart his suspicions upon this head to Mrs.
Becky, whose feelings might be hurt by any controversy on
the money question, and who might have a thousand painful
reasons for disposing otherwise of his Lordship’s generous
loan. But he determined to satisfy himself of the real state
of the case; and instituted the necessary inquiries in a most
cautious and delicate manner.

Jn the first place he took an early opportunity of pumping
Miss Briggs. That was not a difficult operation. A very lit-
tle encouragement would set that worthy woman to. talk volu-
bly, and pour out all within her. And one day when Mrs.
Rawdon had gone out to drive (as Mr. Fiche, his Lordship’s
confidential servant, easily learned at the livery-stables where
the Crawleys kept their carriage and horses, or, rather, where
the livery-man kept a carriage and horses for Mr. and Mrs.
Crawley) my Lord dropped in upon the Curzon Street house ;
asked Briggs for a cup of coffee; told her that he had good
accounts of the little boy at school; and in five minutes found
out from her that Mrs. Rawdon had given her nothing except
a black silk gown, for which Miss Briggs was immensely
grateful.

He laughed within himself at this artless story, For the
184 VANITY FAIR.

truth is, our dear friend Rebecca had given him a most: cir
cumstantial narration of Briggs’s delight at receiving her mon-
ey,—eleven hundred and twenty-five pounds,-and in what
securities she had invested it; and what a pang Becky herself
felt in being obliged to pay away such a delightful sum of
money. “Who knows,” the dear woman may have thought
within herself, “perhaps he may give me a little more?” My
Lord, however, made no such proposal to the little schemer,
—very likely thinking that he had been sufficiently generous
already.

He had the curiosity, then, to ask Miss Briggs about the
state of her private affairs; and she told his Lordship candid-
ly what her position was,—how Miss Crawley had left her a
legacy,—how her relatives had had part of it~-how Colonel
Crawley had put out another portion, for which she had the
best security and interest,—and how Mr. and Mrs. Rawdon
had kindly busied themselves with Sir Pitt, who was to dis-
pose of the remainder most advantageously for her when he
had time. My Lord asked how much the Colonel had already
invested for her, and Mies Briggs at once and truly told him
that the sum was six hundred and odd pounds. |

But as soon as she had told her story, the voluble Briggs re-
pented of her frankness, and besought my Lord not to tell
Mr. Crawley of the confessions which she had made. “The
Colonel wag so kind,—-Mr. Orawley might be offended and
pay back the money, for which she could get no such good in-
terest anywhere else.” Lord Steyne, laughing, promised he
never would divulge their conversation, and when he and Miss
Briggs parted he laughed still more.

“What an accomplished little devil it is!” thought he.
“What a splendid actress and manager! She had almost got
a second supply owt of me the other day, with her coaxing
ways. She beats all the women I have ever seen in the course
of all my well-spent life. They are babies compared to her.
I am a greenhorn myself, and a fool in her hands,—an old
fool. She is unsurpassable in lies.’ His Lordship’s admira-
tion for Becky rose immeasurably at this proof of her clever-
ness. Getting the money was nothing; but getting double the
sum she wanted, and paying nobody,—it was a magnificent
stroke. And Crawley, my Lord thought,—Crawley is not such
a fool as he looks and seems. He has managed the matter
cleverly enough on his side. Nobody would ever have sup-
posed from his face and demeanor that he knew anything
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 185

about this money business; and yet he put her up to it, and
has spent the money, no doubt. In this opinion, my Lord, we
know, was mistaken; but it influenced a good deal his behavior
towards Colonel Crawley, whom he began to treat with even
less than that semblance of respect which he had formerly
shown towards that gentleman. It never entered into the
head of Mrs. Crawley’s patron that the little lady might be
making a purse for herself; and, perhaps, if the truth must
be told, he judged of Colonel Crawley by his experience of
other husbands, whom he had known in the course of the long
and well-spent life which had made him acquainted with a
great deal of the weakness of mankind. My Lord had bought
so many men during his life, that he was surely to be pardoned
for supposing that he had found the price of this one.

He taxed Becky upon the point on the very first occasion
when he met her alone, and he complimented her, good-hu-
moredly, on her cleverness in getting more than the money
which she required. Becky was only a little taken aback, It
was not the habit of this dear creature to tell falsehoods, ex-
cept when necessity compelled, but in these great emergencies
it was her practice to lie very freely; and in an instant she
was ready with another neat, plausible, circumstantial story,
which she administered to her patron. The previous state-
ment which she had made to him was a falsehood,—a wicked
falsehood: she owned it; but who had made her tell it? “Ah,
my Lord,” she said, “you don’t know all I have to suffer and
bear in silence: you see me gay and happy before you,—you
little know what I have to endure when there is no protector
near me. It was my husband, by threats and the most savage
treatment, forced me to ask for that sum about which I de-
ceived you. It was he, who, foreseeing that questions might
be asked regarding the disposal of the money, forced me to
account for it as I did. He took the money. He told me he
had paid Miss Briggs; I did not want, I did not dare, to doubt
him. Pardon the wrong which a desperate man is forced to
commit, and pity a miserable, miserable woman.” She burst
into tears as she spoke. Persecuted virtue never looked more
bewitchingly wretched.

They had a long conversation, driving round and round
the Regent’s Park in Mrs. Crawley’s carriage together,—a
conversation of which it is not necessary to repeat the details;
but the upshot of it was, that, when Becky came home, she
flew to her dear Briggs with a smiling face, and announced
186 VANITY FAIR.

that she had some very good news for her. Lord Steyne had
acted in the noblest and most generous manner. He was al-
ways thinking how and when he could do good. Now that lit-
tle Rawdon was gone to school, a dear companion and friend
was no longer necessary to her. She was grieved beyond
measure to part with Briggs; but her means required that
she should practice every retrenchment, and her sorrow was
mitigated by the idea that her dear Briggs would be far bet-
ter provided for by her generous patron than in her humble
home. Mrs. Pilkington, the house-keeper at Gauntly Hall,
was growing exceedingly old, feeble, and rheumatic: she
was not equal to the work of superintending that vast
mansion, and must be on the lookout for a successor.
It was a splendid position. The family did not go to
Gauntly once in two years. At other times the house-
keeper was the mistress of the magnificent mansion,—
had four covers daily for her table: was visited by the clergy
and the most respectable people of the county,—was the lady
of Gauntly, in fact; and the two last house-keepers before
Mrs. Pilkington had married rectors of Gauntly: but Mrs. P.
could not, being the aunt of the present Rector. The place
was not to be hers yet; but she might go down on a visit to
Mrs. Pilkington, and see whether she would like to succeed
her.

What words can paint the ecstatic gratitude of Briggs! All
she stipulated for was that little Rawdon should be allowed
to come down and see her at the Hall. Becky promised this,
—anything. She ran up to her husband when he came
home, and told him the joyous news. Rawdon was glad,
deuced glad; the weight was off his conscience about poor
Briggs’s money. She was provided for, at any rate, but—but
his mind was disquiet. He did not seem to be all right some-
how. He told little Southdown what Lord Steyne had done,
and the young man eyed Crawley with an air which surprised
the latter.

He told Lady Jane of this second proof ot Steyne’s bounty,
and she, too, looked odd and alarmed; so did Sir Pitt. “She
is too clever and—and gay to be allowed to go from party to
party without a companion,” both said. “You must go with
her, Rawdon, wherever she goes, and you must have some-
body with her,—one of the girls from Queen’s Crawley, per-
haps, though they were rather giddy guardians for her.”

Somebody Becky should have, But in the mean time it was
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 187

clear that honest Briggs must not lose her chance of settle-
ment for life; and so she and her bags were packed, and she
set off on her journey. And so two of Rawdon’s out-sentinels
were in the hands of the enemy.

Sir Pitt went and expostulated with his sister-in-law upon .
the subject of the dismissal of Briggs, and other matters of
delicate family interest. In vain she pointed out to him how
necessary was the protection of Lord Steyne for her poor hus-
-band; how cruel it would be on their part to deprive Briggs
of the position offered to her. Cajolements, coaxings, smiles,
tears could not satisfy Sir Pitt, and he had something very
like a quarrel with his once admired Becky. He spoke of the
honor of the family: the unsullied reputation of the Craw-
leys; expressed himself in indignant tones about her receiving
those young Frenchmen,—those wild young men of fashion,
my Lord Steyne himself, whose carriage was always at her
door, who passed hours daily in her company, and whose con-
stant presence made the world talk about her. Ag the head
of the house he implored her to be more prudent. Society was
already speaking lightly of her. Lord Steyne, though a noble-
man of the greatest station and talents, was a man whose at-
tentions would compromise any woman; he besought, he
implored, he commanded his sister-in-law to be watchful in
her intercourse with that nobleman.

Becky promised anything and everything Pitt wanted; but
Lord Steyne came to her house as often as ever, and Sir Pitt’s
anger increased. I wonder was Lady Jane angry or pleased
that her husband at last found fault with his favorite Rebecca?
Lord Steyne’s visits continuing, his own ceased; and his wife
was for refusing all further intercourse with that nobleman,
and declining the invitation to the Charade-night which the
Marchioness sent to her; but Sir Pitt thought it was neces-
sary to accept it, as His Royal Highness would be there.

Although he went to the party in question, Sir Pitt quitted
it very early, and his wife, too, was very glad to come away.
Becky hardly so much as spoke to him or noticed her sister-
in-law. Pitt Crawley declared her behavior was monstrously
indecorous, reprobated in strong terms the habit of play-acting
and fancy dressing, as highly unbecoming a British female;
and, after the charades were over, took his brother Rawdon
severely to task for appearing himself, and allowing his wife
to join in such improper exhibitions.

Rawdon said she should not join in any more such amuse-
188 VANITY FAIR.

ments, but indeed, and perhaps from hints from his elder
brother and sister, he had already become a very watchful and
exemplary domestic character. He left off his clubs and
billiards. He never left home. He took Becky out to drive:
he went laboriously with her to all her parties. Whenever my
Lord Steyne called, he was sure to find the Colonel. And
when Becky proposed to go out without her husband, or re-
ceived invitations for herself, he peremptorily ordered her to
refuse them; and there was that in the gentleman’s manner
which enforced obedience. Little Becky, to do her justice,
was charmed with Rawdon’s gallantry. If he was surly, she
never was. Whether friends were present or absent, she had
always a kind smile for him, and was attentive to his pleasure
and comfort. It was the early days of their marriage over
again: the same good-humor, prévenances, merriment, and
artless confidence and regard. “How much pleasanter it is,”
she would say, “to have you by my side in the carriage than
that foolish old Briggs! Let us always go on so, dear Rawdon.
How nice it would be, and how happy we should always be
if we had but the money!” He fell asleep after dinner in his
chair; he did not see the face opposite to him, haggard, weary,
and terrible; it lighted up with fresh, candid smiles when he
woke. It kissed him gayly. He wondered that he had ever
had suspicions. No, he never had suspicion; all those dumb
doubts and surly misgivings which had been gathering on his
mind were mere idle jealousies. She was fond of him; she
always had been. As for her shining in society it was no fault
of hers; she was formed to shine there. Was there any woman
who could talk, or sing, or do anything like her? If she would
but like the boy! Rawdon thought. But the mother and son
never could be brought together.

And it was while Rawdon’s mind was agitated with these
doubts and perplexities that the incident occurred which was
mentioned in the last Chapter; and the unfortunate Colonel
found himself a prisoner away from home.
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 189

CHAPTER XVIX.

A RESCUE AND A CATASTROPHB,

Friend Rawdon drove on then to Mr. Moss’s mansion in
Cursitor Street, and was duly inducted into that dismal place
of hospitality. Morning was breaking over the cheerful house-
tops of Chancery Lane as the rattling cab woke up the echoes
there. A little pink-eyed Jew-boy, with a head as ruddy as
the rising morn, let the party into the house, and Rawdon was
welcomed to the ground-floor apartments by Mr. Moss, his
traveling companion and host, who cheerfully asked him if
he would like a glass of something warm after his drive.

The Colonel was not so depressed as some mortals would be,
who, quitting a palace and a placens uxor, find themselves
barred into a sponging-house, for, if the truth must be told,
he had been a lodger at Mr. Moss’s establishment once or
twice before. We have not thought it necessary in the
previous course of this narrative to mention these trivial little
domestic incidents: but the reader may be assured that they
can’t unfrequently occur in the life of a man who lives on
nothing a year.

Upon his first visit to Mr. Moss, the Colonel, then a
bachelor, had been liberated by the generosity of his aunt; on
the second mishap, little Becky, with the greatest spirit and
kindness, had borrowed a sum of money from Lord South-
down, and had coaxed her husband’s creditor (who was her
shawl, velvet-gown, lace pocket-handkerchief, trinket, and
gimcrack purveyor, indeed) to take a portion of the sum
claimed, and Rawdon’s promissory note for the remainder: so
on both these occasions the capture and release had been con-
ducted with the utmost gallantry on all sides, and Moss and
the Colonel were therefore on the very best of terms.

“You'll find your old bed, Colonel, and everything comfort-
able,” that gentleman said, “as I may honestly say. You may
be pretty sure it’s kep aired, and by the best of company, too.
It was slep in the night afore last by the Honorable Capting
Famish, of the Fiftieth Dragoons, whose mar took him out,
after a fortnight, jest to punish him, she said. But, Law
bless you, I promise you, he punished my champagne, and had
190 VANITY FAIR.

a party ere every night,—reglar tip-top swells, down from the
clubs and the West End,—Capting Ragg, the Honorable
Deuceace, who lives in the Temple, and some fellers as knows
a good glass of wine, I warrant you. I’ve got a Doctor of
Diwinity up stairs, five gents in the Coffee-room, and Mrs.
Moss has a tably-dy-hoty at half past five, and a little cards or
music afterwards, when we shall be most happy to see you.”

“T’ll ring when I want anything,” said Rawdon, and went
quietly to his bedroom. He was an old soldier, we have said:
and not to be disturbed by any little shocks of fate. A weaker
man would have sent off a letter to his wife on the instant of |
his capture. “But what is the use of disturbing her night’s
rest?” thought Rawdon. “She won’t know whether I am in
my room or not. It will be time enough to write to her when
she has had her sleep out, and I have had mine. It’s only a
hundred and seventy, and the deuce is in it if we can’t raise
that.” And so, thinking about little Rawdon (whom he would
not have know that he was in such a queer place), the Colonel
turned intc the bed lately occupied by Captain Famish, and
fell asleep. It was ten o’clock when he woke up, and the
ruddy-headed youth brought him, with conscious pride, a fine
silver dressing-case, wherewith he might perform the opera-
tion of shaving. Indeed Mr. Moss’s house, though somewhat
dirty, was splendid throughout. There were dirty trays, and
wine-coolers en permanence on the sideboard, huge dirty gilt
cornices, with dingy yellow satin hangings to the barred win-
dows which looked into Cursitor Street,—vast and dirty gilt
picture frames, surrounding pieces sporting and sacred, all of
which works were by the greatest masters; and fetched the
greatest prices, too, in the bill transactions, in the course of
which they were sold and bought over and over again. The
Colonel’s breakfast was served to him in the same dingy and
gorgeous plated ware. Miss Moss, a dark-eyed maid in curl-
papers, appeared with the teapot, and, smiling, asked the
Colonel how he had slept; and she brought him in the Morn-
ing Post, with the names of all the great people who had
figured at Lord Steyne’s entertainment the night before. It
contained a brilliant account of the festivities, and of the
beautiful and accomplished Mrs. Rawdon Crawley’s admirable
personifications.

After a lively chat with this lady (who sat on the edge of
the breakfast-table in an easy attitude displaying the drapery
of her stocking and an ex-white satin shoe, which was down
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 191

at heel), Colonel Crawley called for pens and ink and paper;
and, being asked how many sheets, chose one which was
brought to him between Miss Moss’s own finger and thumb.
Many a sheet had that dark-eyed damsel brought in; many a
poor fellow had scrawled and blotted hurried lines of entreaty,
and paced up and down that awful room until his messenger
brought back the reply. Poor men always used messengers
instead of the post. Who has not had their letters, with the
wafers wet, and the announcement that a person is waiting in
the hall?

Now on the score of his application, Rawdon had not many
misgivings.

“Dear Becky,” (Rawdon wrote,)

“T hope you slept well. Don’t be frightened if I don’t
bring you in your coffy. Last night as I was coming home
smoaking, I met with an accadent. I was nabbed by Moss
of Cursitor Street,—from whose gilt and splendid parler I
write this,—the same that had me this time two years. Miss
Moss brought in my tea,—she is grown very fat, and, as usual,
had her stockens down at heal.

“It’s Nathan’s business—a hundred and fifty—with costs,
hundred and seventy. Please send me my desk and some
cloths—I’m in pumps and a white tye (something like Miss
M.’s stockings)—I’ve seventy in it. And, as soon as you get
this, Drive to Nathan’s,—offer him seventy-five down, and ask
him to renew—say I’ll take wine—we may as well have some
dinner sherry; but not picturs, they’re too dear.

“Tf he won’t stand it. Take my ticker and such of your
things as you can spare, and send them to Balls—we must, of
course, have the sum to-night. It won’t do to let it stand over,
as to-morrow’s Sunday; the beds here are not very clean, and
there may be other things out against me—I’m glad it ain’t
Rawdon’s Saturday for coming home. God bless you.

“Yours in haste,
“R. C.

“P, §.—Make haste and come.”

This letter, sealed with a wafer, was despatched by one of
the messengers who are always hanging about Mr. Moss’s es-
tablishment; and Rawdon, having seen him depart, went out
in the court-yard, and smoked his cigar with a tolerably easy
mind,—in spite of the bars overhead; for Mr. Moss’s court-
192 VANITY FAIR.

yard is railed in like a cage, lest the gentlemen who are board-
ing with him should take a fancy to escape from his hos-
pitality.

Three hours, he calculated, would be the utmost time re-
quired, before Becky should arrive and open his prison doors:
and he passed these pretty cheerfully in smoking, in reading
the paper, and in the Coffee-room with an acquaintance, Cap-
tain Walker, who happened to be there, and with whom he
cut for sixpences for some hours, with pretty equal luck on
either side.

But the day passed away and no messenger returned,—no
Becky. Mr. Moss’s tably-de-hoty was served at the appointed
hour of half past five, when such of the gentlemen lodging
in the house as could afford to pay for the banquet came and
partook of it in the splendid front parlor before described, and
with which Mr. Crawley’s temporary lodging communicated,
when Miss M. (Miss Hem, as her papa called her,) appeared
without the curl-papers of the morning, and Mrs. Hem did
the honor to a prime boiled leg of mutton and turnips, of
which the Colonel ate with a very faint appetite. Asked
whether he would “stand” a bottle of champagne for the com-
pany, he consented, and the ladies drank to his ’ealth, and
Mr. Moss in the most polite manner “looked towards him.”

In the midst of this repast, however, the door-bell was
heard,—young Moss of the ruddy hair rose up with the keys
and answered the summons, and, coming back, told the Colo-
nel that the messenger had returned with a bag, a desk,
and a letter, which he gave him. “No ceramony, Colonel, I
beg,” said Mrs. Moss, with a wave of her hand, and he opened
the letter rather tremulously. It was a beautiful letter, highly
scented, on a pink paper, and with a light green seal.

“Mon pauvre cher petit,” (Mrs. Crawley wrote,)

“T could not sleep one wink for thinking of what had be-
come of my odious old monstre: and only got to rest in the
morning after sending for Mr. Blench (for I was in a fever),
who gave me a composing draught and left orders with Finette
that I should be disturbed on no account. So that my poor
old man’s messenger, who had bien mauvaise mine, Finette
says, and sentoit le Geniévre, remained in the hall for some
hours waiting my bell. You may fancy my state when I read
your poor dear old ill-spelt letter.

“TH as I was, I instantly called for the carriage, and as soon
‘A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 198

as I was dressed (though I couldn’t drink a drop of chocolate,
—I assure you, I couldn’t without my monstre to bring it to
me), I drove ventre @ terre to Nathan’s. I saw himn—I wept—
I cried—I fell at his odious knees. Nothing would mollify
the horrid man. He would have all the money, he said, or
keep my poor monstre in prison. I drove home with the in-
tention of paying that triste visite chez mon oncle (when
every trinket I have should be at your disposal though they
would not fetch a hundred pounds, for some, you know are
with ce cher oncle already), and found Milor there with the
Bulgarian old sheep-faced monster, who had come to compli-
ment me upon last night’s performances. Paddington came
in, too, drawling and lisping and twiddling his hair; so did
Champignac, and his chief,—everybody with jovson of com-
pliments and pretty speeches,—plaguing poor me, who longed
to be rid of them, and was thinking every moment of the time
of mon pauvre prisonnier.

“When they were gone, I went down on my knees to Milor;
told him we were going to pawn everything, and begged and
prayed him to give me two hundred pounds. He pish’d and
psha’d in a fury,—told me not to be such a fool as to pawn,—
and said he would see whether he could lend me the money.
At last he went away, promising that he would send it me in
the morning: when I will bring it to my poor old monstre
with a kiss from his affectionate

“Becky.

“TI am writing in bed. Oh, I have such a headache and such
a heartache!”

When Rawdon read over this letter, he turned so red and
looked so savage, that the company at the table d’hote easily
perceived that bad news had reached him. All his suspicions,
which he had been trying to banish, returned upon him. She
could not even go out and sell her trinkets to free him. She
could laugh and talk about compliments paid to her, whilst
he was in prison. Who had put him there? Wenham had
walked with him. Was there . . . . He could hardly
bear to think of what he suspected. Leaving the room hur-
tiedly, he ran into his own,—opened his desk, wrote two hur-
ried lines, which he directed to Sir Pitt or Lady Crawley, and
bade the messenger carry them at once to Gaunt Street, bid-

Vol. I1.—13.
194 VANITY FAIR.

ding him to take a cab, and promising him a guinea if he was
back in an hour.

In the note he besought his dear brother and sister, for the
sake of God; for the sake of his dear child and his honor; to
come to him and relieve him from his difficulty. He was in
prison: he wanted a hundred pounds to set him free; he
entreated them to come to him.

He went back to the dining-room after despatching his mes-
senger, and called for more wine. He laughed and talked with
a strange Loisterousness, as the people thought. Sometimes
he laughed madly at his own fears, and went on drinking for
an hour; listening all the while for the carriage which was to
bring his fate back.

At the expiration of that time, wheels were heard whirling
up to the gate—the young janitor went out with his gate-keys.
It was a lady whom he let in at the bailiff’s door.

“Colonel Crawley,” she said, trembling very much. He,
with a knowing look, locked the outer door upon her,—then
unlocked and opened the inner one, and, calling out “Colonel,
yow’re wanted,” led her into the back parlor, which he oc-
cupied.

Rawdon came in from the dining-parlor where all those peo-
ple were carousing, into his back room; a flare of coarse light
following him into the apartment where the lady stood, still
very nervous.

“Tt is I, Rawdon,” she said, in a timid voice, which she
strove to render cheerful. “It is Jane.” Rawdon was quite
overcome by that kind voice and presence. He ran up to her,
—caught her in his arms,—-gasped out some inarticulate words
of thanks, and fairly sobbed on her shoulder. She did not
know the cause of his emotion.

The bills of Mr. Moss were quickly settled, perhaps to the
disappointment of that gentleman, who had counted on hav-
ing the Colonel as his guest over Sunday at least; and Jane,
with beaming smiles and happiness in her eyes, carried away
Rawdon from the bailiff’s house, and they went homewards
in the cab in which she had hastened to his release. “Pitt was
gone to a Parliamentary dinner,” she said, “when Rawdon’s
note came, and so, dear Rawdon, I—I came myself;” and she
put her kind hand in his. Perhaps it was well for Rawdon
Crawley that Pitt was away at that dinner. Rawdon thanked
his sister a hundred times, and with an ardor of gratitude
which touched and almost alarmed that soft-hearted woman.
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 195

“O,” said he, in his rude, artless way, “you—you don’t know
how I’m changed since I’ve known you, and—and little Rawdy.
I—Td like to change somehow. You see I want—I want—
to be—.” He did not finish the sentence, but she could in-
terpret it. And that night after he left her, and as she sat
by her own little boy’s bed, she prayed humbly for that poor
wayworn sinner.

Rawdon left her and walked home rapidly. It was nine
o’clock at night. He ran across the streets, and the great
squares of Vanity Fair, and at length came up breathless op-
posite his own house. He started back and fell against the
railings, trembling as he looked up. The drawing-room win-
dows were blazing with light. She had said that she was in
bed and ill. He stood there for some time, the light from
the rooms on his pale face.

He took out his door-key and let himself into the house.
He could hear laughter in the upper rooms. He was in the
ball-dress in which he had been captured the night before.
He went silently up the stairs; leaning against the banisters
at the stairhead. Nobody was stirring in the house besides;
all the servants had been sent away. Rawdon heard laughter
within,—laughter and singing. Becky was singing a snatch
of the song of the night before; a hoarse voice shouted,
“Brava! Brava!’’—it was Lord Steyne’s.

Rawdon opened the door and went in. A little table with a
dinner was laid out, and wine and plate. Steyne was hanging
over the sofa on which Becky sat. The wretched woman was
in a brilliant full toilet, her arms and all her fingers sparkling
with bracelets and rings; and the brilliants on her breast
which Steyne had given her. He had her hand in his, and was
bowing over it to kiss it, when Becky started up with a faint
scream as she caught sight of Rawdon’s white face. At the
next instant she tried to smile, a horrid smile, as if to weleome
her husband: and Steyne rose up, grinding his teeth, pale,
and with fury in his looks.

He, too, attempted a laugh, and came forward holding out
his hand. “What, come back! How d’ye do, Crawley?” he
said, the nerves of his mouth twitching as he tried to grin at
the intruder.

There was that in Rawdon’s face which caused Becky to
fling herself before him. “I am innocent, Rawdon,” she said;
“before God, I am innocent.” She clung hold of his coat, of

36
196 VANITY FAIR.

his hands; her own were all covered with serpents, and rings,
and baubles. “I am innocent. Say I am innocent,” she said
to Lord Steyne.

He thought a trap had been laid for him, and was as furious
with the wife as with the husband. “You innocent! Damn
you,” he screamed out. “You innocent! Why, every trinket
you have on your body is paid for by me. I have given you
thousands of pounds which this fellow has spent, and for
which he has sold you. Innocent, by ! You're as inno-
cent as your mother, the ballet-girl, and your husband the
bully. Don’t think to frighten me as you have done others.
Make way, sir, and let me pass;” and Lord Steyne seized
up his hat, and, with flame in his eyes, and looking his enemy
fiercely in the face, marched upon him, never for a moment
doubting that the other would give way.

But Rawdon Crawley, springing out, seized him by the
neckcloth, until Steyne, almost strangled, writhed and bent
under his arm. “You lie, you dog!” said Rawdon. “You lie,
you coward and villain!’? And he struck the Peer twice over
the face with his open hand, and flung him bleeding to the
ground. It was all done before Rebecca could interpose. She
stood there trembling before him. She admired her husband,
strong, brave,and..victorious. oe

“Come here,” he said. She came up at once.

“Take off those things.” She began, trembling, pulling the
jewels from her arms, and the rings from her shaking fingers,
and held them all in a heap, quivering and looking up at
him. “Throw them down,” he said, and she dropped them.
He tore the diamond ornament out of her breast, and flung it
at Lord Steyne. It cut him on his bald forehead. Steyne
wore the scar to his dying day.

“Come up stairs,” Rawdon said to his wife. “Don’t kill me,
Rawdon,” she said. He laughed savagely.—‘“I want to see if
that man lies about the money as he has about me. Has he
given you any?”

“No,” said Rebecca, “that is—”

“Give me your keys,” Rawdon answered, and they went out
together.

Rebecca gave him all the keys but one: and she was in hopes
that he would not have remarked the absence of that. It be-
longed to the little desk which Amelia had given her in early
days, and which she kept in a secret place. But Rawdon flung
open boxes and wardrobes, throwing the multifarious

 
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO, 197

trumpery of their contents here and there, and at last he found
the desk. The woman was forced to open it. It contained
papers, love-letters many years old,—all sorts of small trinkets
and woman’s memoranda. And it contained a pocket-book
with bank-notes. Some of these were dated ten years back,
too, and one was quite a fresh one,—a note for a thousand
pounds which Lord Steyne had given her.

“Did he give you this?” Rawdon said.

“Yes,” Rebecca answered.

“Pll send it to him to-day,’ Rawdon said (for day had
dawned again, and many hours had passed in this search),
“and I will pay Briggs, who was kind to the boy, and some of
the debts. You will let me know where I shall send the rest
to you. You might have spared me a hundred pounds, Becky,
out of all this; I have always shared with you.”

“I am innocent,” said Becky. And he left her without
another word.

What were her thoughts when he left her? She remained
for hours after he was gone, the sunshine pouring into the
room, and Rebecca sitting alone on the bed’s edge. The
drawers were all opened and their contents scattered about,—
dresses and feathers, scarfs and trinkets, a heap of tumbled
vanities lying in a wreck. Her hair was falling over her
shoulders; her gown was torn where Rawdon had wrenched
the brilliants out of it. She heard him go down stairs a few
minutes after he left her, and the door slamming and closing
on him. She knew he would never come back. He was gone
forever. Would he kill himself? she thought,—not until
after he had met Lord Steyne. She thought of her long past
life, and all the dismal incidents of it. Ah, how dreary it
seemed, how miserable, lonely, and profitless! Should she take
laudanum, and end it too,—have done with all hopes, schemes,
debts, and triumphs? The French maid found her in this
position,—sitting in the midst of her miserable ruins with
clasped hands and dry eyes. The woman was her accomplice
and in Steyne’s pay. “Mon Dieu, madame, what has hap-
pened?” she asked. a

What had happened? Was she guilty or not? She said not;
but who could tell what was truth which came from those lips;
or if that corrupt heart was in this case pure? All her lies and
her schemes, all her selfishness and her wiles, all her wit and |
genius, had come to this bankruptcy. The woman closed the... |
198 VANITY FAIR.

curtains, and, with some entreaty and show of kindness, per-
suaded her mistress to lie down on the bed. Then she went
below and gathered up the trinkets which had been lying on
the floor since Rebecca dropped them there at her husband’s
orders and Lord Steyne went away.

CHAPTER XxX.

SUNDAY AFTER THE BATTLE.

The mansion of Sir Pitt Crawley in Great Gaunt Street
was just beginning to dress itself for the day, as Rawdon, in
his evening costume, which he had now worn two days, passed
by the scared female who was scouring the steps, and entered
into his brother’s study. Lady Jane in her morning-gown
was up and above stairs in the nursery, superintending the
toilets of her children, and listening to the morning prayers
which the little creatures performed at her knee. Every morn-
ing she and they performed this duty privately, and before
the public ceremonial at which Sir Pitt presided, and at which
all the people of the household were expected to assemble.
Rawdon sat down in the study before the Baronet’s table, set
out with the orderly blue books and the letters, the neatly
docketed bills and symmetrical pamphlets, the locked account-
books, desks, and despatch boxes, the Bible, the Quarterly Re-
view, and the Court Guide, which all stood as if on parade
awaiting the inspection of their chief.

A book of family sermons, one of which Sir Pitt was in the
habit of administering to his family on Sunday mornings, lay
ready on the study table, and awaiting his judicious selection.
And by the sermon-book was the Observer newspaper, damp
and neatly folded, and for Sir Pitt’s own private use. His
gentleman alone took the opportunity of perusing the news-
paper before he laid it by his master’s desk. Before he had
brought it into the study that morning, he had read in the
journal a flaming account of “Festivities at Gaunt House,”
with the names of all the distinguished personages invited by
the Marquis of Steyne to meet his Royal Highness. Having
made comments upon this entertainment to the housekeeper
and her niece as they were taking early tea and hot buttered
toast in the former lady’s apartment, and wondered how the
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 199

Rawding Crawleys could git on, the valet had damped and
folded the paper once more, so that it looked quite fresh and
innocent against the arrival of the master of the house.

_ Poor Rawdon took up the paper and began to try and read
it until his brother should arrive. But the print fell blank
upon his eyes; and he did not know in the least what he was
reading. The Government news and appointments (which Sir
Pitt as a public man was bound to peruse, otherwise he would
by no means permit the introduction of Sunday papers into
his household), the theatrical criticisms, the fight for a hun-
dred pounds a side between the Barking Butcher and the Tut-
bury Pet, the Gaunt House chronicle itself, which contained
a most complimentary though guarded account of the famous
charades of which Mrs. Becky had been the heroine,—all these
passed as in a haze before Rawdon, as he sat waiting the ar-
rival of the chief of the family.

Punctually, as the shrill-toned bell of the black marble
study-clock began to chime nine, Sir Pitt made his appearance,
fresh, neat, smugly shaved, with a waxy clean face, and stiff
shirt-collar, his scanty hair combed and oiled, trimming his
nails as he descended the stairs majestically, in a starched
cravat and a gray flannel dressing-gown,—a real old English
gentleman, in a word,—a model of neatness and every pro-
priety. He started when he saw poor Rawdon in his study
in tumbled clothes, with blood-shot eyes, and his hair over
his face. He thought this brother was not sober, and had been
out all night on some orgy. “Good gracious, Rawdon,” he
said, with a blank face, “what brings you here at this time
of the morning? Why ain’t you at home?”

“Home,” said Rawdon, with a wild laugh. “Don’t be
frightened, Pitt. I’m not drunk. Shut the door; I want to
speak to you.”

Pitt closed the door and came up to the table, where he
sat down in the other arm-chair,—that one placed for the re-
ception of the steward, agent, or confidential visitor who came
to transact business with the Baronet,—and trimmed his nails
more vehemently than ever.

“Pitt, it’s all over with me,” the Colonel said, after a
pause. “I’m done.”

“T always said it would come to this,” the Baronet cried,
peevishly, and beating a tune with his clean-trimmed nails.
“T warned you a thousand times. I can’t help you any more.
Every shilling of my money is tied up. Even the hundred
200 VANITY FAIR,

pounds that Jane took you last night were promised to my
lawyer to-morrow morning; and the want of it will put me to
great inconvenience. I don’t mean to say that I won’t assist
you ultimately. But as for paying your creditors in full, I
might as well hope to pay the National Debt. It is madness,
sheer madness, to think of such a thing. You must come to
a compromise. It’s a painful thing for the family; but every-
body does it. There was George Kitely, Lord Ragland’s son,
went through the Court last week, and was what they call
whitewashed, I believe. Lord Ragland would not pay a shill-
ing for him, and—”

“It’s not money I want,” Rawdon broke in. “I’m not come
to you about myself. Never mind what happens to me—”

“What is the matter, then?” said Pitt, somewhat relieved.

“Tt’s the boy,” said Rawdon, in a husky voice. “I want you
to promise me that you will take charge of him when I’m
gone. That dear good wife of yours has always been good to
him; and he’s fonder of her than heisofhis . . . . —
Damn it. Look here, Pitt,—you know that I was to have had
Miss Crawley’s money. I wasn’t brought up like a younger
brother: but was always encouraged to be extravagant and
kept idle. But for this I might have been quite a different
man. I didn’t do my duty with the regiment so bad. You
know how I was thrown over about the money, and who got
it.”

“After the sacrifices I have made, and the manner in which
I have stood by you, I think this sort of reproach is useless,”
Sir Pitt said. “Your marriage was your own doing, not mine.”

“That’s over now,” said Rawdon; “that’s over now.” And
the words were wrenched from him with a groan, which made
his brother start.

“Good God! is she dead?” Sir Pitt said, with a voice of
genuine alarm and commiseration.

“I wish I was,” Rawdon replied. “If it wasn’t for little
Rawdon I’d have cut my throat this morning,—and that
damned villian’s too.”

Sir Pitt instantly guessed the truth, and surmised that Lord
Steyne was the person whose life Rawdon wished to take. The
Colonel told his senior briefly, and in broken accents, the cir-
cumstances of the case. “It was a regular plan between that
scoundrel and her,” he said. “The bailiffs were put upon me:
I was taken as I was going out of his house; when I wrote
to her for money, she said she was ill in bed, and put me off to
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 201

another day. And when I got home I found her in diamonds
and sitting with that villain alone.” He then went on to
describe hurriedly the personal conflict with Lord Steyne. To
an affair of that nature, of course, he said, there was but one
issue: and after his conference with his brother he was going
away to make the necessary arrangements for the meeting
which must ensue. “And as it may end fatally with me,”
Rawdon said, with a broken voice, “and as the boy has no
mother, I must leave him to you and Jane, Pitt—only it will
be a comfort to me if you will promise me to be his friend.”

The elder brother was much affected, and shook Rawdon’s
hand with a cordiality seldom exhibited by him. Rawdon
passed his hand over his shaggy eyebrows. “Thank you,
brother,” said he. “I know I can trust your word.”

“TY will, upon my honor,” the Baronet said. And thus, and
almost mutely, this bargain was struck between them.

Then Rawdon took out of his pocket the little pocket-book
which he had discovered in Becky’s desk: and from which he
drew a bundle of the notes which it contained. “THere’s six
hundred,” he said—‘you didn’t know I was so rich. I want
you to give the money to Briggs, who lent it to us,—and who
was kind to the boy,—and I’ve always felt ashamed of having
taken the poor old woman’s money. And here’s some more,—
Tve only kept back a few pounds,—which Becky may as well
have, to get on with.” As he spoke he took hold of the other
notes to give to his brother: but his hands shook, and he was
so agitated that the pocket-book fell from him, and out of it
the thousand-pound note which had been the last of the un-
lucky Becky’s winnings.

Pitt stooped and picked them up, amazed at so much wealth,
“Not that,” Rawdon said; “I hope to put a bullet into the
man whom that belongs to.” He had thought to himself it
would be a fine revenge to wrap a ball in the note, and kill
Steyne with it.

After this colloquy the brothers once more shook hands and
parted. Lady Jane had heard of the Colonel’s arrival, and
was waiting for her husband in the adjoining dining-room,
with female instinct, auguring evil. The door of the dining-
room happened to be left open, and the lady of course was
issuing from it as the two brothers passed out of the study.
She held out her hand to Rawdon, and said she was glad he
was come to breakfast; though she could perceive, by his
haggard, unshorn face, and the dark looks of her husband,
202 VANITY FAIR.

that there was very little question of breakfast between them.
Rawdon muttered some excuses about an engagement, squeez-
ing hard the timid little hand which his sister-in-law reached
out to him. Her imploring eyes could read nothing but
calamity in his face; but he went away without another word.
Nor did Sir Pitt vouchsafe her any explanation. The children
came up to salute him, and he kissed them in his usual frigid
manner. The mother took both of them close to herself, and
held a hand of each of them as they knelt down to prayers,
which Sir Pitt read to them, and to the servants in their Sun-
day suits or liveries, ranged upon chairs on the other side of
the hissing tea-urn. Breakfast was so late that day, in con-
sequence of the delays which had occurred, that the church-
bells began to ring whilst they were sitting over their meal:
and Lady Jane was too ill, she said, to go to church, though
her thoughts had been entirely astray during the period of
family devotion.

Rawdon Crawley meanwhile hurried on from Great Gaunt
Street, and, knocking at the great bronze Medusa’s head which
stands on the portal of Gaunt House, brought out the purple
Silenus, in a red and silver waistcoat, who acts as porter of
that palace. The man was scared also by the Colonel’s dis-
heveled appearance, and barred the way as if afraid that the
other was going to force it. But Colonel Crawley only took
out a card and enjoined him particularly to send it in to Lord
Steyne, and to mark the address written on it, and say that
Colonel Crawley would be all day after one o’clock at the Re-
gent Club in St. James’s Street,—not at home. The fat red-
faced man looked after him with astonishment as he strode
away; so did the people in their Sunday clothes who were out
so early; the charity boys with shining faces, the green-grocer
lolling at his door, and the publican shutting his shutters in
the sunshine, against service commenced. The people joked
at the cab-stand about his appearance, as he took a carriage
there, and told the driver to drive him to Knightsbridge
Barracks.

All the bells were jangling and tolling as he reached that
place. He might have seen his old acquaintance Amelia on
her way from Brompton to Russell Square had he been look-
ing out. Troops of schools were on their march to church,
the shiny pavement and outsides of coaches in the suburbs
were thronged with people out upon their Sunday pleasure;
but the Colonel was much too busy to take any heed of these
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 208

phenomena, and, arriving at Knightsbridge, speedily made
his way up to the room of his old friend and comrade Captain
Macmurdo, who Crawley found, to his satisfaction, was in
barracks.

Captain Macmurdo, a veteran officer and Waterloo man,
greatly liked by his regiment, in which want of money alone
prevented him from attaining the highest ranks, was enjoying
the forenoon calmly in bed. He had been at a fast supper-
party, given the night before by Captain the Honorable George
Cingbars, at his house in Brompton Square, to several young
men of the regiment, and a number of ladies of the corps de
ballet, and old Mac, who was at home with people of all ages
and ranks, and consorted with generals, dog-fanciers, opera-
dancers, bruisers, and every kind of person, in a word, was
resting himself after the night’s labors, and, not being on
duty, was in bed.

His room was hung round with boxing, sporting, and danc-
ing pictures, presented to him by comrades as they retired
from the regiment, and married and settled into quiet life.
And, as he was now nearly fifty years of age, twenty-four of
which he had passed in the corps, he had a singular museum.
He was one of the best shots in England, and, for a heavy
man, one of the best riders; indeed, he and Crawley had been
rivals when the latter was in the army. To be brief, Mr. Mac-
murdo was lying in bed, reading in Bell’s Life an account of
that very fight between the Tutbury Pet and the Barking
Butcher which has been before mentioned,—a venerable
bristly warrior, with a little close-shaved gray head, with a
silk nightcap, a red face and nose, and a great dyed mustache.

When Rawdon told the Captain he wanted a friend, the
latter knew perfectly well on what duty of friendship he was
called to act, and indeed had conducted scores of affairs for
his acquaintances with the greatest prudence and skill. His
Royal Highness the late lamented Commander-in-Chief had
had the greatest regard for Macmurdo on this account; and
he was the common refuge of gentlemen in trouble.

“What’s the row about, Crawley, my boy?” said the old
warrior. “No more gambling business, hay, like that when
we shot Captain Marker?”

“It’s about—about my wife,’ Crawley answered, casting
down his eyes and turning very red.

The other gave a whistle. “TI always said she’d throw you
over,” he began;—indeed there were bets in the regiment and
204 VANITY FAIR.

at the clubs regarding the probable fate of Colonel Crawley,
so lightly was his wife’s character esteemed by his comrades
and the world; but seeing the savage look with which Rawdon
answered the expression of this opinion, Macmurdo did not
think fit to enlarge upon it further.

“Is there no way out of it, old boy?” the Captain continued
in a grave tone. “Is it only suspicion, you know, or—or what
is it? Any letters? Can’t you keep it quiet? Best not make
any noise about a thing of that sort if you can help it.”
“Think of his only finding her out now,” the Captain thought
1o himself, and remembered a hundred particular conversa-
tions at the mess-table, in which Mrs. Crawley’s reputation
has been torn to shreds.

“There’s no way but one out of it,” Rawdon replied; “and
there’s only a way out of it for one of us, Mac,—do you under-
stand? I was put out of the way: arrested: J found ’em alone
together. I told him he was a liar and a coward, and knocked
him down and thrashed him.”

“Serve him right,”” Macmurdo said. “Who is it?”

Rawdon answered it was Lord Steyne.

“The deuce! a Marquis! they said he—that is, they said
you—”

“What the devil do you mean?” roared out Rawdon; “do
you mean that you ever heard a fellow doubt about my wife,
and didn’t tell me, Mac?”

“The world’s very censorious, old boy,” the other replied.
“What the deuce was the good of my telling you what any
tomfool talked about?”

“Tt was damned unfriendly, Mac,” said Rawdon, quite over-
come; and, covering his face with his hands, he gave way to
an emotion, the sight of which caused the tough old cam-
paigner opposite him to wince with sympathy. “Hold up, old
boy,” he said; “great man or not, we'll put a bullet in him,
damn him. As for women, they’re all so.”

“You don’t know how fond I was of that one,” Rawdon
said, half inarticulately. “Damme, I followed her like a foot-
man. I gave up everything I had to her. I’m a beggar be-
cause I would marry her. By Jove, sir, ’'ve pawned my own
watch in order to get her anything she fancied: and she—
she’s been making a purse for herself all the time, and grudged
me a hundred pound to get me out of quod.” He then fierce-
ly and incoherently, and with an agitation under which his
counsellor had never before seen him labor, told Macmurdo
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO, 205

the circumstances of the story. His adviser caught at some
stray hints in it.

“She may be innocent, after all,” he said. “She says so.
Steyne has been a hundred times alone with her in the house
before.”

“It may be so,” Rawdon answered sadly; “but this don’t
look very innocent:” and he showed the Captain the thousand-
pound note which he had found in Becky’s pocket-book.
“This is what he gave her, Mac: and she kep it unknown to
me: and with this money in the house, she refused to stand
by me when I was locked up.” The Captain could not but own
that the secreting of the money had a very ugly look.

Whilst they were engaged in their conference, Rawdon de-
spatched Captain Macmurdo’s servant to Curzon Street, with
an order to the domestic there to give up a bag of clothes of
which the Colonel had great need. And during the man’s
absence, and with great labor and a Johnson’s Dictionary,
which stood them in much stead, Rawdon and his second com-
posed a letter, which the latter was to send to Lord Steyne.
Captain Macmurdo had the honor of waiting upon the Marquis
of Steyne, on the part of Colonel Rawdon Crawley, and
begged to intimate that he was empowered by the Colonel to
make any arrangements for the meeting which, he had no
doubt, it was his Lordship’s intention to demand, and which
the circumstances of the morning had rendered inevitable.
Captain Macmurdo begged Lord Steyne in the most polite
manner to appoint a friend, with whom he (Captain M’M.)
might communicate, and desired that the meeting might take
place with as little delay as possible.

In a postscript the Captain stated that he had in his pos-
session a bank-note for a large amount, which Colonel Crawley
had reason to suppose was the property of the Marquis of
Steyne. And he was anxious, on the Colonel’s behalf, to give
up the note to its owner.

By the time this note was composed the Captain’s servant
returned from his mission to Colonel Crawley’s house in Cur-
zon Street, but without the carpet-bag and portmanteau for
which he had been sent: and with a very puzzled and odd
face.

“They won’t give em up,” said the man; “there’s a regular
shinty in the house; and everything at sixes and sevens. The
landlord’s come in and took possession. The servants was a
drinkin’ up in the drawing-room. They said,—they said you
206 VANITY FAIR,

had gone off with the plate, Colonel.” The man added after
a pause,—‘“One of the servants is off already. And Simpson,
the man as was very noisy and drunk indeed, says nothing
shall go out of the house until his wages is paid up.”

The account of this little revolution in May Fair astonished
and gave a little gayety to an otherwise very triste conversa-
tion. The two officers laughed at Rawdon’s discomfiture.

“T’m glad the little un isn’t at home,” Rawdon said, biting
his nails. ‘““You remember him, Mac, don’t you, in the Riding
School? How he sat the kicker, to be sure! didn’t he?”

“That he did, old boy,” said the good-natured Captain.

Little Rawdon was then sitting, one of fifty gown-boys, in
the Chapel of Whitefriars School: thinking, not about the
sermon, but about going home next Saturday, when his father
would certainly tip him, and perhaps would take him to the
play.

“He’s a regular trump, that boy,” the father went on, still
musing about hisson. “TIsay, Mac, if anything goes wrong,—
if I drop,—I should like you to—to go and see him, you know:
and say that I was very fond of him, and that. And—dash
it—old chap, give him these gold sleeve-buttons: it’s all I’ve
got.” ‘He covered his face with his black hands: over which
the tears rolled and made furrows of white. Mr. Macmurdo
had also occasion to take off his silk night-cap and rub it across
his eyes.

“Go down and order some breakfast,” he said to his man
in a loud, cheerful voice. ‘“What?ll you have, Crawley? Some
deviled kidneys and a herring,—let’s say. And, Clay, lay out
some dressing things for the Colonel: we were always pretty
much of a size, Rawdon, my boy, and neither of us ride so
light as we did when we first entered the corps.” With
which, and leaving the Colonel to dress himself, Macmurdo
turned round towards the wall, and resumed the perusal of
Bell’s Life, until such time as his friend’s toilet was complete,
and he was at liberty to commence his own.

This, as he was about to meet a lord, Captain Macmurdo
performed with particular care. He waxed his mustachios into
a state of brilliant polish, and put on a tight cravat and a trim
buff waistcoat: so that all the young officers in the mess-
room, whither Crawley had preceded his friend, complimented
Mac on his appearance at breakfast, and asked if he was going
to be married that Sunday.
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 207

CHAPTER XXI.

IN WHICH THE SAME SUBJECT IS PURSUED.

Becky did not rally from the state of stupor and confusion
in which the events of the previous night had plunged her in-
trepid spirit, until the bells of the Curzon Street Chapels were
ringing for afternoon service, and rising from her bed she be-

an to ply her own bell, in order to summon the French maid
who had left her some hours before.

Mrs. Rawdon Crawley rang many times in vain; and though,
on the last occasion, she rang with such vehemence as to pull
down the bell-rope, Mademoiselle Fifine did not make her ap-
pearance; no, not though her mistress, ina great pet, and with
the bell-rope in her hand, came out to the landing-place with
her hair over her shoulders, and screamed out repeatedly for
her attendant.

The truth is, she had quitted the premises for many hours,
and upon that permission which is called French leave among
us. After picking up the trinkets in the drawing-room,
Mademoiselle had ascended to her own apartments, packed
and corded her own boxes there, tripped out and called a cab
for herself, brought down her trunks with her own hand, and
without ever so much as asking the aid of any of the other
servants, who would probably have refused it, as they hated
her cordially, and without wishing any one of them good bye,
had made her exit from Curzon Street.

The game, in her opinion, wag over in that little domestic
establishment. Fifine went off in a cab, as we have known more
exalted persons of her nation to do under similar circumstan-
ces: but, more provident or lucky than these, she secured not
only her own property, but some of her mistress’s (if indeed
that lady could be said to have any property at all); and not
only carried off the trinkets before alluded to, and some favor-
ite dresses on which she had long kept her eye, but four richly
gilt Louis Quatorze candlesticks, six gilt Albums, Keepsakes,
and Books of Beauty, a gold enameled snuff-box which had
once belonged to Madame du Barri, and the sweetest little
inkstand and mother-of-pearl blotting-book, which Becky used
when she composed her charming little pink notes, had van-
208 VANITY FAIR.

ished from the premises in Curzon Street together with Ma-
demoiselle Fifine, and all the silver laid on the table for
the little fes¢in which Rawdon interrupted. The plated ware
Mademoiselle left behind her was too cumbrous probably, for
which reason, no doubt, she also left the fire-irons, the chim-
ney-glasses, and the rosewood cottage piano,

A lady very like her subsequently kept a milliner’s shop in
the Rue du Helder at Paris, where she lived with great credit,
and enjoyed the patronage of my Lord Steyne. This person
always spoke of England as of the most treacherous country
in the world, and stated to her young pupils that she had been
affreusment volé by natives of that island. It was no doubt
compassion for her misfortunes which induced the Marquis of
Steyne to be so very kind to Madame de Saint Amaranthe.
May she flourish as she deserves,—she appears no more in our
quarter of Vanity Fair.

Hearing a buzz and a stir below, and indignant at the impu-
dence of those servants who would not answer her summons,
Mrs. Crawley flung her morning robe round her, and descended
majestically to the drawing-room, whence the noise proceeded.

The cook was there with blackened face, seated on the beau-
tiful chintz sofa by the side of Mrs. Raggles, to whom she was
administering Maraschino. The page with the sugar-loaf but-
tons, who carried about Becky’s pink notes, and jumped about
her little carriage with such alacrity, was now engaged putting
his fingers into a cream-dish; the footman was talking to Rag-
gles, who had a face full of perplexity and woe,—and yet,
though the door was open, and Becky had been screaming a
half-dozen of times a few feet off, not one of her attendants had
obeyed her call. “Have a little drop, do ’ee now, Mrs. Rag-
gles,” the cook was saying as Becky entered, the white cash-
mere dressing-gown flouncing around her.

“Simpson! Trotter!” the mistress of the house cried in great
wrath. “How dare you stay here when you heard me call?
How dare you sit down in my presence? Where’s my maid?”
The page withdrew his fingers from his mouth with a mo-
mentary terror: but the cook took off a glass of Maraschino,
of which Mrs. Raggles had had enough, staring at Becky over
the little gilt glass as she drained its contents. The liquor
appeared to give the odious rebel courage.

“Your sofy, indeed!” Mrs. Cook ane “I’m a settin’ on
Mrs. Raggles’s sofy. Don’t you stir, Mrs. Raggles, mum. I’m
a settin’ on Mr, and Mrs. Raggles’s sofy, which they bought
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 209

with honest money, and very dear it cost ’em, too. And I’m
thinkin’ if I set here until ’m paid my wages, I shall set a
precious long time, Mrs. Raggles; and set I will, too-— ha!
hal” and with this she filled herself another glass of the liquor,
and drank it with a more hideously satirical air.

“Trotter! Simpson! turn that drunken wretch out,”
screamed Mrs. Crawley,

“T shawn’t,” said Trotter, the footman; “turn out yourself.
Pay our selleries, and turn me out too. We’ll go fast enough.”

“Are you all here to insult me?” cried Becky, in a fury;
“when Colonel Crawley comes home [’ll—~”

At this the servants burst into a hoarse haw-haw, in which,
however, Raggles, who still kept a most melancholy counte-
nance, did not join, “He ain’t a coming back,” Mr, Trotter
resumed. “He sent for his things, and I wouldn’t let ’em go,
although Mr. Raggles would; and I don’t b’lieve he’s no more
a Colonel than Iam. He’s hoff: and I suppose you’re a goin’
after him. Yow’re no better than swindlers, both on you.
Don’t be a bullyin’? me. I won’t stand it. Pay us our selleries,
I say. Pay us our selleries.” It was evident, from Mr. Trot-
ter’s flushed countenance and defective intonation, that he,
too, had had recourse to vinous stimulus,

“Mr, Raggles,” said Becky, in a passion of vexation, “you
will not surely let me be insulted by that drunken man?”
“Hold your noise, Trotter; do now,” said Simpson, the page.
He was affected by his mistress’s deplorable situation, and suc-
ceeded in preventing an outrageous denial of the epithet
“drunken” on the footman’s part.

“QO mam,” said Raggles, “I never thought to live to see this
year day. DPve known the Crawley family ever since I was
born. I lived butler with Miss Crawley for thirty years; and I
little thought one of that family was a goin’ to ruing me,—
yes, ruing me,”—-said the poor fellow, with tears in his eyes.
“Har you a goin’ to pay me? You’ve lived in this ’ouse four
year, You've ’ad my substance: my plate and linning, You
ho me a milk and butter bill of two ’undred pound, you
must ’ave noo laid heggs for your homlets and cream for your
spanil dog.”

“She didn’t care what her own flesh and blood had,” inter-
posed the cook. “Many’s the time he’d have starved but for
me.”

“He’s a charaty boy now, Cooky,” said Mr. Trotter, with a
drunken “ha! ha!’--and honest Raggles continued, in a la-

Vol. 1.—t
210 VANITY FAIR. .

mentable tone, an enumeration of his griefs. All he said was
true. Becky and her husband had ruined him. He had bills
coming due next week, and no means to meet them. He would
be sold up and turned out of his shop and his house, because
he had trusted to the Crawley family. His tears and lamen-
tations made Becky more peevish than ever.

“You all seem to be against me,” she said bitterly. “What
do you want? I can’t pay you on Sunday. Come back to-
morrow and I’ll pay you everything. I thought Colonel Craw-
ley had settled with you. He will to-morrow. [ declare to
you upon my honor that he left home this morning with
fifteen hundred pounds in his pocket-book. He has left me
nothing. Apply to him. Give me a bonnet and shaw] and let
me go out and find him. There was a difference between us
this morning. You all seem to know it. I promise you upon
my word that you shall all be paid. He has got a good ap-
pointment. Let me go out and find him.”

This audacious statement caused Raggles and the other per-
sonages present to look at one another with a wild surprise,
and with it Rebecca left them. She went up stairs and dressed
herself this time without the aid of her French maid. She
went into Rawdon’s room, and there saw that a trunk and bag
were packed ready for removal, with a pencil direction that
they should be given when called for; then she went into the
Frenchwoman’s garret; everything was clean, and all the
drawers emptied there. She bethought herself of the trinkets
which had been left on the ground, and felt certain that the
woman had fled. “Good Heavens! was ever such ill luck as
mine?” she said; “to be so near, and to lose all. Is it all too
late? No; there is one chance more.”

She dressed herself, and went away unmolested this time,
but alone. It was four o’clock. She went swiftly down the
streets (she had no money to pay for a carriage), and never
stopped until she came to Sir Pitt Crawley’s door, in Great
Gaunt Street. Where was Lady Jane Crawley? She was at
church. Becky was not sorry. Sir Pitt was in his study, and
had given orders not to be disturbed,—she must see him,—she
slipped by the sentinel in livery at once, and was in Sir Pitt’s
room before the astonished Baronet had even laid down the
paper.

He turned red and started back from her with a look of great
alarm and horror.

“Do not look go,” she said. “I am not guilty, Pitt, dear
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 211

Pitt; you were my friend once. Before God, I am not guilty.
Iseem so. Everything is against me. And O! at such a mo-
ment! just when all my hopes were about to be realized; just
when happiness was in store for us.”

“Ts this true, what I sce in the paper then?” Sir Pitt said,
—a paragraph in which had greatly surprised him.

“It is true. Lord Steyne told me on Friday night, the
night of that fatal ball. He has been promised an appoint-
ment any time these six months. Mr. Martyr, the Colonial
Secretary, told him yesterday that it was made out. That un-
lucky arrest ensued; that horrible meeting. I was only guilty
of too much devotedness to Rawdon’s service. I have re-
ceived Lord Steyne alone a hundred times before. I confess I
had money of which Rawdon knew nothing. Don’t you know
how careless he is of it, and could I dare to confide it to him?”
And so she went on with a perfectly connected story, which
she poured into the ears of her perplexed kinsman.

It was to the following effect. Becky owned, and with per-
fect frankness, but deep contrition, that having remarked
Lord Steyne’s partiality for her (at the mention of which Pitt
blushed), and being secure of her own virtue, she had deter-
mined to turn the great Peer’s attachment to the advantage
of herself and her family. “I looked for a peerage for you,
Pitt,” she said (the brother-in-law again turned red). “We
have talked about it. Your genius and Lord Steyne’s interest,
made it more than probable, had not this dreadful calamity
come to put an end to all our hopes. But, first, I own that it
was my object to rescue my dear husband,—him whom J love
in spite of all his ill usage and suspicions of me,—to remove
him from the poverty and ruin which was impending over us.
I saw Lord Steyne’s partiality for me,” she said, casting down
her eyes. “I own that I did everything in my power to make
myself pleasing to him, and, as far as an honest woman may,
to secure his—his esteem. It was only on Friday morning that
the news arrived of the death of the Governor of Coventry Isl-
and, and my Lord instantly secured the appointment for my
dear husband. It was intended as a surprise for him,—he was to
see it in the papers to-day. Even after that horrid arrest took
place (the expenses of which Lord Steyne generously said he
would settle, so that I was in a manner prevented from coming
to my hushand’s assistance), my Lord was laughing with me,
and saying that my dearest Rawdon wonld be consoled when
he read of his appointment in the paper, in that shocking spon

37
212 VANITY FAIR.

—hailiff’s house. And then—then he came home. His sus-
picions were excited,—the dreadful scene took place between
my Lord and my cruel, cruel Rawdon,—and O my God, what
will happen next? Pitt, dear Pitt! pity me, and reconcile us!”
And as she spoke she flung herself down on her knees, and,
bursting into tears, seized hold of Pitt’s hand, which she kissed
passionately.

It was in this very attitude that Lady Jane, who, returning
from church, ran to her husband’s room: directly she heard
Mrs. Rawdon Crawley was closeted there, fownd the: Baronet
and his sister-in-law.

“J am surprised that. woman has the audacity to enter this
house,” Lady Jane said, trembling in every limb, and turning
quite pale. (Her Ladyship had sent out her maid directly
after breakfast, who had communicated with Raggles and
Rawdon Crawley’s household, who had told her all, and a
great deal more than they knew, of that story, and many others
besides.) “How dare Mrs. Crawley to enter the house of—
of am honest family?”

Sir Pitt started back, amazed at his wife’s display of vigor.
Becky still kept her kneeling posture, and clung to Sir Pitt’s
hand.

“Tell her that she does not know all. Tell her that ¥ am
innocent, dear Pitt,’ she whimpered out.

“Upon my word, my love, I think you do Mrs. Crawley im-
justice,” Sir Pitt said; at which speech Rebecea was: vastly
telieved. “Indeed I believe her to be—”

“T’o be what?” cried owt Lady Jane, her clear voice thril-
ling, and her heart beating violently as she spoke. “To bea
wicked woman,—a heartless mother, a false wife? She never
loved her dear little boy, who used to fly here and tell me of
her eruelty to him. She never came into a family but she
strove to. bring misery with her, and to weaken the most sacred
affections with her wicked flattery and falsehoods. She has
deceived her husband, as she has deceived everybody; her soul
is black with vanity, worldiliness, and all sorts of crime. I
tremble when I touch her. I keep my children out of her
sight. J—*”

“Lady Jane!” cried Sir Pitt, starting up, “this is really
language—”

“T have been a true and faithful wife to you, Sir Pitt,’ Lady
Jane continued intrepidly; “I have kept my marriage vow as
I made it to God, and have been obedient and gentle as a
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 213

wife should. But righteous obedience has its mits, and I
declare that. I will not bear that—that woman again under my
roof; if she enters it, I and my children will leave it. She is
not worthy to sit down with Christian people. You—you
must choose, sir, between her and me;” and with this my
Lady swept out of the room, fluttering with her own audacity,
and leaving Rebecca and Sir Pitt mot a little astonished at
it.
As for Becky, she was not hurt; nay, she was pleased. “It
‘was the diamond clasp you gave me,” she said to Sir Pitt,
reaching him out her hand; and before she left him (for
which event you may be sure my Lady Jane was looking out
from her dressing-room window in the upper story) the Bar-
onet had promised to go and seek out his brother, and endeavor
to bring about a reconeiliation.

Rawdon found some of the young fellows of the regiment
seated in the mess-room at breakfast, and was induced with-
out. much diffieulty to partake of that meal, and of the
deviled legs of fowls and soda-water with which these young
gentlemen fortified themselves. Them they had a conversation
befitting the day and their time of life: about the next pigeon-
match at Battersea, with relative bets upon Ross and Osbaldi-
ston: about Mademoiselle Ariane of the French Opera, and
who had left her, and how she was consoled by Panther Carr;
and about the fight. between the Butcher and the Pet, and
the probabilities that it was a cross. Young Tandyman, a
hero. of seventeen, laboriously endeavoring to get up a pair
of mustachios, had seen the fight, and spoken in the most
scientific manner about the battle, amd the condition of the
men. It was he who had driven the Butcher on to the ground
in his drag, and passed the whole of the previous night with.
him. Had there not been foul play he must have won it. All
the old files of the Ring were in it; and Tandyman wouldn’t
pay; no, dammy, he wouldn’t pay—It was but'a year since the
young Cornet, now so knewing a hand in Cribb’s parlor, had a
still lingering liking for toffly, and used to be birched at
Eton.

So they went on talking about. dancers, fights, drinking,
demireps, until Macmurdo came down and joined the boys
and the conversation. He did not appear to think that any
especial reverence was due to their boyhood; the old fellow
cut in with stories, to the full as choice as any the youngest
214 VANITY FAIR.

rake present had to tell;—nor did his own gray hairs nor then
smooth faces detain him. Old Mac was famous for his good
stories. He was not exactly a lady’s man; that is, men asked
him to dine rather at the houses of their mistresses than c?
their mothers. There can scarcely be a life lower, perhaps.
than his; but he was quite contented with it, such as it
was, and led it in perfect good-nature, simplicity, and modesty
of demeanor.

By the time Mac had finished a copious breakfast, most of
the others had concluded their meal. Young Lord Varinas
was smoking an immense Meerschaum pipe, while Captain
Hugues was employed with a cigar: that violent little devil
Tandyman, with his little bull-terrier between his legs, was
tossing for shillings with all his might (that fellow was al-
ways at some game or other) against Captain Deuceace; and
Mac and Rawdon walked off to the Club, neither, of course,
having given any hint of the business which was occupying
their minds. Both, on the other hand, had joined pretty gayly
in conversation; as, why should they interrupt it? Feasting,
drinking, ribaldry, laughter, go on alongside of all sorts of
other occupations in Vanity Fair,—the crowds were pour-
ing out of church as Rawdon and his friend passed down St.
James’s Street and entered into their Club.

The old bucks and habitués, who ordinarily stand gaping
and grinning out of the great front window of the Club, had
not arrived at their posts as yet,—the newspaper-room was
almost empty. One man was present whom Rawdon did not
know; another to whom he owed a little score for whist, and
whom, in consequence, he did not care to meet; a third was °
reading the Royalist (a periodical famous for its scandal and
its attachment to Church and King) Sunday paper at the
table, and, looking up at Crawley with some interest, said,
“Crawley, I congratulate you.”

“What do you mean?” said the Colonel.

“It’s in the Observer and the Royalist too,’ said Mr.
Smith.

“What?” Rawdon cried, turning very red. He thought
that the affair with Lord Steyne was already in the public
prints. Smith looked up wondering and smiling at the agita-
tion which the Colonel exhibited as he took up the paper, and,
trembling, began to read.

Mr. Smith and Mr. Brown (the gentleman with whom Raw-
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 215

don had the outstanding whist account) had been talking
about the Colonel just before he came in.

“It is come just in the nick of time,” said Smith. “I sup-
pose Crawley had not a shilling in the world.”

“It’s a wind that blows everybody good,” Mr. Brown said.
“He can’t go away without paying me a pony he owes me.”

“What’s the salary?” asked Smith.

“Two or three thousand,” answered the other. “But the
climate’s so infernal, they don’t enjoy it long. TLiverseege died
after eighteen months of it: and the man before went off in
six weeks, I hear.”

“Some people say his brother is a very clever man.” “T
always found him ad bore,” Smith ejaculated. “He must
have good interest, though. He must have got the Colonel
the place.”

“He!” said Brown, with a sneer; “Pooh. It was Lord
Steyne got it.”

“How do you mean?”

“A virtuous woman is a crown to her husband,” answered
the other, enigmatically, and went to read his papers.

Rawdon, for his part, read in the Royalist the following
astonishing paragraph—

“Governorship of Coventry Island—H. M. 8. Yellowjack,
Commander Jaunders, has brought letters and papers from
Coventry Island. H. E. Sir Thomas Liverseege had fallen a
victim to the prevailing fever at Swampton. His loss is deeply
felt in the flourishing colony. We hear that the Governor-
ship has been offered to Colonel Rawdon Crawley, C. B., a
distinguished Waterloo officer. We need not only men of
acknowledged bravery, but men of administrative talents, to
superintend the affairs of our colonies; and we have no doubt
that the gentleman selected by the Colonial Office to fil) the
lamented vacancy which has occurred at Coventry Island is
admirably calculated for the post which he is about to oc-
eupy.”

“Coventry Island! where was it? who had appointed him to
the government? You must take me out as your secretary,
old boy,” Captain Macmurdo said, laughing; and as Craw-
ley and his friend sat wondering and perplexed over the an-
nouncement, the Club waiter brought in to the Colonel a card,
on which the name of Mr. Wenham was engraved, who begged
to see Colonel Crawley.

The Colonel and his aide-de-camp went out to meet the

 
216 VANITY FAIR,

gentleman, rightly conjecturing that he was an emissary of
Lord Steyne. “How d’ye do, Crawley? I am glad to see
you,” said Mr. Wenham, with a bland smile, and grasping
Crawley’s hand with great cordiality.

“You come, I suppose, from. -?

“Tixactly,” said Mr. Wenham.

“Then this is my friend Captain Macmurdo, of the Life
Guards Green.” ‘

‘Delighted to know Captain Macmurdo, ’m sure,” Mr.
Wenham said, and tendered another smile and shake of the
hand to the second, as he had done to the principal. Mac put
out one finger, armed with a buckskin glove, and made a very
frigid bow to Mr. Wenham over his tight cravat. He was,
perhaps, discontented at being put in communication with a
pekin, and thought that Lord Steyne should have sent him
a Colonel at the very least.

“As Macmurdo acts for me, and knows what J mean,” Craw-
ley said, “I had better retire and leave you together.”

“Of course,” said Maemurdo. _

“By no means, my dear Colonel,” Mr. Wenham said; “the
interview which I had the honor of requesting was with you
personally, though the company of Captain Macmurdo can-
not fail to be also most pleasing. In fact, Captain, I hope
that our conversation will lead to none but the most agree-
able results, very different from those which my friend, Col-
onel Crawley, appears to anticipate.”

“Humph!” said Captain Macmurdo. “Be hanged to these
civilians,” he thought to himself; “they are always for arrang-
ing and speechifying.” Mr. Wenham took a chair which
was not offered to him,—-took a paper from his pocket, and
resumed.

“You have seen this gratifying announcement in the papers
this morning, Colonel? Government has secured a most valu-
able servant, and you, if you accept office, as I presume you
will, an excellent appointment. Three thousand a year, de-
lightful climate,. excellent government-house, all your own
way in the Colony, and a certain promotion. I congratulate
you with all my heart. I presume you know, gentlemen, to
whom my friend is indebted for this piece of patronage?”

“Hanged if I know,” the Captain said: his principal turned
very red. -

“To one of the most generous and kindest men in the world,

 
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 217

as he is one of the greatest—to my excellent friend, the
Marquis of Steyne.”

“Pll see him d
Rawdon.

“You are irritated against my noble friend,” Mr. Wenham
calmly resumed; “and now, in the name of common sense and
justice, tell me why?”

“Why?” cried Rawdon, in surprise.

“Why? Dammy!” said the Captain, ringing his stick on
the ground.

“Dammy, indeed,” said Mr. Wenham, with the most agree-
able smile; “still, look at the matter as a man of the world,—
as an honest man, and see if you have not been in the wrong.
You come home from a journey, and find—what?—my Lord
Steyne supping at your house in Curzon Street with Mrs.
Crawley. Is the circumstance strange or novel? Has he not
been a hundred times before in the same position? Upon my
honor and werd as a gentleman,” (Mr. Wenham here put his
hand on his waistcoat with a parliamentary air,) “I declare I
think that your suspicions are monstrous and utterly un-
founded, and that they injure an honorable gentleman who
has proved his good-will towards you by a thousand bene-
factions,—and a most spotless and innocent lady.”

“You don’t mean to say that—that Crawley’s mistaken?”
said Mr. Maemurdo.

“{ believe that Mrs. Crawley is as innocent as my
wife, Mrs. Wenham,” Mr. Wenham said, with great
energy. “I believe that, mislead by an imfernal jeal-
eusy, my friend here strikes a blow against not only an in-
firm old man of high station, his constant friend and bene-
factor, but against his wife, his own dearest honor, his son’s
future reputation, and his own prospects in life.

“T will tell you what happened,” Mr. Wenham continued,
with great solemnity; “I was sent for this morning by my
Lord Steyne, and found him in a pitiable state, as, I need
hardly inform Colonel Crawley, any man of age and infirmity
would be after a personal conflict with a man of your strength.
I say to your face, it was a cruel advantage you took of that
strength, Colonel Crawley. It was not only the body of my
noble and excellent friend which was wounded;—his heart,
sir, was bleeding. A man whom he had loaded with benefits
and regarded with affection had subjected him to the foulest
indignity. What was this very appointment, which appears

 

before I take his place,” growled out
218 VANITY FAIR.

in the journals of to-day, but a proof of his kindness to you?
When I saw his Lordship this morning, I found him in a
state pitiable indeed to see; and as anxious as you are to re-
venge the outrage committed upon him, by blood. You know
he has given his proofs, I presume, Colonel Crawley?”

“He has plenty of pluck,” said the Colonel. “Nobody ever
said he hadn’t.”

“His first order to me was to write a letter of challenge, and
to carry it to Colonel Crawley. One or other of you,” he
said, “must not survive the outrage of last night.”

Crawley nodded. “Youre coming to the point, Wenham,”
he said.

“T tried my utmost to calm Lord Steyne. ‘Good God! sir,’
I said, ‘how I regret that Mrs. Wenham and myself had not
accepted Mrs. Crawley’s invitation to sup with her!’ ”

“She asked you to sup with her?” Captain Macmurdo
said.

“After the opera. Here’s the note of invitation—stop—no,
this is another paper—I thought I had it, but it’s of no
consequence, and I pledge you my word to the fact. If we
had come,—and it was only one of Mrs. Wenham’s headaches
which prevented us,—she suffers under them a good deal,
especially in the spring,—if we had come, and you had re-
turned home, there would have been no quarrel, no insult, no
suspicion; and so it is positively because my poor wife has a
headache that you are to bring death down upon two men of
honor, and plunge two of the most excellent and ancient
families in the kingdom into disgrace and sorrow.”

Mr. Macmurdo looked at his principal with the air of a
man profoundly puzzled; and Rawdon felt with a kind of
rage that his prey was escaping him. He did not believe a
word of the story, and yet, how discredit or disprove i1?

Mr. Wenham continued with the same fluent oratory, which
in his place in Parliament he had so often practiced,—“I sat
for an hour or more by Lord Steyne’s bedside, beseeching,
imploring Lord Steyne to forego his intention of demanding a
meeting. I pointed out to him that the circumstances were
after all suspicious,—they were suspicious. I acknowledge it,
—any man in your position might have been taken in. I said
that a man furious with jealousy is to all intents and purposes
a madman, and should be as such regarded,—that a duel be-
tween you must lead to the disgrace of all parties concerned,—
that a man of his Lordship’s exalted station had no right in
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 218

these days, when the most atrocious revolutionary principles,
and the most dangerous. leveling doctrines, are preached
among the vulgar, to create a public scandal; and that, how-
ever innocent, the common people would insist that he was
guilty. In tine, I implored him not to send the challenge.”

“I don’t believe one word of the whole story,” said Raw-
don, grinding his teeth. “I believe it a d lie, and that
yow’re in it, Mr. Wenham. If the challenge don’t come from
him, by Jove, it shall come from me.”

Mr. Wenham turned deadly pale at this savage interruption
of the Colonel, and looked towards the door.

But he found a champion in Captain Macmurdo. That
gentleman rose up with an oath, and rebuked Rawdon for his
language. “You put the affair into my hands, and you shall
act as I think fit, by Jove, and not as you do. You have no
right to insult Mr. Wenham with this sort of language; and
dammy, Mr. Wenham, you deserve an apology. And as for
a challenge to Lord Steyne, you may get somebody else to
carry it, I won't. If my Lord, after being thrashed, chooses
to sit still, dammy, let him. And as for the affair with—
with Mrs. Crawley, my belief is there’s nothing proved at
all; that your wife’s innocent, as innocent as Mr. Wenham
says she is; and, at any rate, that you would be a d fool
not to take the place and hold your tongue.”

“Captain Macmurdo, you speak like a man of sense,” Mr.
Wenham cried out, immensely relieved; “I forget any words
that Colonel Crawley has used in the irritation of the mo-
ment.”

“T thought you would,” Rawdon said, with a sneer.

“Shut your mouth, you old stoopid,” the Captain said good-
naturedly. “Mr. Wenham ain’t a fighting man; and quite
right, too.”

“This matter, in my belief,’ the Steyne emissary cried,
“ought to be buried in the most profound oblivion. A word
concerning it should never pass these doors. I speak in the
interest of my friend, as well as of Colonel Crawley, who
persists in considering me his enemy.”

“T suppose Lord Steyne won’t talk about it very much,” said
Captain Macmurdo; “and I don’t see why our side should.
The affair ain’t a very pretty one, any way you take it; and
the less said about it the better. It’s you are thrashed, and
not us; and if you are satisfied, why, I think we should
be.”

 

 
220 VANITY FAIR.

Mr, Wenham took his hat, upon this, and Captain Mac-
murdo, following him to the door, shut it upon himself and
Lord Steyne’s agent, leaving Rawdon chafing within. When
the two were on the other side, Macmurdo looked hard at the
other ambassador, and with an expression of anything but
respect on his round, jolly face.

“You don’t stick at a trifle, Mr. Wenham,” he said.

“You flatter me, Captain Macmurdo,” answered the other,
with a smile. “Upon my honor and conscience now, Mrs.
Crawley did ask us to sup after the opera.”

“Of course; and Mrs. Wenham had one of her headaches.
I say, P’ve got a thougand-pound note here, which I will
give you if you will give me a receipt, please; and I will
put the note wp in an envelope for Lord Steyne. My man
sha’n’t fight him. But we had rather not take his money.”

“It was all a mistake,—all a mistake, my dear sir,” the
other said, with the utmost innocence of manner; and was
bowed down the Club steps by Captain Macmurdo, just as
Sir Pitt Crawley ascended them. There was a slight acquain-
tance between these two gentlemen; and the Captain, going
back with the Baronet to the room where the latter’s brother
was, told Sir Pitt, in confidence, that he had made the affair
all right between Lord Steyne and the Colonel.

Sir Pitt was well pleased, of course, at this intelligence; and
congratulated his brother warmly upon the peaceful issue of
the affair, making appropriate moral remarks upon the evils
of dueling, and the unsatisfactory nature of that sort of settle-
ment of disputes.

And after this preface he tried with all his eloquence to
perfect a reconciliation between Rawdon and his wife. He
reeapitulated the statements which Beeky had made, pointed
out the probabilities of their truth, and asserted his own firm
belief in her innocence.

But Rawdon would not hear of it. “She has kept money eon-
cealed from me these ten years,” he said. “She swore, last
night only, she had none from Steyne. She knew it was all
up, directly I found it. Hf she’s not guilty, Pitt, she’s as bad
as guilty; and I'll never see her again,—never.” His head
sank down on his chest as he spoke the words; and he looked
quite broken and sad.

“Poor old boy,” Macmurdo said, shaking his head.
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 221

Rawdon Crawley resisted for some time the idea of taking
the place which had been procured for him by so odious a
patron: and was also for removing the boy from the school
where Lord ®teyne’s interest had placed him. He was in-
duced, however, to acquiesce in these benefits by the entreaties
of his brother and Macmurdo: but mainly by the latter
pointing out to him what a fury Steyne would be in, to think
that his enemy’s fortune was made through his means.

When the Marquis of Steyne came abroad after his accident,
the Colonial Secretary bowed up to him and congratulated
himself and the Service upon having made so excellent an
appointment. These congratulations were received with a
degree of gratitude which may be imagined on the part of
Lord Steyne.

The secret of the rencontre between him and Colonel Craw-
ley was buried in the profoundest oblivion, as Wenham said;
that is, by the seconds and the principals. But before that
evening was over it was talked of at fifty dinner-tables in
Vanity Fair. Little Cackleby himself went to seven evening
parties, and told the story with comments and emendations
at each place. How Mrs. Washington White reveled in it!
The Bishopess of Ealing was shocked beyond expression:
the Bishop went and wrote his name down in the visiting-
book at Gaunt House that very day. Little Southdown was
sorry: so you may be sure was his sister Lady Jane, very
sorry. Lady Southdown wrote it off to her other daughter
at the Cape of Good Hope. It was town-talk for at least
three days, and was only kept out of the newspapers by the
exertions of Mr. Wagg, acting upon a hint from Mr. Wenham. |

The bailiffs and brokers seized upon poor Raggles in Curzon
Street, and the late fair tenant of that poor little mansion
was in the mean while—where? Who cared? Who asked
after a day or two? Was she guilty or not? We all know
how charitable the world is, and how the verdict of Vanity
Fair goes when there is a doubt. Some people said she had
gone to Naples in pursuit of Lord Steyne; whilst others
averred that his Lordship quitted that city, and fled to Paler-
mo on hearing of Becky’s arrival; some said she was living in
Bierstadt, and had become a dame @’honneur to the Queen of
Bulgaria; some that she was at Boulogne; and others, at a
boarding-house at Cheltenham. 03

Rawdon made her a tolerable annuity; and we may be sure
that she was a woman who could make a little money go a
222 VANITY FAIR.

great way, as the saying is. He would have paid his debts on
leaving England, could he have got any Insurance Office to
take his life; but the climate of Coventry Island was so had
that he could borrow no money on the strength of his annuity.
He remitted, however, to his brother punctually, and wrote
to his little boy regularly every mail. He kept Macmurdo in
cigars; and sent over quantities of shells, cayenne pepper, hot
pickles, guava jelly, and colonial produce to Lady Jane. He
sent his brother home the Swamp Town Gazette, in which the
new Governor was praised with immense enthusiasm; where-
as the Swamp Town Sentinel, whose wife was not asked to
Government House, declared that his Excellency was a tyrant,
compared to whom Nero was an enlightened philanthropist.
Little Rawdon used to like to get the papers and read about
his Excellency.

His mother never made any movement to see the child.
He went home to his aunt for Sundays and holidays; he soon
knew every bird’s nest about Queen’s Crawley, and rode out
with Sir Huddlestone’s hounds, which he admired so on his
first well-remembered visit to Hampshire.

CHAPTER XXII.
GEORGY IS MADE A GENTLEMAN.

Georgy Osborne was now fairly established in his grand-
father’s mansion in Russell Square; occupant of his father’s
room in the house, and heir apparent of all the splendors
there. The good looks, gallant bearing, and gentlemanlike
appearance of the boy won the grandsire’s heart for him. Mr.
Osborne was as proud of him as ever he had been of the elder
George.

The child had many more luxuries and indulgences than
had been awarded to his father. Osborne’s commerce had
prospered greatly of late years. His wealth and importance
in the City had very much increased. He had been glad
enough in former days to put the elder George to a good pri-
vate school; and a commission in the army for his son had been
a source of no small pride to him: for little George and his
future prospects the old man looked much higher. He would
make a gentleman of the little chap, was Mr. Osborne’s con’
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 223

stant saying regarding little Georgy. He saw him in his mind’s
eye, a collegian, a Parliament-man,—a Baronet, perhaps. The
old man thought he would die contented if he covid see his
grandson in a fair way to such honors. He would have none
but a tip-top college man to educate him,—none of your
quacks and pretenders,—no, no. A few years before, he used
to be savage, and inveigh against all persons, scholars, and
the like,—declaring that they were a pack of humbugs and
quacks, that weren’t fit to get their living but by grinding
Latin and Greek, and a set of supercilious dogs, that pretended
to look down upon British merchants and gentlemen, who
could buy up half a hundred of ’em. He would mourn now,
in a very solemn manner, that his own education had been
neglected, and repeatedly point out, in pompous orations to
Georgy, the necessity and excellence of classical acquire-
ments.

When they met at dinner the grandsire used to ask the
lad what he had been reading during the day, and was greatly
interested at the report the boy gave of his own studies; pre-
tending to understand little George when he spoke regarding
them. He made a hundred blunders, and showed his ignor-
ance many a time. It did not increase the respect which the
child had for his senior. A quick brain, and a better educa-
tion elsewhere, showed the boy very soon that his grandsire
was a dullard; and he began accordingly to command him
and to look down upon him; for his previous education, hum-
ble and contracted as it had been, had made a much better
gentleman of Georgy than any plans of his grandfather could
make him. He had been brought up by a kind, weak, and
tender woman, who had no pride about anything but about
him, and whose heart was so pure and whose bearing was so
meek and humble that she could not but needs be a true
lady. She busied herself in gentle offices and quiet duties;
if she never said brilliant things, she never spoke or thought
unkind ones: guileless and artless, loving and pure, indeed
how could our poor little Amelia be other than a real gentle-
woman?

Young George lorded over this soft and yielding nature;
and the contrast of its simplicity and delicacy with the coarse
pomposity of the dull old man with whom he next came in
contact made him lord over the latter too. If he had been a
Prince Royal he could not have been better brought up to
think well of himself.
224 VANITY FAIR,

Whilst his mother was yearning after him at home, and I
do believe every hour of the day, and during most hours of
the sad, lonely nights, thinking of him, this young gentle-
man had a number of pleasures and consolations administered
to him, which made him for his part bear the separation from
Amelia very easily. Little boys who cry when they are going
to school cry because they are going to a very uncomfortable
place. It is only a very few who weep from sheer affection.
When you think that the eyes of your childhood dried at
the sight of a piece of gingerbread, and that a plum-cake was
a compensation for the agony of parting with your mamma
and sisters, O my friend and brother, you need not be too
confident of your own fine feelings.

Well, then, Master George Osborne had every comfort and
luxury that a wealthy and lavish old grandfather thought fit
to provide. The coachman was instructed to purchase for
him the handsomest pony which could be bought for money;
and on this George was taught to ride, first at a riding-school,
whence, after having performed satisfactorily without stirrups,
and over the leaping-bar, he was conducted through the New
Road to Regent’s Park, and then to Hyde Park, where he
rode in state, with Martin the coachman behind him. Old
Osborne, who took matters more easily in the City now, where
he left his affairs to his junior partners, would often ride out
with Miss O, in the same fashionable direction. As little
Georgy came cantering up with his dandified air, and his heels
down, his grandfather would nudge the lad’s aunt, and say,
“look, Miss 0,” And he would laugh, and his face would grow
red with pleasure, as he nodded out of the window to the
boy, as the groom saluted the carriage, and the footman
saluted Master George. Here too, his aunt, Mrs. Frederick
Bullock (whose chariot might daily be seen in the Ring, with
bullocks or emblazoned on the panels and harness, and three
pasty-faced little Bullocks, covered with cockades and feathers,
staring from the windows),—Mrs. Frederick Bullock, I say,
flung glances of the bitterest hatred at the little upstart as
he rode by with his hand on his side, and his hat on one ear,
as proud as a lord.

Though he was scarcely eleven years of age, Master George
wore straps and the most beautiful littla boots like a man.
He had gilt spurs, and a gold-headed whip, and a fine pin in
his handerkerchief; and the neatest little kid gloves whieh
Lamb's Conduit Street could furnish. His mother had given
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 225

him a couple of neck-cloths, and carefully hemmed and made
some little shirts for him; but when her Sariuel came to see
the widow, they were replaced by much finer linen. He had
little jeweled buttons in the lawn shirt-fronts. Her humble
presents had been put aside,I believe Miss Osbortie had given
them to the coachman’s boy. Atnelia tried to think she was
pleased at the change. Indeed, she was happy and charmed to
see the boy looking so beautiful.

She had had a little black profile of him done for a shilling;
and this was hung up by the side of another portrait over her
bed. One day the boy came on his accustomed visit, gallop-
ing down the little street at Brompton, and bringing, as usual,
all the inhabitants to the windows td adimire his splendor,
and with great eagerness, and a look of triumph in his face,
he pulled a case out of lis great-coat;—(it was a natty white
great-coat, with a cape aiid a velvet collar),—pulled out a red
morocco case, which he gave her.

“I bought it with my own money, mamma,” he said. “I
thought you'd like it.” ;

Amelia opened the case, and, giving a little cry of delighted

affection, seized the boy aiid embraced him a hundred times.
It was a imitiature of himself, vety prettily dotie (though not
half handsome étiough, we may be sute, the widow thought).
His grandfather had wished to have a picture of him by an
artist whose works, exhibited in a shop-window, in Southamp-
ton Row, had catight the old gentleman’s eyes; atid George,
who had plenty of money, bethought him of asking the painter
how initich a copy of the little portrait would eost, saying that
he would pay for it out of hig own money and that he wanted
to give it to his mother. The pleased painter executed it for
a small price; and old Osborne himself, when he heard of the
incidént, growled ouit his satisfaction, and gave the boy twide
as many sovereigns as he paid for the miniattire. _
_ But what was the grandfather’s pleastré compared to Aine-
lia’s ecstasy? That proof of the boy’s affection charmed her
so, that she thought no child in the world was like hers for
goodness. For long weeks after, the thought of hig
Tove madé her happy. She slept better with the picturé under
her pillow; and how tiany, many times did she kiss it, and
weep and pray over it. A small kindtiess from thosé she loved
made that timid heart grateful. Since hef parting with George
she had had no such joy and consolation.

At his new home Master George ruled like a lord: at din-

Vol, I1.—15
226 VANITY FAIR.

ner he invited the ladies to drink wine with the utmost cool-
ness, and took off his champagne in a way which charmed his
old grandfather. “Look at him,” the old man would say,
nudging his neighbor with a delighted purple face, “did you
ever see such a chap? Lord, Lord! he’ll be ordering a dress-
ing-case next, and razors to shave with; I’m blessed if he
won't.”

The antics of the lad did not, however, delight Mr. Os-
borne’s friend so much as they pleased the old gentleman. It
gave Mr. Justice Coffin no pleasure to hear Georgy cut into
the conversation and spoil his stories.. Colonel Fogey was not
interested in seeing the little boy half tipsy. Mr. Sergeant
Toffy’s lady felt no particular gratitude when, with a twist of,
his elbow, he tilted a glass of port-wine over her yellow satin,
and laughed at the disaster: nor was she better pleased, al-
though old Osborne was highly delighted, when Georgy,
“whopped” her third boy (a young gentleman a year older than
Georgy, and by chance home for the holidays from Dr. Tick-
leus’s at Ealing School) in Russell Square. George’s grand-
father gave the boy a couple of sovereigns for that feat, and
promised to reward him further for every boy above his own
size and age whom he whopped in a similar manner. It is
difficult to say what good the old man saw in these combats;
he had a vague notion that quarreling made boys hardy, and
that tyranny was a useful accomplishment for them to learn.
English youth have been so educated time out of mind, and we
have hundreds of thousands of apologists and admirers of in-
justice, misery, and brutality, as perpetrated among children.
Flushed with praise and victory over Master Toffy, George
wished naturally to pursue his conquests further, and one day
as he was strutting about in prodigiously dandified new
clothes, near St. Pancras, and a young baker’s boy made sar-
castic comments upon his appearance, the youthful patrician
pulled off his dandy jacket with great spirit, and, giving it in
charge to the friend who accompanied him (Master Todd, of
Great Coram Street, Russell Square, son of the junior partner
of the house of Osborne and Co.),—George tried to whop the
little baker. But the chances of war were unfavorable this
time, and the little baker whopped Georgy: who came home
with a rueful black eye and all his fine shirt-frill dabbled with
the claret drawn from his own little nose. He told his grand-
father that he had been in combat with a giant; and fright-
         
 

  

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GEORGY A GENTLEMAN
A NOVEL WITHOUT: A HERO. 227

ened his poor mother at Brompton with long, and by no means
authentic, accounts of the battle.

This young Todd, of Coram Street, Russell Square, was
Master George’s great friend and admirer. They both had a
taste for painting theatrical characters; for hard-bake and
raspberry tarts; for sliding and skating in the Regent’s Park
and the Serpentine, when the weather permitted; for going
to the play, whither they were often conducted, by Mr. Os-
borne’s orders, by Rowson, Master George’s appointed body-
servant; with whom they sat in great comfort in the pit.

In the company of this gentleman they visited all the prin-
cipal theaters of the metropolis; knew the names of all the
actors from Drury Lane to Sadler’s Wells; and performed, in-
deed, many of the plays to the Todd family and their youthful
friends, with West’s famous characters, on their pasteboard
theater. Rowson, the footman, who was of a generous dis-
position, would not unfrequently, when in cash, treat his young
master to oysters after the play, and to a glass of rum-shrub
for a nightcap. We may be pretty certain that Mr. Rowson
profited, in his turn, by his young master’s liberality and grat-
itude for the pleasures to which the footman inducted him.

A famous tailor from the West End of the town—Mr. Os-
borne would have none of your City or Holborn bunglers, he
said, for the boy (though a City tailor was good enough for
him)—was summoned to ornament little George’s person, and
was told to spare no expense in so doing. So Mr. Woolsey, of
Conduit Street, gave a loose to his imagination, and sent the
child home fancy trousers, fancy waistcoats, and fancy jackets
enough to furnish a school of little dandies. Georgy had little
white waistcoats for evening parties, and little cut-velvet waist-
coats for dinners, and a dear little darling shawl dressing-
gown, for all the world like a little man. He dressed for din-
ner every day, “like a regular West End Swell,” as his grand-
father remarked; one of the domestics was appointed to his
special service, attended him at his toilet, answered his bell,
and brought him his letters always on a silver tray.

Georgy, after breakfast, would sit in the arm-chair in the
dining-room, and read the Morning Post, just like a grown-up
man. “How he du dam and swear,” the servants would cry,
delighted at his precocity. Those who remembered the Cap-
tain his father declared Master George was his pa, every inch
of him. He made the house lively by his activity, his im-
periousness, his scolding, and his good-nature.

38
228 VANITY FAIR,

George’s education was confided to a neighboring scholar
and pedagogue who “prepared young noblemen and gentle-
men for the Universities, the senate, and the learned profes-
sions: whose system did not embrace the degrading corporal
severities still practiced at the ancient places of education,
and in whose family the pupils would find the elegances of re-
fined society and the confidence and affection of a home.”
It was in this way that the Reverend Lawrence Veal of Hart
Street, Bloomsbury, and domestic Chaplin to the Earl of
Bareacres, strove with Mrs. Veal his wife to entice pupils.

By thus advertising and pushing sedulously, the domestic
Chaplain and the Lady generally succeeded in having one or
two scholars bythem;who paid a high figure;and were thought
to be in uncommonly comfortable quarters. There was a large
West Indian, whom nobody came to see, with a mahogany
complexion, a woolly head, and an exceedingly dandified ap-
pearance; there was another hulking boy of three-and-twenty,
whose education had been neglected, and whom Mr. and Mrs.
Veal were to introduce into the polite world; there were two
sons of Colonel Bangles of the East India Oompany’s Service;
these four sat down to dinner at Mrs. Veal’s genteel board,
when Georgy was introduced to her establishment.

Georgy was, like some dozen other pupils, only a day boy;
he arrived in the morning under the guardianship of his friend
Mr. Rowson, and if it was fitte, would ride away in the after-
noon on his pony, followed by the groom. The wealth of his
grandfather was reported in the school to be prodigious. The
Rev. Mr. Veal used to compliment Georgy upon it personally,
warning him that he was destined for a high station; that it
became him to prepare, by sedulity and docility in youth, for
the lofty duties to which he would be called in mature age; that
obedience in the child was the best preparation for command
in the man; and that he therefore begged George would not
bring toffy into the school, atid ruin the health of the Masters
Bangles, who had everything they wanted at the elegant and
abundant table of Mrs. Veal.

With respect to learning, “the Curriculum,” as Mr. Veal
loved to call it, was of prodigiotts extent; and the young gen-
tlemen in Hart Street might learn a something of every
known science. The Rev. Mr. Veal had an orrery, an electri-
fying machine, a turning lathe, a theater (in the wash-house),
a chentical apparatts, and what he called a select library of all
the works of the best atithors of ancient and modern times and
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO, 229

languages. He took the boys to the British Museum, and des-
canted upon the antiquities and the specimens of natural his-
tory there, so that audiences would gather round him as he
spoke, and all Bloomsbury highly admired him as a prodigi-
ously well-informed man. And whenever he spoke (which he
did almost always), he took care to produce the very finest
and longest words of which the vocabulary gave him the use;
rightly judging that it was as cheap to employ a handsome,
large, and sonorous epithet as to use a little stingy one.

Thus he would say to George in school, “I observed on my
return home from taking the indulgence of an evening’s
scientific conversation with my excellent friend Doctor Buld-
ers,—a true archaeologian, gentlemen, a true archaeologian,—
that the windows of your venerated grandfather’s almost
princely mansion in Russell Square were illuminated as if for
the purpose of festivity, Am I right in my conjecture, that
Mr. Osborne entertained a society of chosen spirits round his
sumptuous board last night?”

Little Georgy, who had considerable humor, and used to
mimic Mr. Veal to his face with great spirit and dexterity,
would reply that Mr. V. was quite correct in his surmise.

“Then those friends who had the honor of partaking of Mr.
Osborne’s hospitality, gentlemen, had no reason, I will lay any
wager, to complain of their repast. I myself have been more
than once so favored. (By the way, Master Osborne, you came
a little late this morning, and have been a defaulter in this
respect more than once.) I myself, I say, gentlemen, humble
as I am, have been found not unworthy to share Mr. Osborne’s
elegant hospitality. And though I have feasted with the great
and noble of the world, —for I presume that J may call my ex-
cellent friend and patron, the Right Honorable George Earl
of Bareacres, as one of the number,—yet I assure you that the
board of the British merchant was to the full as richly served,
and his reception as gratifying and noble. Mr. Bluck, sir, we
will resume, if you please, that passage of Eutropius which was
interrupted by the late arrival of Master Osborne.” ;

To this great man George’s education was for some time
intrusted. Amelia was bewildered by his phrases, but thought
him a prodigy of learning. That poor widow made friends of
Mrs. Veal, for reasons of her own. She liked to be in the house,
and see Georgy coming to school there. She liked to be asked
to Mrs. Veal’s conversaziont, which took place once a month
(as you were informed on pink cards, with AOHNH engraved
230 VANITY FAIR.

on them), and where the professor welcomed his pupils and’
their friends to weak tea and scientific conversation. Poor lit-
tle Amélia never missed one of these entertainments, and
thought them delicious so long as she might have Georgy sit-.
ting by her. And she would walk from Brompton in any
weather, and embrace Mrs. Veal with tearful gratitude for the
delightful evening she had passed, when, the company having
retired and Georgy gone off with Mr. Rowson, his attendant,
poor Mrs. Osborne put on her cloaks and her shawls prepara-
tory to walking home.

As for the learning which Georgy imbibed under this valu-
ble master of a hundred sciences, to judge from the weekly
reports which the lad took home to his grandfather, his prog-
ress was remarkable. The names of a score or more of de-
sirable branches of knowledge were printed on a table, and
the pupil’s progress in each was marked by the professor. In
Greek Georgy was pronounced aristos, in Latin optimus, in
French ¢rés dien, and so forth; and everybody had prizes for
everything at the end of the year. Even Mr. Swartz, the wool-
ly-headed young gentleman, and half-brother to the Honora-
ble Mrs. MacMull, and Mr. Bluck, the neglected young pupil
of three-and-twenty from the agricultural districts, and that
idle young scapegrace of a Master Todd before mentioned;
received little eighteen-penny books, with “Athene” engraved
in them, and a pompous Latin inscription from the Professor
to his young friends.

The family of this Master Todd were hangers-on of the
house of Osborne. The old gentleman had advanced Todd
from being a clerk to be a junior partner in his establishment.

Mr. Osborne was the godfather of young Master Todd (who
in subsequent life wrote Mr. Osborne Todd on his cards, and
became a man of decided fashion), while Miss Osborne had
accompanied Miss Maria Todd to the font, and gave her
protégée a prayer-book, a collection of tracts, a volume of
very low church poetry, or some such memento of her good-
ness every year. Miss Q. drove the Todds out in her carriage
now and then: when they were ill, her footman, in large
plush smalls and waistcoat, brought jellies and delicacies from
Russell Square to Coram Street. Coram Street trembled and
looked up to Russell Square indeed; and Mrs. Todd, who had a
pretty hand at cutting out paper trimmings for haunches of
mutton, and could make flowers, ducks, &c., out of turnips and
carrots in a very creditable manner, would go to “the Square,”
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 231

as it was called, and assist in the preparations incident to a
great dinner, without even so much as thinking of sitting
down to the banquet. If any guest failed at the eleventh hour,
Todd was asked to dine. Mrs. Todd and Maria came across
in the evening, slipped in with a muffled knock, and were in
the drawing-room by the time Miss Osborne and the ladies un-
der her convoy reached that apartment; and ready to fire off
duets and sing until the gentlemen came up. Poor Maria Todd;
poor young lady! How she had to work and thrum at these
duets and sonatas in the Street, before they appeared in pub-
lie in the Square!

Thus it seemed to be decreed by fate, that Georgy was to
domineer over everybody with whom he came in contact, and
that friends, relatives, and domestics were all to bow the knee
before the little fellow. It must be owned that he acommo-
dated himself very willingly to this arrangement. Most peo-
ple do so. And Georgy liked to play the part of master, and
perhaps had a natural aptitude for it.

In Russell Square everybody was afraid of Mr. Osborne, and
Mr. Osborne was afraid of Georgy. The boy’s dashing man-
ners, and off-hand rattle about books and learning, his likeness
to his father (dead unreconciled in Brussels yonder), awed the
old gentleman, and gave the young boy the mastery. The old
man would start at some hereditary feature or tone uncon-
sciously used by the little lad, and fancy that George’s father
was again before him. He tried by indulgence to the grandson
to make up for harshness to the elder George. People were
surprised at his gentleness to the boy. He growled and swore
at Miss Osborne as usual: and would smile when George came
down late for breakfast.

Miss Osborne, George’s aunt, was a faded old spinster, brok-
en down by more than forty years of dullness and coarse usage.
It was easy for a lad of spirit to master her. And whenever
George wanted anything from her, from the jam-pots in her
cupboards, to the cracked and dry old colors in her paint-box
(the old paint-box which she had had when she was a pupil of
Mr. Smee, and was still almost young and blooming), Georgy
took possession of the object of his desire, which obtained, he
took no further notice of his aunt.

For his friends and cronies, he had a pompous old school-
master, who flattered him, and a toady, his senior, whom he
could thrash. It was dear Mrs. Todd’s delight to leave him
with her youngest daughter, Rosa Jemima, a darling child of
232 VANITY FAIR.

eight years old. The little pair looked so well together, she
would say (but not to the folks in “the Square,” we may be
sure),—‘*Who knows what might happen? Don’t they make
a pretty little couple?” the fond mother thought.

The broken-spirited old maternal grandfather was likewise
subject to the little tyrant. He could not help respecting a lad
who had such fine clothes, and rode with a groom behind him.
Georgy, on his side, was in the constant habit of hearing coarse
abuse and vulgar satire leveled at John Sedley by his pitiless
old enemy, Mr. Osborne. Osborne used to call the other the
old pauper, the old coalman, the old bankrupt, and by many
other such names of brutal contumely. How was little George
to respect a man so prostrate? A few months after he was
with his paternal grandfather, Mrs. Sedley died. There had
been little love between her and the child. He did not care to
show much grief. He came down to visit his mother in a fine
new suit of mourning, and was very angry that he could not
go to a play upon which he had set his heart.

The illness of that old lady had been the occupation and
perhaps the safeguard of Amelia. What do men know about
women’s martyrdoms? We should go mad had we to endure
the hundredth part of those daily pains which are meekly
borne by many women. Ceaseless slavery meeting with no re-
ward; constant gentleness and kindness met by cruelty as con-
stant; love, labor, patience, watchfulness, without even so
much as the acknowledgment of a good word; all this,
how many of them have to bear in quiet, and appear
abroad with cheerful faces as if they felt nothing. Tender
slaves that they are, they must’needs be hypocrites and weak.

From her chair Amelia’s mother had taken to her bed,
which she had never left: and from which Mrs. Osborne her-
self was never absent except when she ran to see George. The
old lady grudged her even those rare visits; she, who had been
a kind, smiling, good-natured mother once, in the days of her
prosperity, but whom poverty and infirmities had broken
down. Her illness. or estrangement did not affect Amelia.
They rather enabled her to support the other calamity under
which she was suffering, and from the thoughts of which she
was kept by the ceaseless calls of the invalid. Amelia bore
her harshness quite gently; smoothed the uneasy pillow; was
always ready with a soft answer to the watchful, querulous
voice; soothed the sufferer with words of hope, such as her
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 233

pious, simple heart could best feel and utter, and closed the
eyes that had once looked so tenderly upon her.

Then all her time and tenderness were devoted to the con-
solation and comfort of the bereaved old father, who was
stunned by the blow which had befallen him, and stood ut-
terly alone in the world. His wife, his honor, his fortune,
everything he loved best, had fallen away from him. There
was only Amelia to stand by and support with her gentle arms
the tottering, heart-broken old man. We are not going to write
the history: it would be too dreary and stupid. I can see
Vanity Fair yawning over it d’avance.

One day as the young gentlemen were assembled in the
study at the Rev. Mr. Veal’s, and the domestic chaplain to the
Right Honorable the Earl of Bareacres was sprouting away as
usual,—a smart carriage drove up to the door decorated with
the statue of Athene, and two gentlemen stepped out. The
young Masters Bangles rushed to the window, with a vague
notion that their father might have arrived from Bombay.
The great hulking scholar of three-and-twenty, who was cry-
ing secretly over a passage of Eutropius, flattened his neg-
lected nose against the panes, and looked at the drag, as the
laquats de place sprang from the box and let out the persons,
in the carriage.

“Tt’s a fat one and a thin one,” Mr. Bluck said, as a thunder-
ing knock eame to the door.

Everybody was interested, from the domestic chaplain him-
self, who hoped he saw the fathers of some future pupils, down
to Master Georgy, glad of any pretext for laying his book down.

The boy in the shabby livery, with the faded copper buttons,
who always thrust himself into the tight coat to open the
door, came into the study and said, “C'wo gentlemen want to
see Master Osborne.” The Professor had had a trifling alter-
cation in the morning with that young gentleman, owing to
a difference about the introduction of crackers in school-time;
but his face resumed its habitual expression of bland courtesy,
as he said, “Master Osborne, I give you full permission to go
and see your carriage friends,—to whom I beg you to convey
the respectful compliments of myself and Mrs. Veal.”

Georgy ‘went into the reception-room, and saw two
strangers, whom he looked at with his head up, in his usual
haughty manner. One was fat, with mustachios, and the other
284 VANITY FAIR.

was lean and long, in a blue frock-coat, with a brown face, and
a grizzled head.

oy God, how like he is!” said the long gentleman, =
astart. “Can you guess who we are, George?”

The boy’s face flushed up, as it did usually when he was
moved, and his eyes brightened. “I don’t know the other,”
he said, “but I should think you must be Major Dobbin.”

Indeed it was our old friend. His voice trembled with pleas-
ure as he greeted the boy, and, taking both the other’s hands
in his own, drew the lad to him.

“Your mother has talked to you about me,—has she?” he
said.

“That she has,” Georgy answered, “hundreds and hundreds
of times.”

CHAPTER XXIII.

EOTHEN.

It was one of the many causes for personal pride with
which old Osborne chose to recreate himself, that Sedley, his
ancient rival, enemy, and benefactor, was in his last days so
utterly defeated and humiliated as to be forced to accept
pecuniary obligations at the hands of the man who had most
injured and insulted him. The successful man of the world
cursed the old pauper, and relieved him from time to time.
As he furnished George with money for his mother, he gave
the boy to understand “by hints, delivered in his brutal, coarse
way, that George’s maternal grandfather was but a wretched
old bankrupt, and dependant, and that John Sedley might
thank the man to whom he had already owed ever so much
money for the aid which his generosity now chose to adminis-
ter. George carried the pompous supplies to his mother and
the shattered old widower whom it was now the main business
of her life to-tend and comfort. The little fellow patronized
the feeble and disappointed old man.

It may have shown a want of “proper pride” in Amelia that
she chose to accept these money benefits.at the hands of her
father’s enemy. But proper pride and this poor lady had never
had much acquaintance together. A disposition naturally.
simple and demanding protection; a long: course of poverty:
and humility, of daily - privations and hard words, of kind of-
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 35

fices and no returns, had been her lot ever since womanhood
almost, or since her luckless marriage with George Osborne.
You who see your betters bearing up under this shame every
day, meekly suffering under the slights of fortune, gentle and
unpitied, poor, and rather despised for their poverty, do you
ever step down from your prosperity and wash the feet of
these poor, wearied beggars? The very thought of them is
odious and low. “There must be classes,—there must be rich
and poor,” Dives says, smacking his claret—(it is well if he
even sends the broken meat out to Lazarus sitting under the
window). Very true; but think how mysterious and often
unaccountable it is,—that lottery of life which gives to this
man the purple and fine linen, and sends to the other rags for
garments and dogs for comforters.

So I must own, that without much repining, on the con-
trary with something akin to gratitude, Amelia took the
crumbs that her father-in-law let drop now and then, and with
them fed her own parent. Directly she understood it to be her
duty, it was this young woman’s nature (ladies, she is but
thirty still, and we choose to call her a young woman even at
that age),—it was, I say, her nature to sacrifice herself and to
fling all that she had at the feet of the beloved object. During
what long thankless nights had she worked out her fingers
for little Georgy whilst at home with her; what buffets,
scorns, privations, poverties had she endured for father and
mother! And in the midst of all these solitary resignations and
unseen sacrifices, she did not respect herself any more than
the world respected her; but I believe thought in her heart
that she was a poor-spirited, despicable little creature, whose
luck in life was only too good for her merits. O you poor
women! O you poor secret martyrs and victims, whose life is
a torture, who are stretched on racks in your bedrooms, and
who lay your heads down on the block daily at the drawing-
room table; every man who watches your pains, or peers into
those dark places where the torture is administered to you,
must pity you,—and—-and thank God that he has a beard. I
recollect seeing, years ago, at the prisons for idiots and mad-
men at Bicétre, near Paris, a poor wretch bent down under
the bondage of his imprisonment and his personal infirmity,
to whom one of our party gave a halfpennyworth of snuff in a
cornet or “screw” of paper. The kindness was too much for
the poor epileptic creature. He cried in an anguish of de-
light and gratitude; if anybody gave you and me a thousand
236 VANITY FAIR.

‘a year, or saved our lives, we could not be so.affected. And so,
if you properly tyrannize over a woman, you will find a half-
p orth of kindness act upon her, and bring tears into her eyes,
as though you were an angel benefiting her.

Some such boons as these were the best which Fortune al-
lotted to poor little Amelia. Her life, begun not unprosperous-
jy, had come down to this,—to a mean prison and a long, igno~
ble bondage. Little George visited her captivity sometimes,
and consoled it with feeble gleams of encouragement. Russell
Square was the boundary of her prisom; she might walk thith-
er occasionally, but was always back to sleep im her cell at
night; to perform cheerless duties; to watch by thankless
sick-beds; to suffer the harassment and tyranny of querulous,
disappointed old age. How many thousands of people are
there, women for the most part, who are doomed to endure
this long slavery?—who are hospital nurses without wages,—
sisters of Charity, if you like, without the romance and the
sentiment of sacrifice-—who strive, fast, watch, and suffer,
unpitied; and fade away ignobly and unknown. The hidden
and awful Wisdom which apportions the destinies of mankind
is pleased so to humiliate and cast down the tender, good, and
wise; and to set up the selfish, the foolish, or the wicked. Oh,
be humble, my brother, in your prosperty! Be gentle with
those who are less lucky, if not more deserving. Think, what
right have you to be scornful, whose virtue is a deficiency of
temptation, whose success may be a chance, whose rank may be
an ancestor’s accident, whose prosperity is very likely a satire.

They buried Amelia’s mother at the churchyard at Bromp-
ton; upon just such a rainy, dark day, as Amelia recollected
when first she had been there to marry George. Her little
‘boy sat by her side in pompous new sables. She remembered
the old pew-woman and clerk. Her thoughts were away in
other times as the parson read. But that she held George’s
hand in her own, perhaps she would have liked to change
places with. ...Then, as usual, she felt ashamed of her selfish
ee and prayed inwardly to be strengthened to do her

uty.

So she determined with all her might and strength to try
and make her old father happy. She slaved, toiled, patched,
and mended, sang and played backgammon, read out the news-
paper, cooked dishes, for old Sedley, walked him out sedulous-
ly into Kensington Gardens or the Brompton Lanes, listened
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 2387

to his stories with untirimg smiles and affectionate hypocrisy,
or sat musing by his side and communing with her own
thoughts and reminiscences, as the old man, feeble and querul-
ous, sunned himself on the garden benches and prattled about
his wrongs or his sorrows. What sad, unsatisfactory thoughts
those of the widow were! The children running up and down
the slopes and broad paths in the gardens reminded her of
George who was taken from her; her selfish, guilty love, in
both instances, had been rebuked and bitterly chastised. She
strove to think it was right that she should be so punished.
She was such a miserable, wicked sinner. She was quite alone
in the world.

I know that the account of this kind of solitary imprison-
ment is insufferably tedious, unless there is some cheerful or
humorous incident to enliven it,—a tender jailer, for instance,
or a waggish commandant of the fortress, or a mouse to come
out and play about Latude’s beard and whiskers, or a subter-
Tanean passage under the castle, dug by Trenck with his nails
and a toothpick: the historian has no such enlivening in-
cident to relate in the narrative of Amelia’s captivity. Fancy
her, if you please, during this period, very sad, but always
ready to smile when spoken to; in a very mean, poor, not to
say vulgar position of life; singing songs, making puddings,
playing cards, mending stockings, for her old father’s benefit.
So, never mind, whether she be a heroine or no; or you and I,
however old, scolding, and bankrupt;—may we have in our
last days a kind, soft shoulder, on which to lean, and a gentle
hand to soothe our gouty old pillows.

Old Sedley grew very fond of his daughter after his wife’s
death; and Amelia had ber consolation in doing her duty by
the old man.

But we are not going to leave these two people long in such
a low and ungenteel station of life. Better days, as far as world-
ly prosperity went, were in store for both. Perhaps the in-
genious reader has guessed who was the stout gentleman who
called upon Georgy at his school in company with our friend
Major Dobbin. It was another old acquaintance returned to
England, and at a time when his presence was likely to be of
great comfort to his relatives there.

Major Dobbin, having easily succeeded in getting leave from
his good-natured commandant to proceed to Madras, and
thence probably to Europe, on urgent private affairs, never
ceased traveling night and day until he reached his journey’s
238 VANITY FAIR.

end, and had directed his march with such celerity that he ar-
rived at Madras in a high fever. His servants who accom-
panied him brought him to the house of the friend with whom
he had resolved to stay until his departure for Europe, in a
state of delirium: and it was thought for many, many days
that he would never travel farther than the burying-ground of
the church of St. George’s, where the troops should fire a salvo
over his grave, and where many a gallant officer lies far away
from his home.

Here as the poor fellow lay tossing in his fever, the people
who watched him might have heard him raving about Amelia.
The idea that he should never see her again depressed him in
his lucid hours. He thought his last day was come; and he
made his solemn preparations for departure: setting his affairs
in this world in order, and leaving the little property of which
he was possessed to those whom he most desired to benefit.
The friend in whose house he was located witnessed his testa-
ment. He desired to be buried with a little brown hair-chain
which he wore round his neck, and which, if the truth must
be known, he had got from Amelia’s maid at Brussels, when
the young widow’s hair was cut off, during the fever which
prostrated her after the death of George Osborne on the
plateau at Mount St. John.

He recovered, rallied, relapsed again, having undergone
such a process of blood-letting and calomel as showed the
strength of his original constitution. He was almost a skele-
ton when they put him on board the Ramchunder East In-
diaman, Captain Bragg, from Calcutta, touching at Madras;
and so weak and prostrate that his friend who had tended
him through his illness prophesied that the honest Major
would never survive the voyage, and that he would pass some
morning, shrouded in flag and hammock, over the ship’s side,
and carrying down to the sea with him the relic that he wore
at his heart. But whether it was the sea-air or the hope which
sprung up in him afresh, from the day that the ship spread
her canvass and stood out of the roads towards home, our
friend began to amend, and he was quite well (though as gaunt
as a greyhound) before they reached the Cape. “Kirk will
be disappointed of his majority this time,” he said, with a
smile: “he will expect to find himself gazetted by the time
the regiment reaches home.” For it must be premised that
while the Major was lying il) at Madras, having made such a
prodigious haste to go thither, the gallant —th, which had
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 239

passed many years abroad, which after its return from the
West Indies had been balked of its stay at home by the Water-
loo campaign, and had been ordered from Flanders to India,
had received orders home: and the Major might have accom-
panied his comrades, had he chosen to wait for their arrival at
Madras.

Perhaps he was not inclined to put himself in his exhausted
state again under the guardianship of Glorvina. “I think
Miss O’Dowd would have done for me,” he said, laughingly,
to a fellow-passenger, “if we had had her on board, and when
she had sunk me, she would have fallen upon you, depend
upon it, and carried you in as a prize to Southampton, Jos,
my boy.”

For indeed it was no other than our stout friend who was
also a passenger on board the Ramchunder. He had passed
ten years in Bengal. Constant dinners, tiffins, pale ale and
claret, the prodigious labor of cut-cherry, and the refreshment
of brandy-pawnee which he was forced to take there, had
their effect upon Waterloo Sedley. A voyage to Europe was
pronounced necessary for him; and having served his full time
in India, and had fine appointments which had enabled him
to lay by a considerable sum of money, he was free to come
home and stay with a good pension, or to return and resume
that rank in his service to which his seniority and his vast
talents entitled him.

He was rather thinner than when we last saw him, but had
gained in majesty and solemnity of demeanor. He had re-
sumed the mustachios to which his services at Waterloo en-
titled him, and swaggered about on deck in a magnificent vel-
vet cap with a gold band, and a profuse ornamentation of pins
and jewelry about his person. He took breakfast in his cabin,
and dressed as solemnly to appear on the quarter-deck as if he
was going to turn out for Bond Street, or the Course at Cal-
cutta. He brought a native servant with him, who was his
valet and pipe-bearer; and who wore the Sedley crest in sil-
ver on his turban. That Oriental menial had a wretched life
under the tyranny of Jos Sedley. Jos was as vain of his per-
son as a woman, and took as long a time at his toilet as any
fading beauty. The youngsters among the passengers, Young
Chaffers of the 150th, and poor little Ricketts, coming home
after his third fever, used to draw out Sedley at the cuddy-
table, and make him tell prodigious stories abcut himself and
his exploits against tigers and Napoleon. He was great:
240 VANITY FAIR.

when he visited the Emperor’s tomb at Longwood, when ta
these gentlemen and the young officers of the ship, Major Dob-
bin not being by, he described. the whole battle of Waterloo,
and all but announced that. Napoleon never would have gone
to: Saint Helena at all but for him, Jos Sedley.

After leaving St. Helena he became very generous, dispos-
ing of a great quantity of ship stores, claret, preserved,meats,
and great casks packed with soda-water, brought out for his
private delectation. There were no ladies om board: the Ma-
jor gave the pas of precedency to the civilian, so that he was
the first dignitary at table; and treated by Captain Bragg,
and the officers of the Ramchunder, with the respect which
his rank warranted. He disappeared rather in a panic during
a two. days’ gale, in which he had the port-holes of his cabin
battened down; and remained in his cot reading the “Washer-
woman of Finchley Common,” left on board the Ramehunder
by the Right Honorable the Lady Emily Hornblower, wife of
the Rev. Silas Hornblower when on their passage out to the
Cape, where the reverend gentleman was missionary: but
for common reading he had brought a stock of novels and
plays which he lent to the rest of the ship, and rendered him-
self agreeable to all by his kindness and condescension.

Many and many a night as the ship was cutting through the
roaring’ dark sea, the moon andi stars shining overhead, and the
bell singing out the watch, Mr. Sedley and the Major would
sit on the quarter-deck of the vessel talking about home, as the
Major smoked his cheroot, and the civilian puffed at the
hookah which his servant prepared for him.

In these conversations it was wonderful with what per-
severance and mgenuity Major Dobbin would manage to bring
the talk round to the subject of Amelia and her little boy.
Jos, a little testy about his father’s misfortunes and uncere-
monious applications to him, was soothed down by the Major,
who pointed. out the elder’s ill-fortunes and old age. He would
not. perhaps like to lrve with the old couple: whose ways and
hours might not agree with those of a younger mati, accus-
tomed to different society (Jos bowed at this compliment):
but: the Major pointed out how advantageous it would be for
Jos Sedley to have a house of his own in London, and not a
mere bachelor’s establishment as before: how his sister Amelia
would be the very person to preside over it; how elegant, how
gentle she was, and of what refined good manners. He re-
counted stories of the suceess which Mrs. George Oshorne had
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 241

had im former days at Brussels, and in London, where she was
much admired by people of very great fashion: and he then
hinted how becoming it would be for Jos to send Georgy to a
good school and make a man of him; for his mother and her
parents would be sure to spoil him. In a word this artful Ma-
jor made the civilian promise to take charge of Amelia and her
unprotected child. He did not know as yet what events had
happened in the little Sedley family: and how death had re-
moved the mother, and riches had carried off George from
Amelia. But the fact is, that every day and always this love-
smitten and middle-aged gentleman was thinking about Mrs.
Osborne, and his whole heart was bent upom doing her good.
He coaxed, wheedled, cajoled and complimented Jos Sedley
with a perseverance and cordiality of which he was not aware
himself, very likely; but some men who have unmarried sis-
ters, or daughters even, may remember how uncommonly
agreeable gentlemen are to the male relations when they are
courting the females; and perhaps this rogue of a Dobbin was
unged by a similar hypocrisy.

The truth is, whem Major Dobbin came on board the
Ramechunder, very sick, and for the three days she lay in the
Madras Roads, he did not begim to rally, nor did even the ap-
pearance and recognition of his old acquaintance, Mr. Sedley,
on board much cheer him,until after a conversation which they
had one day, as the Major was laid languidly on the deck. He
said then he thought he was doomed; he had left a little some-
thing to his godson in his will; and he trusted Mrs. Osborne
would remember him kindly, and be happy in the marriage
she was about to make. “Married? not the least,” Jos an-
swered: “he had heard from her: she made no mention of the
marriage, and, by the way, it was curious, she wrote to say
that Major Dobbim was going to be married, and hoped that
he would be happy.” What were the dates of Sedley’s letters
from Europe? he civilian fetehed them. They were two
months later thar the Major’s; and the ship’s surgeon con-
gratulated himself upon the treatment adopted by him towards
his new patient, who had beer consigned to shipboard by the
Madras practitioner with very small hopes indeed; for, from
that day, the very day that he changed the draught, Major
Dobbin began to mend. And thus it was that deserving of-
ficer, Captain Kirk, was disappomted of his majority.

After they passed St. Helena, Major Dobbin’s gayety and
strength was such as to astonish all his fellow-passengers. He

Vol. I1.—16
242 VANITY FAIR.

larked with the midshipmen, played single-stick with the
mates, ran up the shrouds like a boy, sang a comic song one
night to the amusement of the whole party assembled over
their grog after supper, and rendered himself so gay, lively,
and amiable, that even Captain Bragg, who thought there
was nothing in his passenger, and considered he was a poor-
spirited feller at first, was constrained to own that the Major
was a reserved but well-informed and meritorious officer. “He
ain’t got distangy manners, dammy,” Bragg observed to his
first mate; “he wouldn’t do at Government-House, Roper,
where his lordship and Lady William was as kind to me, and
shook hands with me before the whole company, and asking
me at dinner to take beer with him, before the Commander-in-
Chief himself: he ain't got manners, but there’s something
about him—” And thus Captain Bragg showed that he pos-
sessed discrimination as a man, as well as ability as a com-
mander.

But a calm taking place when the Ramchunder was within
ten days’ sail of England, Dobbin became so impatient and ill-
humored as to surprise those comrades who had before ad-
mired his vivacity and good temper. He did not recover un-
til the breeze sprang up again, and was in a highly excited
state when the pilot came on board. Good God, how his heart
beat as the two friendly spires of Southampton came in sight.

CHAPTER XXIV.

OUR FRIEND THE MAJOR.

Our Major had rendered himself so popular on board the
Ramchunder, that when he and Mr. Sedley descended into
the weleome shore-boat which was to take them from the ship,
the whole crew, men and officers, the great Captain Bragg
himself leading off, gave three cheers for Major Dobbin, who
blushed very much, and ducked his head in token of thanks.
Jos, who very likely thought the cheers were for himself, took
off his gold-laced cap and waved it majestically to his friends,
and they were pulled to shore and landed with great dignity
at the pier, whence they proceeded to the Royal George Hotel.

Although the sight of that magnificent round of beef, and
the silver tankard suggestive of real British home-brewed ale
A NOVEL WITHOUT A H®RO. 243

and porter, which perennially greet the eyes of the traveler
returning from foreign parts who enters the coffee-room of
the George, are so invigorating and delightful that a man en-
tering such a comfortable, snug, homely English inn, might
well like to stop some days there, yet Dobbin began to talk
about a post-chaise instantly, and was no sooner at Southamp-
ton than he wished to be on the road to London. Jos, how-
ever, would not hear of moving that evening. Why was he to
pass a night in a post-chaise instead of a great large undulat-
ing downy feather-bed which was there ready to replace the
horrid little narrow crib in which the portly Bengal gentleman
had been confined during the voyage? He could not think
of moving until his baggage was cleared, or of traveling un-
til he could do so with his chillum. So the Major was forced
to wait over that night, and despatched a letter to his family
announcing his arrival; entreating from Jos a promise to
write to his own friends. Jos promised, but didn’t keep his
promise. 'The Captain, the surgeon, and one or two passengers
came and dined with our two gentlemen at the inn; Jos exert-
ing himself in a sumptuous way in ordering the dinner: and
promising to go to town the next day with the Major. The
landlord said it did his eyes good to see Mr. Sedley take off
his first pint of porter. If J had time and dared to enter into
digressions, I would write a chapter about that first pint of
porter drunk on English ground. Ah, how good it is! It
is worth while to leave home for a year, just to enjoy that one
draught.

Major Dobbin made his appearance the next morning very
neatly shaved and dressed, according to his wont. Indeed, it
was so early in the morning that nobody was up in the house
except that wonderful Boots of an inn who never seems to
want sleep: and the Major could hear the snores of the
various inmates of the house roaring through the corridors
as he creaked about in those dim passages. Then the sleep-
less Boots went shirking round from door to door, gather-
ing up at each the Bluchers, Wellingtons, Oxonians, which
stood outside. Then Jos’s native servant arose and began
to get ready his master’s ponderous dressing apparatus, and
prepare his hookah: then the maid-servants got up, and, meet-
ing the dark man in the passages, shriecked, and mistook him
for the Devil. He and Dobbin stumhted over their pails in
the passages as they were scouring the decks of the Royal
George. When the first unshorn waiter appeared and unbarred

39
244 VANITY FAIR.

the door of the inn, the Major thought that the time for
departure was arrived, and ordered a post-chaise to be fetched
instantly, that they might set off.

He then directed his steps to Mr. Sedley’s room, and opened
the curtains of the great large family-bed wherein Mr. Jos
was snoring. “Come, up! Sedley,’ the Major said, “it’s
time to be off; the chaise will be at the door in half an
hour.”

Jos growled from under the counterpane to know what the
time was; but when he at last extorted from the blushing
Major (who never told fibs, however they might be to his
advantage) what was the real hour of the morning, he broke
out into a volley of bad language, which we will not repeat
here, but by which he gave Dobbin to understand that he
would jeopardy his soul if he got up at that moment, that the
Major might go and be hanged, that he would not travel with
Dobbin, and that it was most unkind and ungentlemanlike
to disturb a man out of his sleep in that way; on which the
discomfited Major was obliged to retreat, leaving Jos to re-
sume his interrupted slumbers.

The chaise came up presently, and the Major would wait no
longer.

If he had been an English nobleman traveling on a pleasure
tour, or a newspaper courier bearing despatches (government
messages are generally carried much more quietly), he could
not have traveled more quickly. The post-boys wondered at
the fees he flung amongst them. How happy and green the
country looked as the chaise whirled rapidly from mile-stone
to mile-stone, through neat country towns where landlords
came out to welcome him with smiles and bows; by pretty
roadside inns, where the signs hung on the elms, and horses
and wagoners were drinking under the checkered shadow of
the trees; by old halls and parks; rustic hamlets clustered
round ancient gray churches, and through the charming,
friendly English landscape. Is there any in the world like it?
To a traveler returning home it looks so kind,—it seems to
shake hands with you as you pass through it. Well, Major
Dobbin passed over all this through from Southampton to
London, and without noting much beyond the mile-stones
along the road. You see he was so eager to see his parents at
Camberwell.

He grudged the time lost between Piccadilly and his old
haunt at the Slaughter’s whither he drove faithfully. Long
A NOVEL: WITHOUT A HERO. 245

years had passed since he saw it last, since he and George,
as young men, had enjoyed many a feast and held many a
revel there. He had now passed into the stage of old-fellow-
hood. His hair was grizzled, and many a passion and feeling
of his youth had grown gray in that interval. There, however,
stood the old waiter at the door, in the same greasy black suit,
with the same double chin and flaccid face, with the same
huge bunch of seals at his fob, rattling his money in his
pockets as before, and receiving the Major as if he had gone
away only a week ago.

“Put the Major’s things in twenty-three, that’s his room,”
John said, exhibiting not the least surprise. ‘Roast fowl for
your dinner, I suppose. You ain’t got married? They said you
was married,—the Scotch surgeon of yours was here. No, it
was Captain Humby of the thirty-third, as was quartered
with the —th in Injee. Like any warm water? What do you
come in a chay for, ain’t the coach good enough?” And with
this, the faithful waiter, who knew and remembered every
officer who used the house, and with whom ten years were
but as yesterday, led the way up to Dobbin’s old room, where
stood the great moreen bed, and the shabby carpet, a thought
more dingy, and all the old black furniture covered with faded
chintz, just as the Major recollected them in his youth.

He remembered George pacing up and down the room, and
biting his nails, and swearing that the Governor must come
round, and that if he didn’t, he didn’t care a straw, on the
day before he was married. He could fancy him walking in,
banging the door of Dobbin’s room, and his own hard by—

“You ain’t got young,” John said, calmly surveying his
friend of former days.

Dobbin laughed. “Ten years and a fever don’t make a
man young, John,” he said. “It is you that are always young:
no, you are always old.”

“What became of Captain Osborne’s widow?” John said.
“Fine young fellow that. Lord, how he used to spend his
money. He never came back after that day he was married
from here. He owes me three pound at this minute. Look
here, I have it in my book. ‘April 10, 1815, Captain Osborne:
£3” I wonder whether his father would pay me,” and, so
saying, John of the Slaughter’s pulled out the very morocco
pocket-book in which he had noted his loan to the Captain
upon a greasy faded page still extant, with many other
246 VANITY FAIR.

scrawled memoranda regarding the bygone frequenters of the
house. :

Having inducted his customer into the room, John retired
with perfect calmness; and Major Dobbin, not without a
blush and a grin at his own absurdity, chose out of his kit
the very smartest and most becoming civil costume he pos-
sessed, and laughed at his own tanned face and gray hair,
as he surveyed them in the dreary little toilet-glass on the
dressing-table.

“I’m glad old John didn’t forget me,” he thought. “She'll
know me, too, I hope.” And he sallied out of the inn, bending
his steps once more in the direction of Brompton.

Every minute incident of his last meeting with Amelia was
present to the constant man’s mind as he walked towards her
house. The arch and the Achilles statue were up since he
had last been in Piccadilly; a hundred changes had occurred
which his eye and mind vaguely noted. He began to tremble
as he walked up the lane from Brompton, that well-re-
membered lane leading to the street where she lived. Was she
going to be married or not? If he were to meet her with the
little boy,—Good God, what should he do? He saw a woman
coming to him with a child of five years old,—was that she?
He began to shake at the mere possibility. When he came up
to the row of houses, at last, where she lived, and to the
gate, he caught hold of it and paused. He might have heard
the thumping of his own heart. “May God Almighty bless
her, whatever has happened,” he thought to himself. “Psha!
she may be gone from here,” he said, and went in through
the gate.

The window of the parlor which she used to occupy was
open, and there were no inmates in the room. The Major
thought he recognized the piano, though, with the picture
over it, as it used to be in former days, and his perturbations
were renewed. Mr. Clapp’s brass plate was still on the door,
at the knocker of which Dobbin performed a summons.

A buxom-looking lass of sixteen, with bright eyes and pur-
ple cheeks, came to answer the knock, and looked hard at the
Major as he leant back against the little porch.

He was as pale as a ghost, and could hardly falter out
the words, “Does Mrs. Osborne live here?”

She looked him hard in the face for a moment,—and then,
turning white too, said, “Lord bless me,— it’s Major Dobbin.”
She held out both her hands shaking. “Don’t you remember
A NOVEL WITHOUT A TIERO. 247

me?” she said. “TI used to call you Major Sugarplums.” On
which, and I believe it was for the first time that he ever so
conducted himself in his life, the Major took the girl in his
arms and kissed her. She began to laugh and cry hysterically,
and calling out “Ma, pa!” with all her voice, brought up
those worthy people, who had already been surveying the
Major from the casement of the ornamental kitchen, and were
astonished to find their daughter in the little passage in the
embrace of a great tall man in a blue frock-coat and white
duck trousers.

“Tm an cld friend,” he said,—not without blushing, though.
“Don’t you remember me, Mrs. Clapp, and those good cakes
you used to make for tea?—Don’t you recollect me, Clapp?
I’m George’s godfather, and just come back from India?”
A great shaking of hands ensued. Mrs. Clapp was greatly
affected and delighted; she called upon heaven to interpose a
vast many times in that passage.

The landlord and landlady of the house led the worthy
Major into the Sedley’s room (whereof he remembered every
single article of furniture, from the old brass-ornamented
piano, once a natty little instrument, Stothard maker, to the
screens and the alabaster miniature tombstone, in the midst
of which ticked Mr. Sedley’s gold watch), and there, as he sat
down in the lodger’s vacant arm-chair, the father, the mother,
and the daughter, with a thousand ejaculatory breaks in the
narrative, informed Major Dobbin of what we know already,
but of particulars in Amelia’s history of which he was not
aware,—namely, of Mrs. Sedley’s death, of George’s reconcile-
ment with his grandfather Osborne, of the way in which the
widow took on at leaving him, and of other particulars of her
life. Twice or thrice he was going to ask about the marriage
question, but his heart failed him. He did not care to lay
it bare to these people. Finally, he was informed that Mrs.
O. was gone to walk with her pa in Kensington Gardens,
whither she always went with the old gentleman (who was
very weak and peevish now, and led her a sad life, though
she behaved to him like an angel, to be sure) of a fine after-
noon after dinner.

“T’m very much pressed for time,” the Major said, “and have
business to-night of importance. I should like to see Mrs.
Osborne, though. Suppose Miss Polly would come with me
and show me the way.”

Miss Polly was charmed and astonished at this proposal.
248 VANITY FAIR.

She knew the way. She would show Major Dobbin. She had
often been with Mr. Sedley when Mrs. O. was gone—was
gone Russell Square way: and knew the bench where he
liked to sit. She bounced away to her apartment, and ap-
peared presently in her best bonnet and her mamma’s yellow
shawl and large pebble brooch, of which she assumed the
loan in order to make herself a worthy companion for the
Major.

That officer, then, in his blue frock-coat and buckskin
gloves, gave the young lady his arm, and they walked away
very gayly. He was glad to have a friend at hand for the
scene which he dreaded somehow. He asked a thousand more
questions from his companion about Amelia; his kind heart
grieved to think that she should have had to part with her
son. How did she bear it? Did she see him often? Was
Mr. Sedley pretty comfortable now in a worldly point of
view? Polly answered all these questions of Major Sugar-
plums to the very best of her power.

And in the midst of their walk an incident occurred which,
though very simple in its nature, was productive of the great-
est delight to Major Dobbin. A pale young man with feeble
whiskers and a stiff white neckcloth came walking down the
lane, en sandwich;—having a lady, that is, on each arm.
One was a tall and commanding middle-aged female, with
features and a complexion similar to those of the clergyman of
the Church of England by whose side she marched, and the
other a stunted little woman with a dark face, ornamented by
a fine new bonnet and white ribbons, and in a smart pelisse
with rich gold watch in the midst of her person. The gentle-
man, pinioned as he was by these two ladies, carried further a
parasol, shawl, and basket, so that his arms were entirely en-
gaged, and of course he was unable to touch his hat in acknow-
at of the courtesy with which Miss Mary Clapp greeted

im.

He merely bowed his head in reply to her salutation, which
the two ladies returned in a patronizing air, and at the same
time looking severely at the individual in the blue coat and
bamboo cane, who accompanied Miss Polly.

“Who's that?” asked the Major, amused by the group, and
after he had made way for the three to pass up the lane. Mary
looked at him rather roguishly.

“That is our curate, the Reverend Mr. Binney (a twitch from
Major Dobbin), and his sister Miss B, Lord bless us, how she
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 249

did use to worret us at Sunday school; and the other lady,
the little one, with a cast in her eye, and the handsome watch,
is Mrs. Binney,—Miss Grits that was; her pa was a grocer
and kept the Little Original Gold Tea-Pot in Kensington
Gravel Pits. They were married last month, and are just
come back from Margate. She’s five thousand pound to her for-
tune; but her and Miss B., who made the match, have quar-
reled already.”

If the Major had twitched before, he started now, and
slapped the bamboo on the ground with an emphasis which
made Miss Clapp cry, “Law,” and laugh too. He stood for
a moment silent with open mouth looking after the retreating
young couple, while Miss Mary told their history; but he did
not hear beyond the announcement of the reverend gentle-
man’s marriage; his head was swimming with felicity. After
this rencontre he began to walk double quick towards the
place of his destination; and yet they were too soon (for he
was in a great tremor at the idea of a meeting for which he
had been longing any time these ten years) through the Bromp-
ton lanes, and entering at the little old portal in Kensington
Garden wall.

“There they are,” said Miss Polly, and she felt him again
start back on her arm. She was a confidante at once of the
whole business. She knew the story as well as if she had
read it in one of her favorite novel-books,—“Fatherless Fan-
ny,” or the “Scottish Chiefs.”

“Suppose you were to run on and tell her,” the Major said.
Polly ran forward, her yellow shawl streaming in the breeze.

Old Sedley was seated on a bench, his handkerchief placed
over his knees, prattling away according to his wont, with
some old story about old times, to which Amelia had listened
and awarded a patient smile many a time before. She could
of late think of her own affairs, and smile or make other
marks of recognition of her father’s stories, scarcely hear-
ing a word of the old man’s tales. As Mary came bouncing
along, and Amelia caught sight of her, she started up from
her bench. Her first thought was, that something had hap-
pened to Georgy; but the sight of the messenger’s eager and
happy face dissipated that fear in the timorous mother’s
bosom.

“News! news!” cried the emissary of Major Dobbin. “He’s
come! He’s come!”

“Who is come?” said Emmy, still thinking of her son,
250 VANITY FAIR.

“Look there,” answered Miss Clapp, turning round and
pointing; in which direction Amelia, looking, saw Dobbin’s
lean figure and long shadow stalking across the grass. Ame-
lia started in her turn, blushed up, and, of course, began to
ery. At all this simple little creature’s fétes, thegrandes eaux
were accustomed to play.

He looked at her—O how fondly!—as she came running
towards him, her hands before her, ready to give them to him.
She wasn’t changed. She was a little pale, a little stouter
in figure. Her eyes were the same, the kind, trustful eyes.
There were scarce three lines of silver in her soft brown hair.
She gave him both her hands, as she looked up, flushing and
smiling through her tears into his honest, homely face. He
took the two little hands between his two, and held them
there. He was speechless for a moment. Why did he not
take her in his arms, and swear that he would never leave
her? She must have yielded; she could not but have obeyed
him.

“I—T’ve another arrival to announce,” he said, after a
pause.

“Mrs. Dobbin?” Amelia said, making a movement back,
Why didn’t he speak?

“No,” he said, letting her hands go; “who has told you
those lies? I mean your brother Jos came in the same ship
with me, and is come home to make you all happy.”

“Papa, papa!” Emmy cried out, “here are news! My brother
isin England. He is come to take care of you.. Here is Major
Dobbin.”

Mr. Sedley started up, shaking a great deal, and gathering
up his thoughts. Then he stepped forward, and made an old-
fashioned bow to the Major, whom he called Mr. Dobbin, and
hoped his worthy father, Sir William, was quite well. He
aes to call upon Sir William, who had done him the

onor of a visit a short time ago. Sir William had not called
upon the gentleman for eight years,—it was that visit he was
thinking of returning.

“He is very much shaken,” Emmy whispered, as Dobbin
went up and cordially shook hands with the old man.

Although he had such particular business in London that
evening, the Major consented to forego it upon Mr. Sed-
ley’s invitation to him to come home and partake of tea.
Amelia put her arm under that of her young friend with the
yellow shawl, and headed the party on their return home-
 

A MEETING
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 261

wards, so that Mr. Sedley fell to Dobbin’s share. The old man
walked very slowly, and told a number of ancient histories
about himself and his poor Bessy, his former prosperity, and
his bankruptcy. His thoughts, as is usual with failing old
men, were quite in former times. The past, with the excep-
tion of the one catastrophe which he felt, he knew little
about. The Major was glad to let him talk on. His eyes
were fixed upon the figure in front of him,—the dear little
figure always present to his imagination, and in his prayers,
and visiting his dreams wakeful or slumbering.

Amelia was very happy, smiling, and active all that even-
ing; performing her duties as hostess of the little entertain-
ment with the utmost grace and propriety, as Dobbin thought.
His eyes followed her about as they sat in the twilight. How
many a time had he longed for that moment, and thought
of her far away under hot winds and in weary marches, gen-
tle and happy, kindly ministering to the wants of old age,
and decorating poverty with sweet submission, as he saw her
now. I do not say that his taste was the highest, or that it is
the duty of great intellects to be content with a bread-and-but-
ter paradise, such as sufficed our simple old friend; but his de-
sires were of this sort whether for good or bad; and, with
Amelia to help him, he was as ready to drink as many cups of
tea as Doctor Johnson.

Amelia, seeing this propensity, laughingly encouraged it;
and looked exceedingly roguish as she administered to him
cup after cup. It is true she did not know that the Major had
had no dinner, and that the cloth was laid for him at the
Slaughter’s, and a plate laid thereon to mark that the table
was retained, in that very box in which the Major and George
had sat many a time carousing, when she was a child just come
home from Miss Pinkerton’s school.

The first thing Mrs. Osborne showed ithe Major was Georgy’s
miniature, for which she ran up stairs on her arrival at home.
It was not half handsome enough, of course, for the boy,
but wasn’t it noble of him to think of bringing it to his
mother? Whilst her papa was awake she did not talk much
about Georgy. To hear about Mr. Osborne and Russell Square
was not agreeable to the old man, who very likely was un-
conscious that he had been living for some months past main-
ly on the bounty of his richer rival; and lost his temper if
allusion was made to the other.

Dobbin told him all, and a little more perhaps than all,
252 VANITY FAIR.

that had happened on board the Ramchunder; and exagger-
ated Jos’s benevolent dispositions towards his father, and
resolution to make him comfortable in his old days. The
truth is, that during the voyage the Major had impressed this
duty most strongly upon his fellow-passenger, and extorted
promises from him that he would take charge of his sister and
her child. He soothed Jos’s irritation with regard to the bills
which the old gentleman had drawn upon him, gave a laugh-
ing account of his own sufferings on the same score, and of
the famous consignment of wine with which the old man
had favored him: and brought Mr. Jos, who was by no means
an ill-natured person when well pleased and moderately flat-
tered, to a very good state of feeling regarding his relatives in
Europe.

And in fine I am ashamed to say that the Major stretched
the truth so far as to tell old Mr. Sedley that it was mainly
a desire to see his parent which brought Jos once more to
Europe.

At his accustomed hour Mr. Sedley began to doze in his
chair, and then it was Amelia’s opportunity to commence her
conversation, which she did with great eagerness;—it related
exclusively to Georgy. She did not talk at all about her own
sufferings at breaking from him, for indeed this worthy wo-
man, though she was half killed by the separation from the
child, yet thought it was very wicked in her to repine at los-
ing him; but everything concerning him, his virtues, talents,
and prospects, she poured out. She described his angelic
beauty; narrated a hundred instances of his generosity and
greatness of mind whilst living with her: how a Royal Duch-
ess had stopped and admired him in Kensington Gardens;
how splendidly he was cared for now, and how he had a groom
and a pony; what quickness and cleverness he had, and
what a prodigiously well-read and delightful person the Rever-
end Lawrence Veal was, George’s master. “He knows every-
thing,’ Amelia said. “He has the most delightful parties.
You who are so learned yourself, and have read so much,
and are so clever and accomplished—don’t shake your head
and say no—He always used to say you were—you will be
charmed with Mr. Veal’s parties. he last Tuesday in every
month. He says there is no place in the bar or the senate
that Georgy may not aspire to. Look here,” and she went to
the piano-drawer and drew out a theme of Georgy’s composi-
‘A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO, 953

tion. This great effort of genius, which is still in the posses-
sion of George’s mother, is as follows:—

On selfishness.—Of all the vices which degrade the human
character, Selfishness is the most odious and contemptible.
An undue love of Self leads to the most monstrous crimes,
and occasions the greatest misfortunes both in States and
Families. As a selfish man will impoverish his family and
often bring them to ruin, so a selfish king brings ruin on his
people and often plunges them into war.

Example: The selfishness of Achilles, as remarked by the
poet Homer, occasioned a thousand woes to the Greeks—
Mupi Ayarois alyé %yke—(Hom, Il. A. 2). The selfishness
of the late Napoleon Bonaparte occasioned innumerable wars
in Europe, and caused him to perish, himself, in a miserable
island,—that of Saint Helena in the Atlantic Ocean.

We see by these examples that we are not to consult our
own interest and ambition, but that we are to consider the
interests of others as well as our own.

George 8. Osborne.

Athené House, 24 April, 1827.

“Think of him writing such a hand, and quoting Greek,
too, at his age,” the delighted mother said. “O William,’ she
added, holding out her hand to the Major, “what a treas-
ure Heaven has given me in that boy! He is the com-
fort of my life, and he is the image of—of him that’s
gone!”

“Ought I to be angry with her for being faithful to him?”
William thought. “Ought I to be jealous of my friend in the
grave, or hurt that such a heart as Amelia’s can love only
once and forever? O George, George, how little you knew
the prize you had, though.” This sentiment passed rapidly
through William’s mind, as he was holding Amelia’s hand,
whilst the handkerchief was veiling her eyes.

“Dear friend,” she said, pressing the hand which held hers,
“how good, how kind you always have been to me! See!
Papa is stirring. You will go and see Georgy to-morrow, won’t

ou?”

“Not to-morrow,” said poor old Dobbin. “I have business.”
He did not like to own that he had net as yet been to his par-
ents’ and his dear sister Anne,—a remissness for which I am
sure every well-regulated person will blame the Major. And
254 VANITY FAIR,

presently he took his leave, leaving his address behind him for
Jos, against the latter’s arrival. And so the first day was
over, and he had seen her.

When he got back to the Slaughter’s, the roast fowl was
of course cold, in which condition he ate it for supper. And
knowing what early hours his family kept, and that it would
be needless to disturb their slumbers at so late au hour, it is
on record, that Major Dobbin treated himself to half-price
at the Haymarket Theater that evening, where let us hope
he enjoyed himself.

CHAPTER XXV.
THE OLD PIANO.

The Major’s visit left old John Sedley in a great state of
agitation and excitement. His daughter could not induce him
to settle down to his customary occupations or amusements
that night. He passed the evening fumbling amongst his
boxes and desks, untying his papers with trembling hands,
and sorting and arranging them against Jos’s arrival. He
had them in the greatest order,—his tapes and his files, his
receipts, and his letters with lawyers and correspondents; the
documents relative to the Wine Project (which failed from a
most unaccountable accident, after commencing with the most
splendid prospects), the Coal Project (which only a want of
capital prevented from becoming the most successful scheme
ever put before the public), the Patent Saw-Mills, and Saw-
dust Consolidation Project, &c. &c. All night, until a very
late hour, he passed in the preparation of these documents,
trembling about from one room to another, with a quivering
candle and shaky hands. “Here’s the wine papers, here’s the
sawdust, here’s the coals; here’s my letters to Calcutta and
Madras, and replies from Major Dobbin, C. B., and Mr. Joseph
Sedley to the same. He shall find no irregularity about me,
Emmy,” the old gentleman said.

Emmy smiled. “I don’t think Jos will care about seeing
those papers, papa,” she said.

“You don’t know anything about business, my dear,” an-
swered the sire, shaking his head with an important air. And
it must be confessed that on this point Emmy was very ignor-
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 255

ant, and that is a pity, some people are so knowing. All
these twopenny documents arranged on a side table, old Sed-
ley covered them carefully over with a clean bandanna hand-
kerchief (one out of Major Dobbin’s lot), and enjoined the
maid and landlady of the house, in the most solemn way, not
to disturb those papers, which were arranged for the arrival
of Mr. Joseph Sedley the next morning, “Mr. Joseph Sedley
of the Honorable Kast India Company’s Bengal Civil Ser-
vice.”

Amelia found him up very early the next morning, more
eager, more hectic, and more shaky than ever. “I didn’t sleep
much, Emmy my dear,” he said. “I was thinking of my poor
Bessy. I wish she was alive, to ride in Jos’s carriage once
again. She kept her own, and became it very well.” And
his eyes filled with tears, which trickled down his furrowed
old face. Amelia wiped them away, and smilingly kissed
him, and tied the old man’s neckcloth in a smart bow, and
put his brooch into his best shirt-frill, in which, in his Sun-
day suit of mourning, he sat from six o’clock in the morning,
awaiting the arrival of his son.

There are some splendid tailors’ shops in the High Street
of Southampton, in the fine plate-glass windows of which hang
gorgeous waist-coats of all sorts, of silk and velvet, and gold
and crimson, and pictures of the last new fashions in which
those wonderful gentlemen with quizzing-glasses, and holding
on to little boys with the exceeding large eyes and curly hair,
ogle ladies in riding-habits prancing by the Statue of Achilles
at Apsley House. Jos, although provided with some of the
most splendid vests that Calcutta could furnish, thought he
could not go to town until he was supplied with one or two
of these garments, and selected a crimson satin, embroidered
with gold butterflies, and a black and red velvet tartan with
white stripes and a rolling collar, with which, and a rich blue
satin stock and a gold pin, consisting of a five-barred gate
with a horseman in pink enamel jumping over it, he thought
he might make his entry into London with some dignity.
For Jos’s former shyness and blundering, blushing timidity
had given way to a more candid and courageous self-assertion
of his worth. “I don’t care about owning it,” Waterloo Sed-
ley would say to his friends, “I am a dressy man;”’ and though
rather uneasy if the ladies looked at him at the Government-
House balls, and though he blushed and turned away alarmed
under their glances, it was chiefly from a dread lest they
256 VANITY FAIR.

should make love to him, that he avoided them, being averse
to marriage altogether. But there was no such swell in Cal-
cutta as Waterloo Sedley, I have heard say: and he had the
handsomest turnout, gave the best bachelor dinners, and had
the finest plate in the whole place.

To make these waistcoats for a man of his size and dignity
took at least a day, part of which he employed in hiring a ser-
vant to wait upon him and his native, and in instructing the
agent who cleared his baggage, his boxes, his books which he
never read; his chests of mangoes, chutney, and curry-pow-
ders; his shawls for presents to people whom he didn’t know
as yet; and the rest of his Persicosapparatus.

At length, he drove leisurely to London on the third day,
and in the new waistcoat. The native, with chattering teeth,
shuddering in a shawl on the box by the side of the new
European servant, Jos puffing his pipe at intervals within, and
looking so majestic that the little boys cried Hooray, and many
people thought he must be a Governor-General. He, I prom-
ise, did not decline the obsequious invitation of the land-
lords to alight and refresh himself in the neat country towns.
Having partaken of a copious breakfast, with fish, and rice,
and hard eggs, at Southamptort he had so far rallied
at Winchester as to think a glass of sherry necessary.
At Alton he stepped out of the carriage, at his ser-
vant’s request, and imbibed some of the ale for which the
place was famous. At Farnham he stopped to view the
Bishop’s Castle, and to partake of a light dinner of stewed
eels, veal cutlets, and French beans, with a bottle of claret.
He was cold over Bagshot Heath, where the native chattered
more and more, and Jos Sahib took some brandy-and-water;
in fact, when he drove into town, he was as fuil of wine,
beer, meat, pickles, cherry-brandy, and tobacco, as the stew-
ard’s cabin of a steam-packet. It was evening when his
carriage thundered up to the little door in Brompton, whith-
er the affectionate fellow drove first, and before hieing to
the apartments secured for him by Mr. Dobbin at the Slaugh-
ter’s.

All the faces in the street were in the windows; the little
maid-servant flew to the wicket-gate, the Mesdames Clapp
looked out from the casement of the ornamented kitchen;
Emmy, in a great flutter, was in the passage among the hats
and coats, and old Sedley in the parlor inside, shaking all
over. Jos descended from the post-chaise and down the
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 257

ereaking, swaying steps in awful state, supported by the new
valet from Southampton and the shuddering native, whose
brown face was now livid with cold, and of the color of a
Turkey’s gizzard. He created an immense sensation in the
passage presently, where Mrs. and Miss Clapp, coming per-
haps to listen at the parlor door, found Loll Jewab shaking
upon the hall-bench under the coats, moaning in a strange,
piteous way, and showing his yellow eyeballs and white teeth.

For, you see, we have adroitly shut the door upon the meet-
ing between Jos and the old father, and the poor little gentle
sister inside. The old man was very much affected; so, of
course, was his daughter; nor was Jos without feeling. In
that long absence of ten years, the most selfish will think
about home and early ties. Distance sanctifies both. Long
brooding over those lost pleasures exaggerates their charm and
sweetness. Jos was unaffectedly glad to see and shake the hand
of his father, between whom and himself there had been a
coolness,—glad to see his little sister, whom he remembered so
pretty and smiling, and pained at the alteration which time,
grief, and misfortune had made in the shattered old man.
Emmy had come out to the door in her black clothes and
whispered to him of her mother’s death, and not to speak of
it to their father. There was no need of this caution, for
the elder Sedley himself began immediately to speak of the
event, and plenteously. It shocked the Indian not a little,
and made him think of himself less than the poor fellow was
accustomed to do.

The result of the interview must have been very satis-
factory, for when Jos had reascended his post chaise, and
had driven away to his hotel, Emmy embraced her father
tenderly, appealing to him with an air of triumph, and asking
the old man whether she did not always say that her brother
had a good heart.

Indeed, Joseph Sedley, affected by the humble position
in which he found his relations, and in the expansiveness and
overflowing of heart occasicned by the first meeting, declared
that they should never suffer want or discomfort any more,
that he was at home for some time at any rate, during which
his house and everything he had should be theirs; and that
Amelia would look very pretty at the head of his table—
until she would accept one of her own.

She shook her head sadly, and had, as usual, recourse to the
Vol. II.—17
258 VANITY FAIR.

water-works, She knew what he meant. She and her young
confidante, Mizs Mary had talked over the matter most fully,
the very night of the Major’s visit; beyond which time the
impetuous Polly could not refrain from talking of the dis-
covery which she had made, and describing the start and tre-
mor of joy by which Major Dobbin betrayed himself when Mr.
Binney passed with his bride, and the Major learned that he
had no longer a rival to fear. “Didn’t you see how he shook
all over when you asked if he was married, and he said, ‘Who
told you those lies? O ma’am,” Polly said, “he never kept
his eyes off you; and I’m sure he’s grown gray a thinking of
ou.”

: But Amelia, looking up at her bed, over which hung the
portraits of her husband and son, told her young protégée
never, never, to speak on that subject again; that Major
Dobbin had been her husband’s dearest friend, and her own
and George’s most kind and affectionate guardian; that she
loved him as a brother,—but that a woman who had been
married to such an angel as that, and she pointed to the wall,
could never think of any other union. Poor Polly sighed; she
thought what she should do if young Mr. Tomkins, at the
surgery, who always looked at her so at church, and who, by
those mere aggressive glances, had put her timorous little
heart into such a flutter that she was ready to surrender at
once,—what she should do if he were to die? She knew he
was consumptive, his cheeks were so red, and he was so un-
common thin in the waist.

Not that Emmy, being made aware of the honest Major’s
passion, rebuffed him in any way, or felt displeased with him.
Such an attachment from so true and loyal a gentleman could
make no woman angry. Desdemona was not angry with
Cassio, though there is very little doubt she saw the Lieuten-
ant’s partiality for her (and I for my part believe that many
more things took place in that sad affair than the worthy
Moorish officer ever knew of); why, Miranda was even very
kind to Caliban, and we may be pretty sure for the same
reason. Not that she would encourage him in the least,—
the poor uncouth monster,—of course not. No more would
Emmy by any means encourage her admirer, the Major. She
would give him that friendly regard which so much excellence
and fidelity merited; she would treat him with perfect cor-
diality and frankness until he made his proposals; and then
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 259

it would be time enough for her to speak, and to put an end
to hopes which never could be realized.

She slept, therefore, very soundly that evening after the
conversation with Miss Polly, and was more than ordinarily
happy, in spite of Jos’s delaying. “I am glad he is not go-
ing to marry that Miss O'Dowd,” she thought. “Colonel
O’Dowd never could have a sister fit for such an accomplished
man as Major William.” Who was there amongst her little
circle who would make him a good wife? Not Miss Binney,
she was too old and ill-tempered; Miss Osborne?—too old,
too. Little Polly was too young. Mrs. Osborne could not
find anybody to suit the Major before she went to sleep.

However, when the postman made his appearance, the lit-
tle party were put out of suspense by the receipt of a letter
from Jos to his sister, who announced, that he felt a little
fatigued after his voyage, and should not be able to move
on that day, but that he would leave Southampton early the
next morning, and be with his father and mother at even-
ing. Amelia, as she read out the letter to her father, paused
over the latter word; her brother, it was clear, did not
know what had happened in the family. Nor could he: for the
fact is that, though the Major rightly suspected that his
traveling companion never would be got into motion in so
short a space as twenty-four hours, and would find some ex-
cuse for delaying, yet Dobbin had not written to Jos to
inform him of the calamity which had befallen the Sedley
family: being occupied in talking with Amelia until long after
post-hour.

The same morning brought Major Dobbin a letter to the
Slaughter’s Coffee House from his friend at Southampton;
begging dear Dob to excuse Jos for being in a rage when
awakened the day before (he had a confounded headache,
and was just in his first sleep), and entreating Dob to en-
gage comfortable rooms at the Slaughter’s for Mr. Sedley
and his servants. The Major had become necessary to Jos
during the voyage. He was attached to him, and hung upon
him. The other passengers were away to London. Young
Ricketts and little Chaffers went away on the coach that day,
—Ricketts on the box, and taking the reins from Botley; the
Doctor was off to his family at Portsea; Bragg gone to town
to his copartners: .and the first mate busy in the unloading of
the Ramchunder. Mr. Jos was very lonely at Southampton,
and got the landlord of the George to take a glass of wine

40
260 VANITY FAIR,

with him that day; at the very hour at which Major Dobbin
was seated at the table of his father Sir William, where his
sister found out (for it was impossible for the Major to tell
fibs) that he had been to see Mrs. George Osborne.

Jog was so comfortably situated in Saint Martin’s Lane,
he could enjoy his hookah there with such perfect ease, and
could swagger down to the theaters, when minded, so agree-
ably, that perhaps he would have remained altogether at
the Slaughter’s had not his friend, the Major, been at his el-
bow. That gentleman would not let the Bengalee rest until
he had executed his promise of having a home for Amelia and
his father. Jos was a soft fellow in anybody’s hands;
Dobbin most active in anybody’s concerns but his own;
the civilian was, therefore, an easy victim to the guile-
less arts of this good-natured diplomatist, was ready to do,
to purchase, hire, or relinquish whatever his friend thought
fit. Loll Jewab, of whom the boys about St. Martin’s Lane
used to make cruel fun whenever he showed his dusky counten-
ance in the street, was sent back to Calcutta in the Lady
Kicklebury East Indiaman, in which Sir William Dobbin had
a share; having previously taught Jos’s European the art of
preparing curries, pilaws, and pipes. It was a matter of great
delight and occupation to Jos to superintend the building of
a smart chariot, which he and the Major ordered in the neigh-
boring Long Acre: and a pair of handsome horses were jobbed,
with which Jos drove about in state in the Park, or to call
upon his Indian friends. Amelia was not seldom by his side
on these excursions, when also Major Dobbin would be seen
in the back seat of the carriage. At other times old Sedley
and his daughter took advantage of it: and Miss Clapp,
who frequently accompanied her friend, had great pleasure
in being recognized as she sat in state in the carriage, dressed
in the famous yellow shawl, by the young gentleman at the
surgery, whose face might commonly be seen over the window-
blinds as she passed.

Shortly after Jos’s first appearance at Brompton, a dismal
scene, indeed, took place at that humble cottage, at which
the Sedleys had passed the last ten years of their life. Jos’s
carriage (the temporary one, not the chariot under construc-
tion) arrived one day and carried off old Sedley and his daugh-
ter,—to return no more. The tears that were shed by the land-
lady and the landlady’s daughter at that event were as genuine
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 261

tears of sorrow as any that have been outpoured in the course
of this history. In their long acquaintanceship and intimacy
they could not recall a harsh word that had been uttered by
Amelia. She had been all sweetness and kindness, always
thankful, always gentle, even when Mrs. Clapp lost her own
temper, and pressed for the rent. When the kind creature
was going away for good and all, the landlady reproached her-
self bitterly for ever having used a rough expression to her,—
how she wept, as they stuck up with wafers on the window a
paper notifying that the little rooms so long occupied were to
let! They never would have such lodgers again, that was quite
clear. After-life proved the truth of this melancholy prophe-
cy: and Mrs. Clapp revenged herself for the deterioration of
mankind by levying the most savage contributions upon the
tea-caddies and legs of mutton of her locataires. Most of
them scolded and grumbled; some of them did not pay: none
of them stayed. The landlady might well regret those old,
old friends, who had left her.

As for Miss Mary, her sorrow at Amelia’s departure was
such as I shall not attempt to depict. From childhood up-
wards she had been with her daily, and had attached herself
so passionately to that dear good lady, that when the grand
barouche came to carry her off into splendor, she fainted in the
arms of her friend, who was, indeed, scarcely less affected
than the good-natured girl. Amelia loved her like a daughter.
During eleven years the girl had been her constant friend and
associate. The separation was.a very painful one indeed to
her. But it was of course arranged that Mary was to come
and stay often at the grand new house whither Mrs. Osborne
was going; and where Mary was sure she would never be so
happy as she had been in their humble cot, as Miss Clapp
called it in the language of the novels which she loved.

Let us hope she was wrong in her judgment. Poor Emmy’s
days of happiness had been very few in that humble cot. A
gloomy Fate had oppressed her there. She never liked to
come back to the house after she had left it, or to face the
landlady who had tyrannized over her when ill-humored and
unpaid, or when pleased had treated her with a coarse famil-
iarity scarcely less odious. Her servility and fulsome com-
pliments when Emmy was in prosperity were not more to that
lady’s liking. She cast about notes of admiration all over the
new house, extolling every article of furniture or ornament;
she fingered Mrs. Osborne’s dresses, and calculated their price.
262 VANITY FAIR.

Nothing could be too good for that sweet lady, she vowed and
protested. But in the vulgar sycophant who now paid court
to her, Emmy always remembered the coarse tyrant who had
made her miserable many a time, to whom she had been forced
to put up petitions for time, when the rent was overdue; who
cried out at her extravagance if she bought delicacies for her
ailing mother or father; who had seen her humble and
trampled upon her.

Nobody every heard of these griefs, which had been part of
our poor little woman’s lot in life. She kept them secret from
her father, whose improvidence was the cause of much of her

-misery. She had to bear all the blame of his misdoings, and
indeed was so utterly gentle and humble as to be made by

‘

¥

“nature for a victim.

“T hope she is not to suffer much more of that hard usage.
And, as in all griefs there is said to be some consolation, I
may mention that poor Mary, when left at her friend’s depar-
ture in a hysterical condition, was placed under the medical
treatment of the young fellow from the surgery, under whose
care she rallied after a short period. Emmy, when she went
away from Brompton, endowed Mary with every article of
furniture that the house contained: only taking away her
pictures (the two pictures over the bed) and her piano,—that
little old piano which had now passed into a plaintive, jing-
ling old age, but which she loved for reasons of her own. She
was a child when first she played on it; and her parents gave
it her. It had been given to her again since, as the reader
may remember, when her father’s house was gone to ruin, and
the instrument was recovered out of the wreck.

Major Dobbin was exceedingly pleased when, as he was sup-
erintending the arrangements of Jos’s new house, which the
Major insisted should be very handsome and comfortable; the
cart arrived from Brompton, bringing the trunks and band-
boxes of the emigrants from that village, and with them the
old piano. Amelia would have it up in her sitting-room, a
neat little apartment on the second floor, adjoining her fath-
er’s chamber: and where the old gentleman sat commonly of
evenings.

When the men appeared, then, bearing this old music-box
and Amelia gave orders that it should be placed in the cham-
ber aforesaid, Dobbin was quite elated. “I’m glad you’ve kept
it,” he said, in a very sentimental manner. “I was afraid you
didn’t care about it.”
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 263

“T value it more than anything I have in the world,” said
Amelia.

“Do you, Amelia?” cried the Major. The fact was, as he
had bought it himself, though he never said anything about
it, it never entered into his head to suppose that Emmy should
think anybody else was the purchaser, and, as a matter of
course, he fancied that she knew the gift came from him. “Do
you, Amelia?” he said; and the question, the great question
of all, was trembling on his lips, when Emmy replied,—

“Can I do otherwise?—did not he give it to me?”

“T did not know,” said poor old Dob, and his countenance
fell.

Emmy did not note the circumstance at the time, nor take
immediate heed of the very dismal expression which honest
Dobbin’s countenance assumed; but she thought of it after-
wards. And then it struck her, with inexpressible pain and
mortification too, that it was William who was the giver of the
piano; and not George, as she had fancied. It was not George’s
gift; the only one which she had received from her lover, as
she thought,—the thing she had cherished beyond all others,
—her dearest relic and prize. She had spoken to it about
George; played his favorite airs upon it; sat for long evening
hours, touching, to the best of her simple art, melancholy
harmonies on the keys, and weeping over them in silence.
It was not George’s relic. It was valueless now. The next
time that old Sedley asked her to play, she said it was shock-
ingly out of tune, that she had a headache, that she couldn’t

lay.

Phen, according to her custom, she rebuked herself for
her pettishness and ingratitude, and determined to make a
reparation to honest William for the slight she had not ex-
pressed to him, but had felt for his piano. A few days after-
wards, as they were seated in the drawing-room, where Jos had
fallen asleep with great comfort after dinner, Amelia said,
with rather a faltering voice, to Major Dobbin,—

“T have to beg your pardon for something.”

“About what?” said he.

“About—about that little square piano. I never thanked
you for it when you gave it me; many, many years ago, be-
fore I was married. I thought somebody else had given it.
Thank you, William.” She held out her hand; but the poor
little woman’s heart was bleeding; and as for her eyes, of
course they were at their work.
264 VANITY FAIR.

But William could hold no more. “Amelia, Amelia,” he
said, “I did buy it for you. I loved you then asI do now. I
must tell you. I think I loved you from the first minute that
I saw you, when George brought me to your house, to show
me the Amelia whom he was engaged to. You were but a
girl, in white, with large ringlets; you came down singing,—
do you remember?—and we went to Vauxhall. Since then I
have thought of but one woman in the world, and that was
you. I think there is no hour in the day has passed for twelve
years that I haven’t thought of you. I came to tell you this
before I went to India, but you did not care, and I hadn’t the
heart to speak. You did not care whether I stayed or went.”

“T was very ungrateful,” Amelia said.

“No; only indifferent,’ Dobbin continued, desperately. “I
have nothing to make a woman to be otherwise. I know
what you are feeling now. You are hurt in your heart at the
discovery about the piano; and that it came from me and not
from George. I forgot, or I should never have spoken of it so.
It is for me to ask your pardon for being a fool for a moment,
and thinking that years of constancy and devotion might have
pleaded with you.”

“Tt is you who are cruel now,” Amelia said, with some spirit.
“George is my husband, here and in heaven. How could I
love any other but him? I am his now as when you first saw
me, dear William. It was he who told me how good and gen-
erous you were, and who taught me to love you as a brother.
Have you not been everything to me and my boy? Our dear-
est, truest, kindest friend and protector? Had you come a few
months sooner perhaps you might have spared me that,—that
dreadful parting. O, it nearly killed me, William,—but you
didn’t come, though I wished and prayed for you to come, and
they took him too away from me. Isn’t he a noble boy, Wil-
liam? Be his friend still and mine,’—and here her voice
broke, and she had hid her face on his shoulder.

The Major folded his arms round her, holding her to him
as if she was a child, and kissed her head. “I will not change,
dear Amelia,” he said. “I ask for no more than your love.
I think I would not have it otherwise. Only let me stay near
you, and see you often.”

“Yes, often,’ Amelia said. And so William was at liberty
to look and long: as the poor boy at school who has no money
may sigh after the contents of the tart-woman’s tray.
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 265

CHAPTER XXVI.

RETURNS TO THE GENTEEL WORLD.

Good fortune now begins to smile upon Amelia. We are
glad to get her out of that low sphere in which she has been
creeping hitherto, and introduce her into a polite circle; not
so grand and refined as that in which our other female friend,
Mrs. Becky, has appeared; but still having no small preten-
sions to gentility and fashion. Jos’s friends were all from the
three presidencies, and his new house was in the comfortable
Anglo-Indian district of which Moira Place is the center.
Minto Square, Great Clive Street, Warren Street, Hastings
Street, Ochterlony Place, Plassy Square, Assaye Terrace
(“Gardens” was a felicitous word not applied to stucco houses
with asphalte terraces in front, so early as 1827),—who does
not know these respectable abodes of the retired Indian aris-
tocracy, and the quarter which Mr. Wenham calls the Black
Hole, in a word? Jos’s position in life was not grand enough
to entitle him to a house in Moira Place, where none can live
but retired Members of Council, and partners of Indian firms
(who break after having settled a hundred thousand pounds
on their wives, and retire into comparative penury to a country
place and four thousand a year): he engaged a comfortable
house of a second or third rate order in Gillespie Street, pur-
chasing the carpets, costly mirrors, and handsome and ap-
propriate planned furniture by Seddons, from the assignees
of Mr. Scape, lately admitted partner into the great Calcutta
House of Fogle, Fake and Cracksman, in which old Scape had
embarked seventy thousand pounds, the earnings of a long
and honorable life, taking Fake’s place, who retired to a
princely Park in Sussex (the Fogles have been long out of the
firm, and Sir Horace Fogle is about to be raised to the peerage
as Baron Bandanna),—admitted, I say, partner into the great
agency house of Fogle and Fake two years before it failed
for a million, and plunged half the Indian public into misery
and ruin.

Scape, ruined, honest, and broken-hearted at sixty-five years
of age, went out to Calcutta to wind up the affairs of the
house. Walter Scape was withdrawn from Eton, and put into
266 VANITY FAIR.

a merchant’s house. Florence Scape, Fanny Scape, and their
mother faded away to Boulogne, and will be heard of no more.
To be brief, Jos stepped in and bought their carpets and side-
boards, and admired himself in the mirrors which had re-
flected their kind, handsome faces. The Scape tradesmen, all
honorably paid, left their cards, and were eager to supply
the new household. The large men in white waistcoats, who
waited at Scape’s dinners, green-grocers, bank-porters, and
milkmen in their private capacity, left their addresses, and in-
gratiated themselves with the butler. Mr. Chummy, the chim-
ney-purifier, who had swept the last three families, tried to
coax the butler and the boy under him, whose duty it was to
go out covered with buttons and with stripes down his trous-
ers, for the protection of Mrs. Amelia whenever she chose to
walk abroad.

It was a modest establishment. The butler was Jos’s valet
also, and never was more drunk than a butler in a small fami-
ly should be who has a proper regard for his master’s wine.
Emmy was supplied with a maid, grown on Sir William Dob-
bin’s suburban estate; a good girl, whose kindness and hu-
mility disarmed Mrs. Osborne, who was at first terrified at the
idea of having a servant to wait upon herself, who did not in
the least know how to use one, and who always spoke to do-
mestics with the most reverential politeness. But this maid
was very useful in the family, in dexterously tending old Mr.
Sedley, who kept almost entirely to his quarter of the house,
and never mixed in any of the gay doings which took place
there.

Numbers of people came to see Mrs. Osborne. Lady Dob-
bin and daughters were delighted at her change of fortune,
and waited upon her. Miss Osborne from Russell Square came
in her grand chariot with the flaming hammercioth emblaz-
oned with the Leeds arms. Jos was reported to be immensely
rich. Old Osborne had no objection that Georgy should in-
herit his uncle’s property as well as his own. “Damn it, we
will make a man of the feller,” he said; “and I’ll see him in
Parliament before I die. You may go and see his mother,
Miss O., though I'll never set eyes on her:” and Miss Osborne
came. Emmy, you may be sure, was very glad to see her, and
so be brought nearer to George. That young fellow was al-
lowed to come much more frequently than before to visit his
mother. He dined once or twice a week in Gillespie Strect,
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 267

and bullied the servants and his relations there, just as he did
in Russell Square.

He was always respectful to Major Dobbin, however, and
more modest in his demeanor when that gentleman was pres-
ent. He was a clever lad, and afraid of the Major. George
could not help admiring his friend’s simplicity, his good-
humor, his various learning quietly imparted, his general love
of truth and justice. He had met no such man as yet in the
course of his experience, and he had an instinctive liking for a
gentleman. He hung fondly by his godfather’s side; and it
was his delight to walk in the Parks and hear Dobbin talk.
William told George about his father, about India and Water-
loo, about everything but himself. When George was more than
usually pert and conceited, the Major made jokes at him,
which Mrs. Osborne thought very cruel. One day, taking
him to the play, and the boy declining to go into the pit be-
cause it was vulgar, the Major took him to the boxes, left him
there, and went down himself to the pit. He had not been
seated there very long, before he felt an arm thrust under his,
and a dandy little hand in a kid glove squeezing his arm.
George had seen the absurdity of his ways, and come down
from the upper region. A tender laugh of benevolence lighted
up old Dobbin’s face and eyes as he looked at the repentant
little prodigal. He loved the boy as he did everything that be-
longed to Amelia. How charmed she was when she heard of
this instance of George’s goodness! Her eyes looked more kind-
ly on Dobbin than they ever had done. She blushed, he
thought, after looking at him so.

Georgy never tired of his praises of the Major to his moth-
er. “I like him, mamma, because he knows such lots of things;
and he ain’t like old Veal, who is always bragging and using
such long words, don’t you know? The chaps call him ‘Long-
tail’ at school. I gave him the name; ain’t it capital? But
Dob reads Latin like English, and French, and that; and when
we go out together, he tells me stories about my papa, and
never about himself; though I heard Colonel Buckler, at
grandpapa’s, say that he was one of the bravest officers in the
army, and had distinguished himself ever so much. Grand-
papa was quite surprised, and said, “That feller! why, I didn’t
think he could say Bo to a goose,—but I know he could,
couldn’t he, mamma?”

Emmy laughed: she thought it was very likely the Major
could do thus much.
268 VANITY FAIR.

If there was a sincere liking between George and the Ma-
jor, it must be confessed that between the boy and his uncle
no great love existed. George had got a way of blowing out his
cheeks, and putting his hands in his waistcoat-pockets, and
saying, “God bless my soul, you don’t say so,” so exactly after
the fashion of old Jos that it was impossible to restrain from
laughter. The servants would explode at dinner if the lad,
asking for something which wasn’t at table, put on that coun-
tenance and used that favorite phrase. Even Dobbin would
shoot out a sudden peal at the boy’s mimicry. If George did
not mimic his uncle to his face, it was only by Dobbin’s re-
bukes and Amelia’s terrified entreaties that the little scape-
grace was induced to resist. And the worthy civilian, being
haunted by a dim consciousness that the lad thought him an
ass, and was inclined to turn him into ridicule, used to be
extremely timorous, and, of course, doubly pompous and dig-
nified in the presence of Master Georgy. When it was an-
nounced that the young gentleman was expected in Gillespie
Street to dine with his mother, Mr. Jos commonly found that
he had an engagement at the Club. Perhaps nobody was much
grieved at his absence. On those days, Mr. Sedley would com-
monly be induced to come out from his place of refuge in the
upper stories; and there would be a small family party, where-
of Major Dobbin pretty generally formed one. He was the
ami de la maison; old Sedley’s friend, Emmy’s friend, Geor-
gy’s friend, Jos’s counsel and adviser. “He might almost as
well be at Madras for anything we see of him,” Miss Ann Dob-
bin remarked, at Camberwell. Ah! Miss Ann, did it not
strike you that it was not you whom the Major wanted to
marry?

Joseph Sedley then led a life of dignified otiosity such as
became a person of his eminence. His very first point, of
course, was to become a member of the Oriental Club: where
he spent his mornings in the company of his brother Indians,
where he dined, or whence he brought home men to dine.

Amelia had to receive and entertain these gentlemen and
their ladies. From these she heard how soon Smith would be
in Council; how many lacs Jones had brought home with
him; how Thomson’s House in London had refused the bills
drawn by Thomson, Kibobjee and Co., the Bombay House,
and how it was thought the Calcutta House must go too; how
very imprudent, to say the least of it, Mrs. Brown’s conduct
(wife of Brown of the Ahmednaggur Irregulars) had been with
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 269

young Swankey of the Body Guard, sitting up with him on
deck until all hours, and losing themselves as they were riding
out at the Cape; how Mrs. Hardyman had had out her thir-
teen sisters, daughters of a country curate, the Rev. Felix
Rabbits, and married eleven of them, seven high up in the
service; how Hornby was wild because his wife would stay in
Europe and Trotter was appointed Collector at Ummerapoora.
This and similar talk took place at the grand dinners all
round. They had the same conversation; the same silver
dishes; the same saddles of mutton, boiled turkeys, and en-
trées. Politics set in a short time after dessert, when the ladies
retired up stairs and talked about their complaints and their
children.

Mutato nomine, it is all the same. Don’t the barristers’
wives talk about Circuit?—don’t the soldiers’ ladies gossip
about the Regiment?—don’t the clergymen’s ladies discourse
about Sunday schools, and who takes whose duty?—don’t the
very greatest ladies of all talk about that small clique of per-
sons to whom they belong, and why shall our Indian friends
not have their own conversation?—only I admit it is slow for
the laymen whose fate it sometimes is to sit by and listen.

Before long, Emmy had a visiting-book, and was driving
about regularly in a carriage, calling upon Lady Bludyer (wife
of Major-General Sir Roger Bludyer, K. C. B., Bengal Army);
Lady Huff, wife of Sir G. Huff, Bombay ditto; Mrs. Pice,
the lady of Pice the Director, &. We are not long in using
ourselves to changes in life. That carriage came round to Gil-
lespie Street every day; that buttony boy sprang up and down
from the box with Emmy’s and Jos’s visiting cards; at stated
hours, Emmy and the carriage went for Jos to the Club, and
took him an airing; or, putting old Sedley into the vehicle,
she drove the old man round the Regent’s Park. The lady’s
maid and the chariot, the visiting-book and the buttony page,
became soon as familiar to Amelia as the humble routine of
Brompton. She accommodated herself to one as to the other.
If Fate had ordained that she should be a duchess, she would
even have done that duty, too. She was voted, in Jos’s female
society, rather a pleasing young person,—not much in her,
but pleasing, and that sort of thing.

The men, as usual, liked her artless kindness and simple,
refined demeanor. The gallant young Indian dandies at home
on furlough,—immense dandies these,—chained and mus-
tached,—driving in tearing cabs, the pillars of the theaters,
270 VANITY FAIR.

living at West End Hotels—nevertheless admired Mrs. Os-
borne, liked to bow to her carriage in the Park, and to be ad-
mitted to have the honor of paying her a morning visit. Swan-
key of the Body Guard himself, that dangerous youth, and
the greatest buck of all the Indian army now on leave, was one
day discovered by Major Dobbin téte-a-téte with Amelia and
describing the sport of pig-sticking to her with great humor
and eloquence: and he spoke afterwards of a d—d king’s of-
ficer that’s always hanging about the house,—a long, thin,
queer-looking, oldish fellow,—a dry fellow though, that took
the shine out of a man in the talking line.

~Had the Major possessed a little more personal vanity he
- would have been jealous of so dangerous a young buck as that
fascinating Bengal Captain. But Dobbin was of too simple
and generous a nature to have any doubts about Amelia. He
was glad that the young men should pay her respect; and that
others should admire her. Ever since her womanhood almost,
had she not been persecuted and undervalued? It pleased him
to see how kindness brought out her good qualities, and how
her spirits gently rose with her prosperity. Any person who
appreciated her paid a compliment to the Major’s good judg-
ment,—that is, if a man may be said to have good judgment
who is under the influence of Love’s delusion.

After Jos went to Court, which we may be sure he did as
a loyal subject of his Sovereign (showing himself in his full
court suit at the Club, whither Dobbin came to fetch him in
a very shabby old uniform), he who had always been a stanch
Loyalist and admirer of George IV. became such a tremend-
ous Tory and pillar of the State that he was for having Ame-
lia to go to a drawing-room, too. He somehow had worked
himself up to believe that he was implicated in the mainte-
nance of the public welfare, and that the Sovereign would not
be happy unless Jos Sedley and his family appeared to rally
round him at Saint James’s.

Emmy laughed. “Shall I wear the family diamonds, Jos?”
she said.

“T wish you would let me buy you some,” thought the Ma-
jor. “I should like to see any that were too good for you.”
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HBRO. 271

CHAPTER XXVII.
IN WHICH TWO LIGHTS ARE PUT OUT.

There came a day when the round of decorous pleasures and
solemn gayeties in which Mr. Jos Sedley’s family indulged
was interrupted by an event which happens in most houses.
As you ascend the staircase of your house from the drawing
towards the bedroom floors, you may have remarked
a little arch in the wall right before you, which at once gives
light to the stair which leads from the second story to the
third (where the nursery and servants’ chambers commonly
are) and serves for another purpose of utility, of which the
undertaker’s men can give you a notion. They rest the coffins
upon that arch, or pass them through it so as not to disturb
in any unseemly manner the cold tenant slumbering with-
in the black arch.

That second-floor arch in a London house, looking up and
down the well of the staircase, and commanding the main
thoroughfare by which the inhabitants are passing; by which
cook lurks down before daylight to scour her pots and pans in
the kitchen; by which young master steathily ascends, having
left his boots in the hall, and let himself in after dawn from a
jolly night at the Club; down which miss comes rustling in
fresh ribbons and spreading muslins, brilliant and beautiful,
and prepared for conquest and the ball; or master Tommy
slides, preferring the banisters for a mode of conveyance, and
disdaining danger and the stair; down which the mother is
fondly carried smiling in her strong husband’s arms, as he
steps steadily step by step, and followed by the monthly nurse,
on the day when the medical man has pronounced that the
charming patient may go down stairs; up which John lurks
to bed, yawning with a sputtering tallow candle, and to gather
up before sunrise the boots which are awaiting him in the pass-
ages;—that stair, up or down which babies are carried, old
people are helped, guests are marshaled to the ball, the parson
walks to the christening, the doctor to the sick-room, and the
undertaker’s men to the upper floor,—what a memento of
Life, Death, and Vanity it is,—that arch and stair,—if you
choose to consider it, and sit on the landing, looking up and
272 VANITY FAIR,

down the well! The doctor will come up to us too for the last
time there, my friend in motley. The nurse will look in at the
curtains, and you take no notice,—and then she will fling open
the windows for a little, and let in the air. Then they will pull
down all the front blinds of the house and live in the back
rooms,—then they will send for the lawyer and other men in
black, &e.—Your comedy and mine will have been played then
and we shall be removed, O how far, from the trumpets, and
the shouting, and the posture-making. If we are gentlefolks
they will put hatchments over our late domicile, with gilt
cherubim, and mottoes stating that there is “Quiet in Heav-
en.” Your son will new furnish the house, or perhaps let it,
and go into a more modern quarter; your name will be
among the “Members Deceased,” in the lists of your clubs
next year. However much you may be mourned, your widow
will like to have her weeds neatly made,—the cook will send or
come up to ask about dinner,—the survivor will soon bear to
look at your picture over the mantel-piece, which will present-
ly be deposed from the place of honor, to make way for the
portrait of the son who reigns.

Which of the dead are most tenderly and passionately de-
plored? Those who love the survivors the least, I believe. The
death of a child occasions a passion of grief and frantic tears,
such as your end, brother reader, will never inspire. The
death of an infant which scarce knew you, which a week’s ab-
sence from you would have caused to forget you, will strike
you down more than the loss of your closest friend, or your
first-born son, a man grown like yourself, with children of his
own. We may be harsh and stern with Judah and Simeon,—
our love and pity gushes out for Benjamin, the little one.
And if you are old, as some reader of this may be, or shall be,
—old and rich, or old and poor,—you may one day be think-
ing for yourself, “These people are very good round about me;
but they won’t grieve too much when J am gone. I am very
rich, and they want my inheritance,—or very poor, and they
are tired of supporting me.”

The period of mourning for Mrs. Sedley’s death was only
just concluded, and Jos scarcely had had time to cast off his

jack and appear in the splendid waistcoats which he loved,
when it became evident to those about Mr. Sedley that an-
other event was at hand, and that the old man was about to
go seek for his wife in the dark land whither she had pre-
ceded him. “The state of my father’s health,” Jos Sedley
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 273

solemnly remarked at the Club, “prevents me from giving my
large parties this season; but if you will come in quietly at
half past six, Chutney, my boy, and take a homely dinner with
one or two of the old set, I shall be always glad to see you.”
So Jos and his acquaintances dined and drank their claret
among themselves in silence; whilst the sands of life were
running out in the old man’s glass up stairs. The velvet-
footed butler brought them their wine; and they composed
themselves to a rubber after dinner; at which Major Dobbin
would sometimes come and take a hand; and Mrs. Osborne
would occasionally descend, when her patient above was set-
tled for the night, and had commenced one of those lightly
troubled slumbers which visit the pillow of old age.

The old man clung to his daughter during this sickness.
He would take his broths and medicines from scarcely any
other hand. To tend him became almost the sole business
of her life. Her bed was placed close by the door which op-
ened into his chamber, and she was alive at the slightest noise
or disturbance from the couch of the querulous invalid.
Though, to do him justice, he lay awake many an hour, silent,
and without stirring, unwilling to awaken his kind and vigi-
lant nurse.

He loved his daughter with more fondness now, perhaps,
than ever he had done since the days of her childhood. In
the discharge of gentle offices and kind filial duties, this sim-
ple creature shone most especially. “She walks into the room
as silently as a sunbeam,” Mr. Dobbin thought, as he saw her
passing in and out from her father’s room; a cheerful sweet-
ness lighting up her face as she moved to and fro, graceful
and noiseless. When women are brooding over their children,
or busied in a sick-room, who has not seen in their faces those
sweet angelic beams of love and pity?

A secret feud of some years’ standing was thus healed; and
with a tacit reconciliation. In these last hours, and touched
by her love and goodness, the old man forgot all his grief
against her, and wrongs which he and his wife had many a
long night debated: how she had given up everything for her
boy; how she was careless of her parents in their old age and
misfortune, and only thought of the child; how absurdly and
foolishly, impiously indeed, she took on, when George was re-
moved from her. Old Sedley forgot these charges as he was
making up his last account, and did justice to the gentle and
uncomplaining little martyr. One night when she stole into
Vol. II.—18
274 VANITY FAIR.

his room, she found him awake, when the broken old man
made his confession. “O Emmy, I’ve been thinking we were
very unkind and unjust to you,” he said, and put out his cold
and feeble hand to her. She knelt down and prayed by his
bedside, as he did too, having still hold of her hand. When
our turn comes, friend, may we have such company in our
prayers.

Perhaps as he was lying awake then, his life may have
passed before him,—his early hopeful struggles, his manly
success and prosperity, his downfall in his declining years,
and his present helpless condition,—no chance of revenge
against Fortune, which had had the better of him,—neither
name nor money to bequeath,—a spent out, bootless life of de-
feat and disappointment, and the end here! Which, I won-
der, brother reader, is the better lot, to die prosperous and
famous, or poor and disappointed? To have, and to be forced
to yield; or to sink out of life, having played and lost the
game? That must bea strange feeling, when a day of our life
comes and we say, “T’o-morrow, success or failure won’t mat-
ter much; and the sun will rise, and all the myriads of man-
kind go to their work or their pleasure as usual, but I shall be
out of the turmoil.”

So there came one morning and sunrise, when all the world
got up and set about its various works and pleasures, with the
exception of old Joseph Sedley, who was not to fight with
fortune, or to hope or scheme, any more; but to go and take
up a quiet and utterly unknown residence in a churchyard at
Brompton by the side of his old wife.

Major Dobbin, Jos, and Georgy followed his remains to
the grave, in a black cloth coach. Jos came on purpose from
the Star and Garter at Richmond, whither he retreated after
the deplorable event. He did not care to remain in the house,
with the—under the circumstances, you understand. But
Emmy stayed and did her duty as usual. She was bowed down
by no especial grief, and rather solemn than sorrowful. She
prayed that her own end might be as calm and painless, and
thought with trust and reverence of the words which she had
heard from her father during his illness, indicative of his
faith, his resignation, and his future hope.

Yes, I think that will be the better ending of the two, after
‘all. Suppose you are particularly rich and well-to-do, and say
_ on that last day, “I am very rich; I am tolerably well known;
' Ihave lived all my life in the best society, and, thank Heaven,
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 275

come of a most respectable family. I have served my King
and country with honor. I was in Parliament for several .
years, where, I may say, my speeches were listened to, and”
pretty well received. I don’t owe any man a shilling; on the
contrary, I lent my old college friend, Jack Lazarus, fifty
pounds, for which my executors will not press him. I leave
my daughters with ten thousand pounds apiece,—very good
portions for girls: I bequeath my plate and furniture, my house
in Baker Street, with a handsome jointure, to my widow for
her life; and my landed property, besides money in the funds,
and my cellar of well-selected wine in Baker Street, to my
son. I leave twenty pound a year to my valet; and I defy any
man after Iam gone to find anything against my character.” Or
suppose, on the other hand, your swan sings quite a different
sort of dirge, and you say, “I am a poor, blighted, disappointed
old fellow, and have made an utter failure through life. I
was not endowed either with brains or with good fortune, and
confess that I have committed a hundred mistakes and blund-
ers. I own to having forgotten my duty many a time. I
can’t pay what I owe. On my last bed I lie utterly helpless
and humble: and I pray forgiveness for my weakness, and
throw myself, with a contrite heart, at the feet of the Divine
Mercy.” Which of these two speeches, think you, would be~’
the best oration for your own funeral? Old Sedley made
the last; and in that humble frame of mind, and holding —
by the hand of his daughter, life and-disappointment and”
vanity sunk away from under him.

“You see,” said old Osborne to George, “what comes of
merit and industry, and judicious speculations, and that.
Look at me and my banker’s account. Look at your poor
grandfather Sedley, and his failure. And yet he was.a better
man than I was, this day twenty years,—a better man, [
should say, by ten thousand pound.” or

Beyond these people and Mr. Clapp’s family, who came
over from Brompton to pay a visit of condolence, not a sin-
gle soul alive ever cared a penny-piece about old John Sed-
ley, or remembered the existence of such a-person.

When old Osborne first heard from his friend Colonel Buck-
ler (as little Georgy has already informed us) how distin-
guished an officer Major Dobbin was, he exhibited a great deal
of scornful incredulity, and expressed his surprise how ever
such a feller as that should possess either brains or reputa-

41
276 VANITY FAIR.

tion. But he heard of the Major’s fame from various mem-
bers of his society. Sir William Dobbin had a great opinion
of his son, and narrated many stories illustrative of the
Major’s learning, valor, and estimation in the world’s opinion.
Finally, his name appeared in the lists of one or two great
parties of the nobility; and this circumstance had a prodigious
effect upon the old aristocrat of Russell Square.

The Major’s position, as guardian to Georgy, whose pos-
session had been ceded to his grandfather, rendered some meet-
ings between the two gentlemen inevitable; and it was in
one of these that old Osborne, a keen man of business, looking
into the Major’s accounts with his ward and the boy’s mother,
got a hint which staggered him very much, and at once
pained and pleased him, that it was out of William Dobbin’s
own pocket that a part of the fund had been supplied upon
which the poor widow and the child had subsisted.

When pressed upon the point, Dobbin, who could not tell
lies, blushed and stammered a good deal, and finally con-
fessed. “The marriage,” he said, (at which his interlocutor’s
face grew dark,) “was very much my doing. I thought my
poor friend had gone so far that retreat from his engagement
would have been dishonor to him, and death to Mrs. Osborne;
and I could do no less, when she was left without resources,
than give what money I could spare to maintain her.”

“Major D.,” Mr. Qsborne said, looking hard at him, and
turning very red too, “you did me a great injury; but give me
leave to tell you, sir, you are an honest feller. There’s my
hand, sir, though I little thought that my flesh and blood was
living on you.” And the pair shook hands, with great con-
fusion on Major Dobbin’s part, thus found out in his act of
charitable hypocrisy.

He strove to soften the old man, and reconcile him towards
his son’s memory. “He was such a noble fellow,” he said,
“that all of us loved him, and would have done anything for
him. I, as a young man in those days, was flattered beyond
measure by his preference for me; and was more pleased to
be seen in his company than in that of the Commander-in
Chief. I never saw his equal for pluck and daring, and all
the qualities of a soldier;’ and Dobbin told the old father as
many stories as he could remember regarding the gallantry
and achievements of his son. “And Georgy is so like him,”
the Major added.
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 277

“He’s so like him that he makes me tremble sometimes,”
the grandfather said.

On one or two evenings the Major came to dine with Mr.
Osborne (it was during the time of the sickness of Mr. Sed-
ley), and as the two sat together in the evening after dinner
all their talk was about the departed hero. The father boasted
about him according to his wont, glorifying himself in re-
counting bis son’s feats and gallantry, but his mood was at
any rate better and more charitable than that in which he had
been disposed until now to regard the poor fellow; and the
Christian heart of the kind Major was pleased at these symp-
toms of returning peace and good-will. On the second evens
ing old Osborne called Dobbin William, just as he used to do
at the time when Dobbin and George were boys together:
and the honest gentleman was pleased by that mark of recon-
ciliation.

On the next day at breakfast when Miss Osborne, with the
asperity of her age and character, ventured to make some
remark reflecting slightingly upon the Major’s appearance
or behavior, the master of the house interrupted her. “You'd
have been glad enough to git him for yourself, Miss O. But
them grapes are sour. Ha! ha! Major William is a fine
feller.”

“That he is, grandpapa,” said Georgy, approvingly: and,
going up close to the old gentleman, he took a hold of his
large gray whiskers, and laughed in his face good-humoredly
and kissed him. And he told the story at night to his mother:
who fully agreed with the boy. “Indeed he is,” she said.
“Your dear father always said so. He is one of the best
and most upright of men.” Dobbin happened to drop in
very soon after this conversation, which made Amelia blush
perhaps; and the young scape-grace increased the confusion
by telling Dobbin the other part of the story. “I say, Dob,”
he said, “there’s such an uncommon nice girl wants to marry
you. She’s plenty of tin, she wears a front, and she scolds
the servants from morning till night.”

“Who is it?” asked Dobbin.

“Tt?s Aunt O.,” the boy answered. “Grandpapa said so.
And I say, Dob, how prime it would be to have you for my
uncle.” Old Sedley’s quavering voice from the next room
at this moment weakly called for Amelia, and the laughing
ended.

That old Osborne’s mind was changing was pretty clear.
278 VANITY FAIR.

He asked George about his uncle sometimes, and laughed at
the boy’s imitation of the way in which Jos said, “God-
bless-my-soul,” and gobbled his soup. Then he said, “It’s
not respectful, sir, of you younkers to be imitating of your
relations. Miss O., when you go out a driving to-day, leave
my card upon Mr. Sedley, do you hear? There’s no quarrel
betwigst me and him anyhow.”

The card was returned, and Jos and the Major were asked
to dinner,—to a dinner the most splendid and stupid that
perhaps ever Mr. Osborne gave; every inch of the family plate
was exhibited, and the best company was asked. Mr. Sed-
ley took down Miss O. to dinner, and she was very gracious
to him; whereas she hardly spoke to the Major, who sat
apart from her, and by the side of Mr. Osborne, very timid.
Jos said, with great solemnity, it was the best turtle soup he
had ever tasted in his life; and asked Mr. Osborne where he
got his Madeira.

“Tt is some of Sedley’s wine,” whispered the butler to his
master “I’ve had it a long time and paid a good figure for it,
too,” Mr. Osborne said aloud to his guest; and then whispered
to his right-hand neighbor how he had got it “at the old chap’s
sale.”

More than once he asked the Major about—about Mrs.
George Osborne,—a theme on which the Major could be very
eloquent when he chose. He told Mr. Osborne of her suffer-
ings—of her passionate attachment to her husband, whose
memory she worshiped still,—of the tender and dutiful man-
ner in which she had supported her parents, and given up
her boy, when it seemed to her her duty todo so. “You don’t
know what she endured, sir,” said honest Dobbin, with a
tremor in his voice; “and I hope and trust you will be recon-
ciled to her. If she took your son away from you, she gave
hers to you; and however much you loved your George, de-
pend on it; she loved hers ten times more.”

“By God, you are a good feller, sir,’ was all Mr. Osborne
said. It had never struck him that the widow would feel any
pain at parting from the boy, or that his having a fine for-
tune could grieve her. A reconcilation was announced as
speedy and inevitable; and Amelia’s heart already began to
beat at the notion of the awful meeting with George’s father.

It was never, however, destined to take place. Old Sed-
ley’s lingering illness and death supervened, after which a
meeting was for some time impossible. That catastrophe and
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 279

other events may have worked upon Mr. Osborne. He was
much shaken of late, and aged, and his mind was working in-
wardly. He had sent for his lawyers, and probably changed
something in his will. The medical man who looked in pro-
nounced him shaky, agitated, and talked of a little blood and
the sea-side; but he took neither of these remedies.

One day when he should have come down to breakfast, his
servant, missing him, went into his dressing-room, and found
him lying at the foot of the dressing-table in a fit. Miss Os-
borne was apprised; the doctors were sent for; Georgy stopped
away from school; the bleeders and cuppers came. Osborne
partially regained cognizance; but never could speak again,
though he tried dreadfully once or twice, and in four days
he died. The doctors went down, and the undertaker’s men
went up the stairs; and all the shutters were shut towards the
garden in Russell Square. Bullock rushed from the City in a
hurry. “How much money had he left to that boy?—not
half surely? Surely share and share alike between the three?”
It was an agitating moment. ;

What was it that poor old man tried once or twice in vain
to say? I hope it was that he wanted to see Amelia, and be
reconciled, before he left the world, to the dear and faithful
wife of his son: it was most likely that; for his will showed
that the hatred which he had so long cherished had gone out
of his heart.

They found in the pocket of his dressing-gown the letter
with the great red seal which George had written him from
Waterloo. He had looked at the other papers too, relative
to his son, for the key of the box in which he kept them was
also in his pocket, and it was found the seals and envelopes
had been broken,—very likely on the night before the seizure,
—when the butler had taken him tea into his study, and found
him reading in the great red family Bible.

When the will was opened, it was found that half the pro-
perty was left to George, and the remainder between the two
sisters. Mr. Bullock to continue, for their joint benefit, the
affairs of the commercial house, or to go out as he thought
fit, An annuity of five hundred pounds, chargeable on
George’s property, was left to his mother, “the widow of my
beloved son, George Osborne,” who was to resume the guard-
ianship of the boy.

haa William Dobbin, my beloved son’s friend,” was ap-
pointed executor; “and as out of his kindness and bounty,
280 VANITY FAIR.

and with his own private funds, he maintained my grandson
and my son’s widow, when they were otherwise without means
of support,” (the testator went on to say,) “I hereby thank
him heartily for his love and regard for them: and beseech
him to accept such a sum as may be sufficient to purchase his
commission as a Lieutenant-Colonel, or to be disposed of in
any way he may think fit.”

When Amelia heard that her father-in-law was reconciled
to her, her heart melted, and she was grateful for the fortune
left to her. But when she heard how Georgy was restored
to her, and knew how and by whom, and how it was William’s
bounty that supported her in poverty, how it was William who
gave her her husband and her son,—O, then she sank on her
knees, and prayed for blessings on that constant and kind
heart; she bowed down and humbled herself, and kissed the
feet, as it were, of that beautiful and generous affection.

And gratitude was all that she had to pay back for such
admirable devotion and benefits,—only gratitude! If she
thought of any other return, the image of George stood up
out of the grave, and said, “You are mine, and mine only,
now and forever.”

William knew her feelings: had he not passed his whole
life in divining them?

When the nature of Mr. Osborne’s will became known to
the world, it was edifying to remark how Mrs. George Os-
borne rose in the estimation of the people forming her circle
of acquaintance. The servants of Jos’s establishment, who
used to question her humble orders, and say they would
“ask Master,” whether or not they could obey, never thought
now of that sort of appeal. The cook forgot to sneer at her
shabby old gowns (which, indeed, were quite eclipsed by that
lady’s finery when she was dressed to go to church of a
Sunday evening), the others no longer grumbled at the sound
of her bell, or delayed to answer that summons. The coach-
man, who grumbled that his ’osses should be brought out,
and his carriage made into an hospital for that old feller and
Mrs. O., drove her with the utmost alacrity now, and, trem-
bling lest he should be superseded by Mr. Osborne’s coach-
man, asked “what them there Russell Square coachmen knew
about town, and whether they was fit on a box before a lady?”
Jos’s friends, male and female, suddenly became interested
about Emmy, and cards of condolence multiplied on her hall
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 281

table. Jos himself, who had looked on her as a good-natured,
harmless pauper, to whom it was his duty to give victuals
and shelter, paid her and the rich little boy, his nephew, the
greatest respect,—was anxious that she should have change
and amusement after her troubles and trials, “poor dear girl,”
—and began to appear at the breakfast-table, and most par-
ticularly to ask how she would like to dispose of the day.

In her capacity of guardian to Georgy, she, with the consent
of the Major, her fellow-trustee, begged Miss Osborne to
live in the Russell Square house as long as ever she chose to
dwell there; but that lady, with thanks declared that she
never could think of remaining alone in that melancholy
mansion, and departed in deep mourning to Cheltenham,
with a couple of her old domestics. The rest were. liberally
paid and dismissed; the faithful old butler, whom Mrs. Os-
borne proposed to retain, resigning and preferring to invest
his savings in a public-house, where, let us hope, he was not
unprosperous. Miss Osborne not choosing to live in Russell
Square, Mrs. Osborne also, after consultation, declined to
occupy the gloomy old mansion there. The house was dis-
mantled; the rich furniture and effects, the awful chande-
liers and dreary blank mirrors packed away and hidden, the
rich rosewood drawing-room suite was muffled in straw, the
carpets were rolled up and corded, the small select library of
well-bound books was stowed into two wine-chests, and the
whole paraphernalia rolled away in several enormous vans to
the Pantechnicon, where they were to lie until George’s ma-
jority. And the great heavy dark plate-chests went off to
Messrs. Stumpy and Rowdy, to lie in the cellars of those
eminent bankers until the same period should arrive.

One day Emmy, with George in her hand, and clad in deep
sables, went to visit the deserted mansion which she had not
entered since she was a girl. The place in front was littered
with straw where the vans had been laden and rolled off. They
went into the great blank rooms, the walls of which bore the
marks where the pictures and mirrors had hung. Then they
went up the great blank stone stair-cases into the upper rooms,
into that where grandpapa died, as George said in a whisper,
and then higher still into George’s own room. The boy was
still clinging by her side, but she thought of another besides
him. She knew that it had been his father’s room as well as
his own.

She went up to one of the open windows (one of those at
282 VANITY FAIR,

which she used to gaze with a sick heart when the child was
first taken from her), and thence as she looked out she could
see, over the trees of Russell Square, the old house in which
she herself was born, and where she had passed so many happy
days of sacred youth. They all came back to her, the pleas-
ant holidays, the kind faces, the careless, joyful past times;
and the long pains and trials that had since cast her down.
She thought of these and of the man who had been her con-
stant protector, her good genius, her sole benefactor, her ten-
der and generous friend.

“Took here, mother,” said Georgy, “here’s a G. O., scratched
on the glass with a diamond; I never saw it before, I never
did it.”

“It was your father’s room long before you were born,
George,” she said, and she blushed as she kissed the boy.

She was very silent as they drove back to Richmond where
they had taken a temporary house; where the smiling law-
yers used to come bustling over to see her (and we may be
sure noted the visit in the bill); and where of course there
was a room for Major Dobbin too, who rode over frequently,
having much business to transact in behalf of his little
ward.

Georgy at this time was removed from Mr. Veal’s on an
unlimited holiday, and that gentleman was engaged to pre-
pare an inscription for a fine marble slab, to be placed up
in the Foundling under the monument of Captain George
Osborne.

The female Bullock, aunt of Georgy, although despoiled by
that little monster of one half of the sum which she ex-
pected from her father, nevertheless showed her charitable-
ness of spirit by being reconciled to the mother and the boy.
Roehampton is not far from Richmond, and one day the
chariot, with the golden Bullocks emblazoned on the panels,
and the flaccid children within, drove to Amelia’s house at
Richmond; and the Bullock family made an irruption into
the garden, where Amelia was reading a book, Jos was in an
arbor placidly dipping strawberries into wine, and the Major
in one of his Indian jackets was giving a back to Georgy,
who chose to jump over him. He went over his head, and
bounded into the little advance of Bullocks, with immense
black bows in their hats, and huge black sashes, accompanying
their mourning mamma. .
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 283

“He is just of the age for Rosa,” the fond parent thought,
and glanced towards that dear child, an unwholesome little
miss of seven years of age.

“Rosa, go and kiss your dear cousin,” Mrs. Frederick said.
“Don’t you know me, George? Iam your aunt.”

“J know you well enough,” George said; “but I don’t like
kissing, please;” and he retreated from the obedient caresses
of bis cousin,

“Take me to your dear mamma, you droll child,” Mrs. Fred-
erick said; and those ladies accordingly met, after an absence
of more than fifteen years. During Emmy’s cares and poverty
the other had never once thought about coming to see her;
but now that she was decently prosperous in the world, her
sister-in-law came to her as a matter of course.

So did numbers more. Our old friend, Miss Swartz, and
her husband came thundering over from Hampton Court, with
flaming yellow liveries, and was as impetuously fond of Ame-
lia as ever. Swartz would have liked her always if she could
have seen her. One must do her that justice. But, qwe voules-
vous? in this vast town one has not the time to go and seek
one’s friends; if they drop out of the rank they disappear,
and we march on without them. Who is ever missed in
Vanity Fair?

But so, in a word, and before the period of grief for Mr.
Osborne’s death had subsided, Emmy found herself in the
center of a very genteel circle indeed; the members of which
could not conceive that anybody belonging to it was not very
lucky. There was scarce one of the ladies that hadn’t a
relation a Peer, though the husband might be a drysalter in
the City. Some of the ladies were very blue and well in-
formed; reading Mrs. Somerville, and frequenting the Royal
Institution; others were severe and Evangelical, and held by
Exeter Hall. Emmy, it must be owned, found herself entirely
at a loss in the midst of their clavers, and suffered wofully
on the one or two occasions in which she was compelled to
accept Mrs. Frederick Bullock’s hospitalities. That lady per-
sisted in patronizing her, and determined most graciously
to form her. She found Amelia’s milliners for her, and regu-
lated her household and her manners. She drove over con-
stantly from Roehampton, and entertained her friend with
faint fashionable fiddlefaddle and feeble Court slipslop. Jos
liked to hear it, but the Major used to go off growling at the
appearance of this woman, with her twopenny gentility. He
4

284 VANITY FAIR.

went to sleep under Frederick Bullock’s bald head, after din-
ner, at one of the banker’s best parties (Fred was still anxious
that the balance of the Osborne property should be trans-
ferred from Stumpy and Rowdy’s to them), and whilst Ame-
lia, who did not know Latin, or who wrote the last crack
article in the Edinburgh, and did not in the least deplore, or
otherwise, Mr. Peel’s late extraordinary tergiversation in the
fatal Catholic Relief Bill, sat dumb amongst the ladies in the
grand drawing-room, looking out upon velvet lawns, trim
gravel walks, and glistening hot-houses.

“She seems good-natured but insipid,” said Mrs. Rowdy;
“that Major seems to be particularly épris.”

She wants ton sadly,” said Mrs. Hollyock. “My dear crea-
ture, you never will be able to form her.”

“She is dreadfully ignorant or indifferent,” said Mrs.
Glowry, with a voice as if from the grave, and a sad shake
of the head and turban. “I asked her if she thought that it
was in 1836, according to Mr. Jowls, or in 1839, according
to Mr. Wapshot, that the Pope was to fall: and she said,
‘Poor Pope! I hope not. What has he done?’ ”

“She is my brother’s widow, my dear friends,” Mrs. Fred-
erick replied, “and as such I think we’re all bound to give her
every attention and instruction on entering into the world.
You may fancy there can be no mercenary motives in those
whose disappointments are well known.”

“That poor dear Mrs. Bullock,” said Rowdy to Hollyock,
as they drove away together, “she is always scheming and
managing. She wants Mrs. Osborne’s account to be taken
from our house to hers,—and the way in which she coaxes
that boy, and makes him sit by that blear-eyed little Rosa,
is perfectly ridiculous.”

“T wish Glowry was choked with her Man of Sin and her
Battle of Armageddon,” cried the other; and the carriage
tolled away over Putney Bridge.

, ~~ But this sort of society was too cruelly genteel for Emmy:

and all jumped for joy when a foreign tour was proposed.
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 285

CHAPTER XXVIII.
AM RHEIN.

The above every-day events had occurred, and a few weeks
had passed, when, on one fine morning, Parliament being
over, the summer advanced, and all the good company in Lon-
don about to quit that city for their annual tour in search of
pleasure or health, the Batavier steamboat left the Tower-
stairs laden with a goodly company of English fugitives. The
quarter-deck awnings were up, and the benches and gang-
ways crowded with scores of rosy children, bustling nurse-
maids, ladies in the prettiest pink bonnets and summer dresses,
gentlemen in traveling caps and linen jackets, whose mus-
tachios had just begun to sprout for the ensuing tour; and
stout trim old veterans with starched neckcloths and neat-
brushed hats, such as have invaded Europe any time since the
conclusion of the war, and carry the national God-dam into
every city of the Continent. The congregation of hat-boxes
and Bramah desks and dressing-cases was prodigious. There
were jaunty young Cambridge men traveling with their tutor,
and going for a reading excursion to Nonnenwerth or Kénigs-
winter: there were Irish gentlemen, with the most dashing
whiskers and jewelry, talking about horses incessantly, and
prodigiously polite to the young ladies on board, whom, on the
contrary, the Cambridge lads and their pale-faced tutor avoid-
ed with maiden coyness: there were old Pall Mall loungers
bound for Ems and Wiesbaden, and a course of waters to
clear off the dinners of the season, and a little-roulette and
trente-et-quarante to keep the excitement going: there was
old Methuselah, who had married his young wife, with Captain
Papillon of the Guards holding her parasol and guide-books:
there was young May who was carrying off his bride on a
pleasure tour (Mrs. Winter that was, and who had been at
school with May’s grandmother); there was Sir John and
my Lady with a dozen children, and corresponding nurse-
maids; and the great grandee Bareacres family, that sat
by themselves near the wheel, stared at everybody, and spoke
to no one. Their carriages, emblazoned with coronets, and
heaped with shining imperials, were on the foredeck; locked
286 VANITY FAIR.

in with a dozen more such vehicles: it was difficult to pass
in and out amongst them: and the poor inmates of the fore-
cabin had scarcely any space for locomotion. These consisted
of a few magnificently attired gentlemen from Houndsditch,
who brought their own provisions, and could have bought half
the gay people in the grand saloon; a few honest fellows
with mustachios and portfolios, who set to sketching before
they had been half an hour on board; one or two French
Semmes de chambre who began to be dreadfully ill by the
time the boat had passed Greenwich; a groom or two who
lounged in the neighborhood of the horse-boxes under their
charge, or leaned over the side by the paddle-wheels, and
talked about who was good for the Leger, and what they
stood to win or lose for the Goodwood cup.

All the couriers, when they had done plunging about the
ship, and had settled their various masters in the cabins or on
the deck, congregated together and began to chatter and
smoke; the Hebrew gentlemen joining them and looking at the
carriages. There was Sir John’s great carriage that would hold
thirteen people; my Lord Methuselah’s carriage, my Lord
Bareacres’s chariot, britska, and fourgon, that anybody might
pay for who liked. It was a wonder how my lord got the
ready money to pay for the expenses of the journey. The
Hebrew gentlemen knew how he got it. They knew what
money his Lordship had in his pocket at that instant, and
what interest he paid for it, and who gave it him. Finally
there was a very neat, handsome traveling carriage, about
which the gentlemen speculated.

“A quit cette voiture la?” said one gentleman courier with
a large morocco money-bag and ear-rings, to another with
ear-rings and a large morocco money-bag.

“Crest & Kirsch, je bense,—je Vai vu toute & Vheure,—qui
brenort des sangviches dans la voiture,” said the courier, in a
fine German French.

Kirsch, emerging presently from the neighborhood of the
hold, where he had been bellowing instructions intermingled
with polyglot oaths to the ship’s men engaged in secreting the
passengers’ luggage, came to give an account of himself to his
brother interpreters. He informed them that the carriage be-
longed to a Nabab from Calcutta and Jamaica, enormously
rich, and with whom he was engaged to travel; and at this
moment a young gentleman who had been warned off the
bridge between the paddle-boxes, and who had dropped thence
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 287

on to the roof of Lord Methuselah’s carriage, from which
he made his way over other carriages and imperials until he
had clambered on to his own, descended thence and through
the window into the body of the carriage, to the applause of
the couriers looking on.

“ Nous allons avoir une belle traversée, Monsieur George,”
said the courier, with a grin, as he lifted his gold-laced
cap.

“D your French,” said the young gentleman, “where’s
the biscuits, ay?” Whereupon, Kirsch answered him in the
English language, or in such an imitation of it as he could
command; for, though he was familiar with all languages,
Mr. Kirsch was not acquainted with a single one, and spoke
all with indifferent volubility and incorrectness.

The imperious young gentleman who gobbled the biscuits
(and indeed it was time to refresh himself, for he had break-
fasted at Richmond full three hours before) was our young
friend George Osborne. Uncle Jos and his mamma were on
the quarter-deck with a gentleman of whom they used to
see a good deal, and the four were about to make a summer
tour.

Jos was seated at that moment on deck under the awning,
and pretty nearly opposite to the Earl of Bareacres and his
family, whose proceedings absorbed the Bengalee almost en-
tirely. Both the noble couple looked rather younger than
in the eventful year 715, when Jos remembered to have seen
them at Brussels (indeed he always gave out in India that he
was intimately acquainted with them). Lady Bareacres’s hair,
which was then dark, was now a beautiful golden auburn,
whereas Lord Bareacres’s whiskers, formerly red, were at
present of a rich black, with purple and green reflections in
the light. But, changed as they were, the movements of the
noble pair occupied Jos’s mind entirely. The presence of a
lord fascinated him, and he could look at nothing else.

“Those people seem to interest you a good deal,” said Dob-
bin, laughing and watching him. Amelia too laughed. She
was in a straw bonnet with black ribbons, and otherwise
dressed in mourning: but the little bustle and holiday of
the journey pleased and excited her, and she looked particu-
larly happy.

“What a heavenly day!” Emmy said, and added, with great
originality, “I hope we shall have a calm passage.”

Jos waved his hand, scornfully glancing at the same time

 
288 VANITY FAIR,

under his eyelids at the great folks opposite. “If you had
made the voyages we have,” he said, “you wouldn’t much
care about the weather.” But nevertheless, traveler as he
was, he passed the night direfully sick in his carriage, where
his courier tended him with brandy-and-water and every lux-
ury.

th due time this happy party landed at the quays of Rotter-
dam, whence they were transported by another steamer to
the city of Cologne. Here the carriage and the family took
to the shore, and Jos was not a little gratified to see his arrival
announced in the Cologne newspapers as “Herr Graf Lord
von Sedley nebst Begleitung aus London.” He had his court
dress with him: he had insisted that Dobbin should bring
his regimental paraphernalia; he announced that it was his
intention to be presented at some foreign courts, and pay his
respects to the Sovereigns of the countries which he honored
with a visit.

Wherever the party stopped, and an opportunity was
offered, Mr. Jos left his own card and the Major’s upon “Our
Minister.” It was with great difficulty that he could be re-
strained from putting on hig cocked hat and tights to wait
upon the English consul at the Free City of Judenstadt, when
that hospitable functionary asked our travelers to dinner.
He kept a journal of his voyage, and noted elaborately the de-
fects or excellences of the various inns at which he put up,
and of the wines and dishes of which he partook.

As for Emmy, she was very happy and pleased. Dobbin
used to carry about for her her stool and sketch-book, and
admired the drawings of the good-natured little artist, as they
had never been admired before. She sat upon steamers’ decks
and drew crags and castles, or she mounted upon donkeys and
ascended to ancient robber-towers, attended by her two aides-
de-camp, Georgy and Dobbin. She laughed, and the Major
did too, at his droll figure on donkeyback, with his long legs
touching the ground. He was the interpreter for the party,
having a good military knowledge of the German language;
and he and the delighted George fought the campaigns of the
Rhine and the Palatinate. In the course of a few weeks,
and by assiduously conversing with Herr Kirsch on the box
of the carriage, Georgy made prodigious advance in the
knowledge of High Dutch, and could talk to hotel waiters
and postilions in a way that charmed his mother, and amused
his guardian.
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO, 289

Mr. Jos did not much engage in the afternoon excursions
of his fellow-travelers. He slept a good deal after dinner, or
basked in the arbors of the pleasant inn-gardens. Pleasant
Rhine gardens! Fair scenes of peace and sunshine,—noble
purple mountains, whose crests are reflected in the magnifi-
cent stream,—who has ever seen you, that has not a grateful
memory of those scenes of friendly repose and beauty? To lay
down the pen, and even to think of that beautiful Rhineland,
makes one happy. At this time of summer evening, the cows
are trooping down from the hills, lowing and with their bells
tinkling, to the old town, with its old moats, and gates, and
spires, and chestnut-trees, with long blue shadows stretching
over the grass; the sky and the river below flame in crimson
and gold; and the moon is already out, looking pale towards
the sunset. The sun sinks behind the great castle-crested
mountains, the night falls suddenly, the river grows darker
and darker, lights quiver in it from the windows in the old
ramparts, and twinkle peacefully in the villages under the hills
on the opposite shore.

So Jos used to go to sleep a good deal with his bandanna
over his face and be very comfortable, and read all the English
news, and every word of Galignani’s admirable newspaper
(may the blessings of all Englishmen who have ever been
abroad rest on the founders and proprietors of that piratical
print!) and whether he woke or slept his friends did not very
much miss him. Yes, they were very happy. They went to
the opera often of evenings,—to those snug, unassuming,
dear old operas in the German towns, where the noblesse sits
and cries, and knits stockings on the one side, over against
the bourgeoisie on the other; and His Transparency the Duke
and his Transparent family, all very fat and good-natured,
come and occupy the great box in the middle; and the pit is
full of the most elegant slim-waisted officers with straw-col-
ored mustachios, and twopence a day on full pay. Here it was
that Emmy found her delight and was introduced for the first
time to the wonders of Mozart and Cimarosa. The Major’s
musical taste has been before alluded to, and his performances
on the flute commended. But perhaps the chief pleasure he
had in these operas was in watching Emmy’s rapture while lis-
tening to them. A new world of love and beauty broke upon
her when she was introduced to those divine compositions: this
lady had the keenest and finest sensibility, and how could she
be indifferent when she heard Mozart? The tender parts of

Vol. 1.19,
Se
\

290 VANITY FAIR,

Don Juan awakened in her raptures so exquisite that she
would ask herself, when she went to say her prayers of a night,
whether it was not wicked to feel so much delight as that with
which “Vedrai Carino” and “Batti Batti” filled her gentle lit-
tle bosom? But the Major, whom she consulted upon this head,
as her theological adviser, (and who himself had a pious and
reverent soul,) said that, for his part, every beauty of art or
nature made him thankful as well as happy; and that the
pleasure to be had in listening to fine music, as in looking at
the stars in the sky, or at a beautiful landscape or picture,
was a benefit for which we might thank Heaven as sincerely as
for any other worldly blessing. And in reply to some faint
objections of Mrs. Amelia’s (taken from certain theological
works like the “Washerwoman of Finchley Common,” and
others of that school, with which Mrs. Osborne had been furn-
ished during her life at Brompton) he told her an Eastern
fable of the Owl who thought that the sunshine was unbear-
able for the eyes, and that the Nightingale was a most over-
rated bird. “It is one’s nature to sing and the other’s to hoot,”
he said, laughing, “and with such a sweet voice as you have
yourself, you must belong to the Bulbul faction.”
I like to dwell upon this period of her life, and to think
“that she was cheerful and happy. You see she has not had too
much of that sort of existence as yet, and has not fallen in the
way of means to educate her tastes or her intelligence. She has
been domineered over hitherto by vulgar intellects. It is the
lot of many a woman. And as every one of the dear sex is the
rival of the rest of her kind, timidity passes for folly in their
charitable judgments; and gentleness for dullness; and sil-
ence,—which is but timid denial of the unwelcome assertion
of ruling folks, and tacit, protestantism,—above all, finds no
mercy at the hands of the female Inquisition. Thus, my dear
and civilized reader, if you and I were to find ourselves this
evening in a society of green-grocers, let us say, it is probable
that our conversation would not be brilliant; if, on the other
hand, a green-grocer should find himself at your refined and
polite tea-table, where everybody was saying witty things, and
everybody of fashion and repute tearing her friends to pieces
in the most delightful manner, it is possible that the stranger
would not be very talkative, and by no means interesting: or
interested.
And it must be remembered, that this poor lady had never
met a gentleman in her life until this present moment. Per-
 

 

ea

A FINE SUMMER EVENING
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 291

haps these are rarer personages than some of us think for.
Which of us can point out many such in his circle,—men-~”
whose aims are generous, whose truth is constant, and not" ’
only constant in its kind, but elevated in its degree; whose
want of meanness makes them simple; who can look the world” |
honestly in the face with an equal manly sympathy for the’
great and the small? We all know a hundred whose coats are
very well made, and a score who have excellent manners, and
one or two happy beings who are what they call in the inner
circles, and have shot into the very center and bull’s eye of,.--
the fashion, but of gentlemen how many? Let us take a lit- ™
tle scrap of paper and each make out his list.

My friend the Major I write, without any doubt, in mine.
He had very long legs, a yellow face, and a slight lisp, which
at first was rather ridiculous. But his thoughts were just, his
brains were fairly good, his life was honest and pure, and his
heart warm and humble. He certainly had very large hands
and feet, which the two George Osbornes used to caricature
and laugh at; and their jeers and laughter perhaps led poor
little Emmy astray as to his worth. But have we not all been
misled about our heroes, and changed our opinions a hundred
times? Emmy, in this happy time, found that hers underwent
a very great change in respect of the merits of the Major.

Perhaps it was the happiest time of both their lives indeed,
if they did but know it,—and who does? Which of us can point
out and say that was the culmination—that was the summit
of human joy? But at all events this couple were very de-
cently contented, and enjoyed as pleasant a summer tour as
any pair that left England that year. Georgy was always pres-
ent at the play, but it was the Major who put Emmy’s shawl
on after the entertainment; and in the walks and excursions
the young lad would be on ahead, and up a tower-stair or a
tree, whilst the soberer couple were below, the Major smoking
his cigar with great placidity and constancy, whilst Emmy
sketched the site or the ruin. It was on this very tour that I,
the present writer of a history of which every word is true,
had the pleasure to see them first, and to make their ac-
quaintance.

It was at the little comfortable Ducal town of Pump-
ernickel (that very place where Sir Pitt Crawley had been so
distinguished as an attaché; but that was in early, early days,
and before the news of the battle of Austerlitz sent all the

42
892 VANITY FAIR.

English diplomatists in Germany to the right about) that I
first saw Colonel Dobbin and his party. They had arrived with
the carriage and courier at the Erbprinz Hotel, the best of the
town, and the whole party dined at the table d@’héte. Every-
body remarked the majesty of Jos, and the knowing way in
which he sipped, or rather sucked, the Johannisberger, which
he ordered for dinner. The little boy, too, we observed, had a
famous appetite, and consumed schinken, and braten, and
kartoffeln, and cranberry jam, and salad, and pudding, and
roast fowls, and sweat-meats with a gallantry that did honor
to his nation. After about fifteen dishes, he concluded the re-
past with dessert, some of which he even carried out of doors;
for some young gentlemen at table, amused with his coolness
and gallant free and easy manner, induced him to pocket a
handful of macaroons, which he discussed on his way to the
theater, whither everybody went in the cheery social little Ger-
man place. The lady in black, the boy’s mamma, laughed and
blushed, and looked exceedingly pleased and shy as the dinner
went on, and at the various feats and instances of espiéglerie
on the part of her son. The Colonel,—for so he became very
soon afterwards, I remember, joked the boy with a great deal
of grave fun, pointing out dishes which he hadn’t tried, and
entreating him not to balk his appetite, but to have a second
supply of this or that.

It was what they called a gast-rolle night at the Royal Grand
Ducal Pumpernickelisch Hof,—or Court theater; and Madame
Schroeder Devrient, then in the bloom of her beauty and
genius, performed the part of the heroine in the wonderful
opera of Fidelio. From our places in the stalls we could see
our four friends of the table d’héte, in the loge which
Schwendler of the Erbprinz kept for his best guests: and I
could not help remarking the effect which the magnificent
actress and music produced upon Mrs. Osborne, for so we heard
the stout gentleman in the mustachios call her. During the
astonishing Chorus of the Prisoners over which the delightful
voice of the actress rose and soared in the most ravishing har-
mony, the English lady’s face wore such an expression of
wonder and delight that it struck even little Fipps, the blasé
attaché, who drawled out, as he fixed his glass upon her,
“Gayd, it really. does one good to see a woman caypable of that
stayt of excaytement.” And in the Prison Scene where Fi-
delio, rushing to her husband, cries, “Nichts, nichts, mein
Florestan,” she fairly lost herself and covered her face witl
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO, 293

her handkerchief. Every woman in the house was sniveling
at the time: but I suppose it was because it was predestined
that I was to write this particular lady’s memoirs that I re-
marked her.

The next day they gave another piece of Beethoven. “Die
Schlacht bei Vittoria.” Malbrook is introduced at the be-
ginning of the performance, as indicative of the brisk advance
of the French Army. Then come drums, trumpets, thunders
of artillery, and groans of the dying, and at last in a grand
triumphant swell, “God save the King” is performed.

There may have been a score of Englishmen in the house,
but at the burst of that beloved and well-known music, every
one of them, we young fellows in the stalls, Sir John and
Lady Bullminster (who had taken a house at Pumpernickel
for the education of their nine children), the fat gentleman
with the mustachios, the long Major in white duck trousers,
and the lady with the little boy upon whom he was so sweet,
even Kirsch, the courier in the gallery, stood bolt upright in
their places, and proclaimed themselves to be members of the
dear old British nation. As for Tapeworm, the Chargé d’
Affaires, he rose up in his box and bowed and simpered, as if
he would represent the whole empire. Tapeworm was nephew
and heir of old Marshal Tiptoff, who has been introduced in
this story as General Tiptoft, just before Waterloo, who was
Colonel of the —th regiment in which Major Dobbin served,
and who died in this vear full of honors, and of an aspie of
plover’s eggs; when the regiment was graciously given by
his Majesty to Colonel Sir Michael O’Dowd, K.C.B., who
had commanded it in many glorious fields.

Tapeworm must have met with Colonel Dobbin at the house
of the Colonel’s Colonel, the Marshal, for he recognized him
on this night at the theater; and with the utmost condescen-
sion his Majesty’s minister came over from his own box, and
publicly shook hands with his new-found friend.

“Look at that infernal sly boots of a Tapeworm,” Fipps
whispered, examining his chief from the stalls. “Wherever
there’s a pretty woman he always twists himself in” And
I wonder what were diplomatists made for but for that?

“Have I the honor of addressing myself to Mrs. Dobbin?”
asked the Secretary, with a most insinuating grin.

Georgy burst out laughing, and said, “By Jove, that is a
good un.” Emmy and the Major blushed: we saw them
from the stalls.
294 VANITY FAIR.

“This lady is Mrs. George Osborne,” said the Major, “and
this is her brother, Mr. Sedley, a distinguished officer of the
Bengal Civil Service: permit me to introduce him to your
Lordship.”

My Lord nearly sent Jos off his legs, with the most fascina-
ting smile. “Are you going to stop in Pumpernickel?’ he
said. “It is a dull place: but we want some nice people, and
we would try and make it so agreeable to you. Mr.—Ahum
—Mrs.—Oho. I shall do myself the honor of calling upon
you to-morrow at your inn.”—And he went away with a
Parthian grin and glance, which he thought must finish Mrs.
Osborne completely.

The performance over, the young fellows lounged about the
lobbies, and we saw the society take its departure. The Duch-
ess Dowager went off in her jingling old coach, attended by
two faithful and withered old maids of honor, and a little
snuffy spindle-shanked gentleman in waiting, in a brown
jasey and a green coat covered with orders,—of which the
star and the grand yellow cordon of the order of St. Michael
of Pumpernickel was most conspicuous. The drums rolled,
the guards saluted, and the old carriage drove away.

Then came his Transparency the Duke and Transparent
family, with his great officers of state and household. He
bowed serenely to everybody. And amid the saluting of the
guards, and the flaring of the torches of the running foot-
men clad in scarlet, the Transparent carriages drove away
to the old Ducal Schloss, with its towers and pinnacles stand-
ing on the Schlossberg. Everybody in Pumpernickel knew
everybody. No sooner was a foreigner seen there, than the
Minister of Foreign Affairs, or some other great or small
officer of state, went round to the Erbprinz, and found out
the name of the new arrivals.

We watched them, too, out of the theater. Tapeworm had
just walked off, enveloped in his cloak, with which his gigantic
chasseur was always in attendance, and looking as much as
possible like Don Juan. The Prime Minister’s lady had just
squeezed herself into her sedan, and her daughter, the charm-
ing Ida, had put on her calash and clogs: when the English
party came out, the boy yawning drearily, the Major taking
great pains in keeping the shawl over Mrs. Osborne’s head,
and Mr. Sedley looking grand, with a crush opera-hat on one
side of his head, and his hand in the stomach of a voluminous
white waist-coat. We took off our hats to our acquaintances
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 295

of the table d’hdte, and the lady, in return, presented us
with a little smile and a courtesy, for which everybody might
be thankful.

The carriage from the inn, under the superintendence of
the bustling Mr. Kirsch, was in waiting to convey the party;
but the fat man said he would walk, and smoke his cigar on
his way homewards; so the other three, with nods and smiles
to us, went without Mr. Sedley. Kirsch, with the cigar-case,
following in his master’s wake.

We all walked together, and talked to the stout gentleman
about the agrémens of the place. It was very agreeable for
the English. There were shooting-parties and battues; there
was a plenty of balls and entertainments at the hospitable
Court; the society was generally good; the theater excellent,
and the living cheap.

“And our Minister seems a most delightful and affable per-
son,” our new friend said. “With such a representative, and
——and a good medical man, I can fancy the place to be most
eligible. Good night, gentlemen.” And Jos creaked up the
stairs to bedward, followed by Kirsch with a flambeau. We
rather hoped that nice-looking woman would be induced to
stay some time in the town.

CHAPTER XXIX.

IN WHICH WE MEET AN OLD ACQUAINTANCE.

Such polite behavior as that of Lord Tapeworm did not
fail to have the most favorable effect upon Mr. Sedley’s mind,
and the very next morning, at breakfast, he pronounced his
opinion that Pumpernickel was the pleasantest little place of
any which he had visited on their tour. Jos’s motives and
artifices were not very difficult of comprehension: and Dob-
bin laughed in his sleeve, like a hypocrite as he was, when
he found, by the knowing air of the Civilian and the off-
hand manner in which the latter talked about Tapeworm
Castle, and the other members of the family, that Jos had
been up already in the morning, consulting his traveling
Peerage. Yes, he had seen the Right Honorable the Earl
of Bagwig, his Lordship’s father; he was sure he had, he had
met him at—at the Levee,—didn’t Dob remember? and when
296 VANITY FAIR,

the Diplomatist called on the party, faithful to his promise,
Jos received him with such a salute and honors as were sel-
dom accorded to the little Envoy. He winked at Kirsch on
his Excellency’s arrival, and that emissary, instructed before-
hand, went out and superintended an entertainment of cold
meats, jellies, and other delicacies, brought in upon trays, and
of which Mr. Jos absolutely insisted that his noble guest
should partake.

Tapeworm, so long as he could have an opportunity of ad-
miring the bright eyes of Mrs. Osborne (whose freshness of
complexion bore daylight remarkably well) was not ill pleased
to accept any invitation to stay in Mr. Sedley’s lodgings; he
put one or two dexterous questions to him about hidia and
the dancing-girls there; asked Amelia about that beautiful
boy who had been with her, and complimented the astonished
little woman upon the prodigious sensation which she had
made in the house; and tried to fascinate Dobbin by talk-
ing of the late war, and the exploits of the Pumpernickel con-
tingent under the command of the Hereditary Prince, now
Duke of Pumpernickel.

Lord Tapeworm inherited no little portion of the family
gallantry, and it was his happy belief that almost every woman
upon whom he himself cast friendly eyes was in love with
him. He left Emmy under the persuasion that she was slain
by his wit and attractions, and went home to his lodgings
to write a pretty little note to her. She was not fascinated;
only puzzled by his grinning, his simpering, his scented
cambric handkerchief, and his high-heeled lacquered boots.
She did not understand one half the compliments which he
paid; she had never, in her small experience of mankind,
met a professional lady’s man as yet, and looked upon my
Lord as something curious rather than pleasant; and if she
did not admire, certainly wondered at him. Jos, on the
contrary, was delighted. “How very affable his Lordship is,”
he said; “how very kind of his Lordship to say he would send
his medical man! Kirsch, you will carry our cards to the
Count de Schliisselback directly; the Major and I will have
the greatest pleasure in paying our respects at court as soon
as possible. Put out my uniform, Kirsch,—both our uni-
forms. It is a mark of politeness which every English gentle-
man ought to show to the countries which he visits, to pay his
respects to the sovereigns of those countries as to the repre-
sentatives of his own.”
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HBRO, 297

When Tapeworm’s doctor came, Doctor von Glauber, Body
Physician to H. S. H. the Duke, he speedily convinced Jos
that the Pumpernickel mineral springs and the Doctor’s par-
ticular treatment would infallibly restore the Bengalee to
youth and slimness. “Dere came here last year,” he said,
“Sheneral Bulkeley, an English Sheneral, tvice so pic as you,
sir. I sent him back qvite tin after tree months, and he danced
vid Baroness Glauber at the end of two.”

Jos’s mind was made up, the springs, the doctor, the court,
and the Chargé d’Affaires convinced him, and he proposed to
spend the autumn in these delightful quarters. And, punc-.
tual to his word, on the next day the Chargé d’Affaires pre-
sented Jos and the Major to Victor Aurelius XVII., being
conducted to their audience with that sovereign by the Count
de Schliisselback, Marshal of the court.

They were straightway invited to dinner at court, and their
intention of staying in the town being announced, the politest
ladies of the whole town instantly called upon Mrs. Osborne;
and as not one of these, however poor they might be, was
under the rank of a Baroness, Jos’s delight was beyond ex-
pression. He wrote off to Chutney at the Club to say that
the Service was highly appreciated in Germany, that he was
going to show his friend, the Count de Schliisselback, how to
stick a pig in the Indian fashion, and that his august friends,
the Duke and Duchess, were everything that was kind and
civil.

Emmy, too, was presented to the august family, and as
mourning is not admitted in Court on certain days, she
appeared in a pink crape dress, with a diamond ornament in
the corsage, presented to her by her brother, and she looked
so pretty in this costume that the Duke and Court (putting
out of the question the Major, who had scarcely ever seen
her before in an evening dress, and vowed that she did not
look five-and-twenty) all admired her excessively.

In this dress she walked a Polonaise with Major Dobbin at
a Court ball, in which easy dance Mr. Jos had the honor of
leading out the Countess of Schliisselback, an old lady with a
humpback, but with sixteen good quarters of nobility, and re-
lated to half the royal houses of Germany.

Pumpernickel stands in the midst of a happy valley, through
which sparkles—to mingle with the Rhine somewhere, but I
have not the map at hand to say exactly at what point—
the fertilizing stream of the Pump. In some places the river
298 VANITY FAIR.

is big enough to support a ferry-boat, in others to turn a mill;
in Pumpernickel itself, the last Transparency but three, the
great and renowned Victor Aurelius XIV. built a magnificent
bridge, on which his own statue rises, surrounded by
water-nymphs and emblems of victory, peace, and plenty;
he has his foot on the neck of a prostrate Turk,—
history says he engaged and ran a Janissary through
the body at the relief of Vienna by Sobieski,—but, quite un-
disturbed by the agonies of that prostrate Mahometan, who
writhes at his feet in the most ghastly manner, the Prince
smiles blandly, and points with his truncheon in the direc-
tion of the Aurelius Platz, where he began to erect a new
palace that would have been the wonder of his age had the
great-souled Prince but funds to complete it. But the com-
pletion of Monplaisir (Mondblaisir the honest German folks
call it) was stopped for lack of ready money, and it and its
park and garden are now in rather a faded condition, and
not more than ten times big enough to accommodate the court
of the reigning Sovereign.

The gardens were arranged to emulate those of Versailles,
and amidst the terraces and groves there are some huge alle-
gorical water-works still, which spout and froth stupendously
upon féte-days, and frighten one with their enormous aquatic
insurrections. There is the Trophonius’ cave in which, by
some artifice, the leaden T'ritons are made not only to spout
water, but to play the most dreadful groans out of their lead
conchs,—there is the Nymph-bath and the Niagara cataract,
which the people of the neighborhood admire beyond expres-
sion, when they come to the yearly fair at the opening of
the Chamber, or to the fétes with which the happy little na-
tion -still celebrates the birthdays and marriage-days of its
princely governors.

‘Then from all the towns of the Duchy, which stretches
for nearly ten miles,—from Bolkum, which lies on its. west-
ern frontier bidding defiance to Prussia; from Grogwitz where
the Prince has a hunting-lodge, and where his dominions are
separated by the Pump River from those of the neighboring
Prince of Potzenthal; from all the little villages, which, be-
sides these three great cities, dot over the happy principality,
—from the farms and the mills along the Pump, come troops
of people in red petticoats and velvet head-dresses, or with
three-cornered hats and pipes in their mouths, who flock to
the Residenz and share in the pleasures of the fair. and the
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 299

festivities there. Then the theater is open for nothing, then
the waters of Monblaisir begin to play (it is lucky that there
is company to behold them, for one would be afraid to see
them alone),—then there come mountebanks and riding troops
(the way in which his Transparency was fascinated by one
of the horse-riders is well known, and it is believed that La
Petite Vivanditre. as she was called, was a spy in the French
interest), and the delighted people are permitted to march
through room after room of the Grand Ducal palace, and ad-
mire the slippery floor, the rich hangings, and the spittoons
at the doors of all the innumerable chambers. There is one
Pavilion at Monblaisir which Aurelius Victor XV. had ar-
ranged,—a great Prince, but too fond of pleasure,—and
which, I am told, is a perfect wonder of licentious elegance.
It is painted with the story of Bacchus and Ariadne, and the
table works in and out of the room by means of a windlass,
so that the company was served without any intervention of
domestics. But the place was shut up by Barbara, Aurelius
XV.’s widow, a severe and devout Princess of the House of
Bolkum and Regent of the Duchy during her son’s glorious
minority, and after the death of her husband, cut off in the
pride of his pleasures.

The theater of Pumpernickel is known and famous in that
quarter of Germany. It languished a little when the present
Duke in his youth insisted upon having his own operas played
there, and it is said one day, in a fury from his place in the
orchestra, when he attended a rehearsal, broke a bassoon on
the head of the Chapel Master, who was conducting, and led
too slow; and during which time the Duchess Sophia wrote
domestic comedies which must have been very dreary to wit-
ness. But the Prince executes his music in private now, and
the Duchess only gives away her plays to the foreigners of dis-
tinction who visit her kind little court.

It is conducted with no small comfort and splendor. When
there are balls, though there may be four hundred people at
supper, there is a servant in scarlet and lace to attend upon
every four, and every one is served on silver. There are festi-
vals and entertainments going continually on; and the Duke
has his chamberlains and equerries, and the Duchess her
mistress of the wardrobe and ladies of honor, just like any
other and more potent potentates.

The Constitution is or was a moderate despotism, tempered
by a chamber that might or might not be elected. J never
300 VANITY FAIR,

certainly could hear of its sitting in my time at Pumpernickel.
The Prime Minister had lodgings in a second floor; and the
Foreign Secretary occupied the comfortable lodgings over
Zwieback’s Conditorey. The army consisted of a magnificent
band that also did duty on the stage, where it was quite pleas-
ant to see the worthy fellows marching in Turkish dresses
with rouge on and wooden scimitars, or as Roman warriors
with ophicleides and trombones,—to see them again, I say, at
night, after one had listened to them all the morning in the
Aurelius Platz, where they performed opposite the Café where
we breakfasted. Besides the band, there was a rich and
numerous staff of officers, and, I believe, a few men. Besides
the regular sentries, three or four men, habited as hussars,
used to do duty at the Palace, but I never saw them on
horseback, and au fait, what was the use of cavalry in a time
of profound peace? and whither the deuce should the hus-
sars ride?

Everybody—everybody that was noble of course, for as for
the bourgeois we could not quite be expected to take notice
of them—visited his neighbor. H. E. Madame de Burst re-
ceived once a week, H. E. Madame de Schnurrbart had her
night, the theater was open twice a week, the court graciously
received once, so that a man’s life might in fact be a per-
fect round of pleasure in the unpretending Pumpernickel
way.

That there were feuds in the place, no one can deny.
Politics ran very high at Pumpernickel, and parties were very
bitter. There was the Strumpff faction and the Lederlung
party, the one supported by our Envoy and the other by the
French Chargé d’Affaires, M. de Macabau. Indeed it sufficed
for our Minister to stand up for Madame Strumpff, who was
clearly the greatest singer of the two, and had three more
notes in her voice than Madame Lederlung her rival,—it
sufficed, I say, for our Minister to advance any opinion, to
have it instantly contradicted by the French diplomatist.

Everybody in the town was ranged in one or other of these
factions. The Lederlung was a prettyish little creature cer-
tainly, and her voice (what there was of it) was very sweet,
and there is no doubt that the Strumpff was not in her first
youth and beauty, and certainly too stout; when she came
on in the last scene of the Sonnambula, for instance, in her
night-chemise, with a lamp in her hand, and had to go out
of the window, and pass over the plank of the mill, it was
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO, 301

all she could do to squeeze out of the window, and the plank
used to bend and creak again under her weight; but how she
poured out the finale of the opera! and with what a burst of
feeling she rushed into Elvino’s arms,—almost fit to smother
him! Whereas the little Lederlung—but a truce to this gossip
—the fact is, that these two women were the two flags of the
French and the English party at Pumpernickel, and the society
was divided in its allegiance to those two great nations.

We had on our side the Home Minister, the Master of the
Horse, the Duke’s Private Secretary, and the Prince’s Tutor;
whereas of the French party were the Foreign Minister, the
Commander-in-chief’s lady, who had served under Napoleon,
and the Hof-Marschall and his wife, who was glad enough
to get the fashions from Paris, and always had them and
her caps by M. de Macabau’s courier. The Secretary of his
Chancery was little Grignac, a young fellow, as malicious as
Satan, and who made caricatures of Tapeworm in all the al-
bums of the place.

Their head-quarters and table d’héte were established at
the Pariser Hof, the other inn of the town; and though, of
tourse, these gentlemen were obliged to be civil in public, yet
they cut at each other with epigrams that were as sharp as
razors, as I have seen a couple of wrestlers in Devonshire,
lashing at each other’s shins, and never showing their agony
upon a muscle of their faces. Neither Tapeworm nor Maca-
bau ever sent home a despatch to his government, without a
most savage series of attacks upon his rival. For instance,
on our side we would write, “The interests of Great Britain in
this place, and throughout the whole of Germany, are periled
by the continuance in office of the present French Envoy;
this man is of a character so infamous that he will stick at no
falsehood, or hesitate at no crime, to attain his ends. He
poisons the mind of the Court against the English Minister,
represents the conduct of Great Britain in the most odious
and atrocious light, and is unhappily backed by a minister
whose ignorance and necessities are as notorious as his in-
fluence is fatal.” On their side they would say, “M. de Tape-
worm continues his system of stupid insular arrogance and
vulgar falsehood against the greatest nation in the world.
Yesterday he was heard to speak lightly of Her Royal High-
ness Madame the Duchess of Berri; on a former occasion
he insulted the heroic Duke of Angouléme, and dared to
insinuate that H, R, H, the Duke of Orleans was conspiring
302 VANITY FAIR.

against the august throne of the lilies. His gold is prodigated
in every direction which his stupid menaces fail to frighten.
By one and the other, he has won over creatures of the court
here,—and, in fine, Pumpernickel will not be quiet, Germany
tranquil, France respected, or Europe content, until this
poisonous viper be crushed under heel;” and so on. When
one side or the other had written any particularly spicy
despatch, news of it was sure to slip out.

Before the winter was far advanced it is actually on record
that Emmy took a night and received company with great
propriety and modesty. She had a French master who com-
plimented her upon the purity of her accent and her facility
of learning; the fact is she had learned Jong ago, and grounded
herself subsequently in the grammer so as to be able to teach
it to George; and Madame Strumpff came to give her lessons
in singing, which she performed so well, and with such a true
voice, that the Major’s windows, who had lodgings opposite
under the Prime Minister, were always open to hear the lesson.
Some of the German ladies, who are very sentimental and sim-
ple in their tastes, fell in love with her and began to call her
du at once. These are trivial details, but they relate to happy
times. The Major made himself George’s tutor, and read
Caesar and mathematics with him, and they had a German
master, and rode out of evenings by the side of Emmy’s car-
riage,—she was always too timid, and made a dreadful out-
cry at the slightest disturbance on horseback. So she drove
about with one of her dear German friends, and Jos asleep on
the back seat of the barouche.

He was becoming very sweet upon the Griafinn Fanny de
Butterbrod, a very gentle, tender-hearted, and unassuming
young creature, a Canoness and Countess in her own right, but
with scarcely ten pounds per year to her fortune, and Fanny
for her part declared that to be Amelia’s sister was the great-
est delight that heaven could bestow on her, and Jos might
have put a Countess’s shield and coronet by the side of his
own arms on his carriage and forks; when—when events
occurred, and those grand fétes given upon the marriage of
the Hereditary Prince of Pumpernickel with the lovely Prin-
cess Amelia of Humbourg-Schlippenschloppen took place.

At this festival the magnificence displayed was such as had
not been known in the little German place since the days
of the prodigal Victor XIV. All the neighboring Princes,
Princesses, and Grandees were invited to the feast. Beds rose
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 308

to half a crown per night in Pumpernickel, and the army
was exhausted in providing guards of honor for the High-
nesses, Serenities, and Excellencies, who arrived from all quar-
ters. The Princess was married by proxy, at her father’s
residence, by the Count de Schliisselback. Snuff-boxes were
given away in profusion (as we learned from the court-jeweler,
who sold and afterwards bought them again), and bushels
of the Order of Saint Michael of Pumpernickel were sent to
the nobles of the Court, while hampers of the cordons and
decorations of the Wheel of St. Catherine of Schlippenschlop-
pen were brought to ours. The French Envoy got both. “He
is covered with ribbons like a prize cart-horse,” Tapeworm
said, who was not allowed by the rules of his service to take
any decorations: “Let him have the cordons; but with whom
is the victory?” The fact is, it was a triumph of British
diplomacy: the French party having proposed and tried their
utmost to carry a marriage with a princess of the house of
Potztausend-Donnerwetter, whom, as a matter of course, we
opposed.

Everybody was asked to the fétes of the marriage. Gar-
lands and triumphal arches were hung across the road to wel-
come the young bride. The great Saint Michael’s Fountain
ran with uncommonly sour wine, while that in the Artillery
Place frothed with beer. The great waters played; and poles
were put up in the park and gardens for the happy peasantry,
which they might climb at their leisure, carrying off watcher,
silver forks, prize sausages hung with pink ribbon, &c., at
the top. Georgy got one, wrenching it off, having swarmed up
the pole to the delight of the spectators, and sliding down
with the rapidity of a fall of water. But it was for the glory’:
sake merely. The boy gave the sausage to a peasant, who had
very nearly seized it, and stood at the foot of the mast, blub-
bering because he was unsuccessful.

At the French Chancellerie they had six more lampions in
their illumination than ours had; but our transparency, which
represented the young Couple advancing, and Discord flying
away, with the most ludicrous likeness to the French Am-
bassador, beat the French picture hollow; and I have no
doubt got Tapeworm the advancement and the Cross of the
Bath, which he subsequently attained.

Crowds of foreigners arrived for the fétes: and of English,
of course. Besides the court balls, public balls were given
at the Town Hall and the Redoute, and in the former place
304 VANITY FAIR.

there was a room for ¢trente-et-quarante and roulette estab-
lished, for the week of the festivities only, and by one of the
great German companies from Ems or Aix-la-Chapelle. The
officers or inhabitants of the town were not allowed to play
at these games, but strangers, peasants, ladies, were admitted,
and any one who chose to lose or win money.

That little scapegrace, Georgy Osborne, amongst others,
whose pockets were always full of dollars, and whose relations
were away at the grand festival of the court, came to the
Stadthaus ball in company of his uncle’s courier, Mr. Kirsch,
and having only peeped into a play-room at Baden-Baden
when he hung on Dobbin’s arm, and where, of course, he
was not permitted to gamble, came eagerly to this part of the
entertainment, and hankered round the tables where the crou-
piers and the punters were at work. Women were playing;
they were masked, some of them; this license was allowed in
these wild times of carnival.

A woman with light hair, in a low dress, by no means so
fresh as it had been, and with black mask on, through the
eyelets of which her eyes twinkled strangely, was seated at one
of the roulette-tables with a card and a pin, and a couple of
florins before her. As the croupier called out the color and
number, she pricked on the card with great care and regu-
larity, and only ventured her money on the colors after the
red or black had come up a certain number of times. It was
strange to look at her.

But in spite of her care and assiduity she guessed wrong,
and the last two florins followed each other under the crou-
pier’s rake, as he cried out, with his inexorable voice, the
winning color and number. She gave a sigh, a shrug with her
shoulders, which were already too much out of her gown, and,
dashing the pin through the card on to the table, sat thrum-
ming it for a while. Then she looked round her, and saw
Georgy’s honest face staring at the scene. The little scamp!
what business had he to be there?

When she saw the boy, at whose face she looked hard
through her shining eyes and mask, she said, “ Monsieur nes’t
bas joueur?”

“Non, Madame,” said the boy; but she must have known
from his accent of what country he was, for she answered him
with a slight foreign tone. “You have nevare played,—will
you do me a littl’ favor?”

“What is it?’ said Georgy, blushing again. Mr. Kirsch
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 305

was at work for his part at the rouge e¢ noir, and did not see
his young master.

“Play this for me, if you please, put it on any number, any
number.” And she took from her bosom a purse, and out of
it a gold piece, the only coin there, and she put in into
George’s hand. The boy laughed, and did as he was bid.

The number came up, sure enough. There is a power that
arranges that, they say, for beginners.

“Thank you,” said she, pulling the money towards her;
“thank you. What is your name?”

“My name’s Osborne,” said Georgy, and was fingering in
his own pockets for dollars, and just about to make a trial,
when the Major, in his uniform, and Jos en Marquis, from the
court ball, made their appearance. Other people finding the
entertainment stupid, and preferring the fun at the Stadthaus,
had quitted the palace ball earlier; but it is probable the
Major and Jos had gone home and found the boy’s absence,
for the former instantly went up to him, and, taking him by
the shoulder, pulled him briskly back from the place of temp-
tation. Then, looking round the room, he saw Kirsch em-
ployed as we have said, and, going up to him, asked how he
dared to bring Mr. George to such a place.

<<‘ Laissez-mot tranqutlle,” said Mr. Kirsch, very much: ex-
cited by play and wine. ‘Ji faut s’amuser parbleu. Jene
suis pas aw service de Monsieur.”

Seeing his condition, the Major did not choose to argue
with the man; but contented himself with drawing away
George, and asking Jos if he wculd come away. He was stand-
ing close by the lady in the mask, who was playing with
pretty good luck now; and looking on much interested at the

ame.

“Hadn’t you better come, Jos,’ the Major said, “with
George and me?” '

“P]l stop and go home with that rascal, Kirsch,” Jos said;
and for the same reason of modesty, which he thought ought
to be preserved before the boy, Dobbin did not care to re-
monstrate with Jos, but left him and walked home with
Georgy.

“Did you play?” asked the Major, when they were out, and
on their way home.

The boy said, “No.”

“Give me your word of honor as a gentleman that you never
will.”

Vol. 11.20
306 VANITY FAIR.

“Why?” said the boy; “it seems very good fun.” And, in
a very eloquent and impressive manner, the Major showed
him why he shouldn’t, and would have enforced his precepts
by the example of Georgy’s own father, had he liked to say
anything that should reflect on the other’s memory. When
he had housed him he went to bed, and saw his light, in the
little room outside of Amelia’s, presently disappear. Amelia’s
followed half an hour afterwards. I don’t know what made
the Major note it so accurately.

Jos, however, remained behind over the play-table; he was
no gambler, but not averse to the little excitement of the sport
now and then; and he had some Napoleons chinking in the
embroidered pockets of his court waist-coat. He put down one
over the fair shoulder of the little gambler before him, and
they won. She made a little movement to make room for
him by her side, and just took the skirt of her gown from a
vacant chair there.

“Come and give me good luck,” she said, still in a foreign
accent, quite different from that frank and perfectly English
“Thank you,” with which she had saluted George’s coup in
her favor. The portly gentleman, looking round to see that
nobody of rank observed him, sat down; he muttered,—“Ah,
really, well now, God bless my soul. I’m very fortunate; [’m
sure to give you good fortune,” and other words of compliment
and confusion.

“Do you play much?” the foreign mask said.

“T put a Nap or two down,” said Jos, with a superb air,
flinging down a gold piece.

“Yes; ay, nap after dinner,’ said the mask, archly. But
Jos looking frightened, she continued, in her pretty French
accent, “You do not play to win. No more do I. I play to
forget, but I cannot. I cannot forget old times, Monsieur.
Your little nephew is the image of his father; and you,—
you are not changed,—but yes, you are. Everybody changes,
everybody forgets; nobody has any heart.”

“Good God, who is it?” asked Jos, in a flutter.

“Can’t you guess, Joseph Sedley?” said the little woman,
in a sad voice, and undoing her mask she looked at him.
“You have forgotten me.”

“Good Heavens! Mrs. Crawley!” gasped out Jos.

“Rebecca,” said the other, putting her hand on his; but
a followed the game still, all the time she was looking at

im,
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 307

“T am stopping at the Elephant,” she continued. “Ask
for Madame de Raudon. I saw my dear Amelia to-day; how
pretty she looked, and how happy! So do you! Everybody
but me, who am wretched, Joseph Sedley.” And she put
her money over from the red to the black, as if by a chance
movement of her hand, and while she was wiping her eyes
with a pocket-handkerchief fringed with torn lace.

The red came up again, and she lost the whole of that
stake. “Come away,” she said. “Come with me a little,—
we are old friends, are we not, dear Mr. Sedley?”

And Mr. Kirsch, having lost all his money by this time,
followed his master out into the moonlight, where the illu-
minations were winking out, and the transparency over our
mission was scarcely visible.

CHAPTER XXX.
A VAGABOND CHAPTER.

We must pass a part of Mrs. Rebecca Crawley’s biography~
with that lightness and delicacy which the world demands,—
the moral world, that has, perhaps, no particular objection to
vice, but an insuperable repugnance to hearing vice called by .
its proper name. There are things we do and know perfectly
well in Vanity Fair, though we never speak them: as the
Ahrimanians worship the Devil, but don’t mention him; and
a polite public will no more bear to read an authentic descrip-
tion of vice than a truly refined English or American female
will permit the word “‘breeches” to be pronounced in her
chaste hearing. And yet, madam, both are walking the
world before our faces every day, without much shocking us.
If you were to blush every time they went by, what complex-
ions you would have! It is only when their naughty names
are called out that your modesty has any occasion to show
alarm or sense of outrage; and it has been the wish of the
present writer, all through this story, deferentially to submit
to the fashion at present prevailing, and only to hint at the
existence of wickedness in a light, easy, and agreeable man-
ner, so that nobody’s fine feelings may he offended. I defy ~
any one to say that our Becky, who has certainly some vices,-
has not been presented to the public in a perfectly genteel.

48 7
308 VANITY FAIR,
r as
and inoffensive manner. In describing this siren, singing

“dnd smiling, coaxing and cajoling, the author, with modest
pride, asks his readers all round, has he once forgotten the
laws of politeness, and showed the monster’s hideous tail
above water? No! Those who like may peep down under
waves that are pretty transparent, and see it writhing and
twirling, diabolically hideous and slimy, flapping amongst
bones, or curling round corpses; but above the water-line, I
ask, has not everything been proper, agreeable, and decorous,
and has any the most squeamish immoralist in Vanity Fair
a right to cry fie? When, however, the siren disappears and
dives below, down among the dead men, the water, of course,
grows turbid over her, and it is labor lost to look into it ever
so curiously. They look pretty enough when they sit upon a
rock, twanging their harps and combing their hair, and sing,
and beckon to you to come and hold the looking-glass; but
when they sink into their native element, depend on it, those
mermaids are about no good, and we had best not examine
the fiendish marine cannibals, reveling and feasting on their
wretched, pickled victims. And so, when Becky is out of
the way, be sure that she is not particularly well employed,
and that the less that is said about her doings is, in fact,
the better.

If we were to give a full account of her proceedings during
a couple of years that followed after the Curzon Street catas-
trophe, there might be some reason for people to say this book
was improper. The actions of very vain, heartless, pleasure-
seeking people are very often improper (as are many of yours,
my friend, with the grave face and spotless reputation,—but
that is merely by the way); and what are those of a woman
without faith—or love—or character? And I am inclined to
think that there was a period in Mrs. Becky’s life when she
was seized, not by remorse, but by a kind of despair, and ab-
solutely neglected her person, and did not even care for her
reputation,

This abattement and degradation did not take place all at
once: it was brought about by degrees, after her calamity,
and after many struggles to keep up,—as a man who goes over-
board hangs on to a spar whilst any hope is left, and then
flings it away and goes down, when he finds that struggling
is in vain.

She lingered about London whilst her husband was making
preparations for his departure to his seat of government; and,
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERQ. 309

it is believed, made more than one attempt to see her brother-
in-law, Sir Pitt Crawley, and to work upon his feelings, which
she had almost enlisted in her favor. As Sir Pitt and Mr.
Wenham were walking down to the House of Commons, the
latter spied Mrs. Rawdon in a black veil, and lurking near the
palace of the legislature. She sneaked away when her eyes
met those of Wenham, and, indeed, never succeeded in her
designs upon the Baronet.

Probably Lady Jane interposed. I have heard that she
quite astonished her husband by the spirit which she exhibited
in this quarrel, and her determination to disown Mrs, Becky.
Ot her own movement, she invited Rawdon to come and stop
in Gaunt Street until his departure for Coventry Island, know-
ing that, with him for a guard, Mrs. Becky would not try to
force her door: and she looked curiously at the superscriptions
of all the letters which arrived for Sir Pitt, lest he and his
sister-in-law should be corresponding. Not but that Rebecca
could have written had she a mind; but she did not try to see
or to write to Pitt at his own house, and, after one or two at-
tempts, consented to his demand that the correspondence re-
garding her conjugal differences should be carried on by law-
yers only.

The fact was, that Pitt’s mind had been poisoned against
her. A short time after Lord Steyne’s accident Wenham had
been with the Baronet; and given him such a biography of
Mrs. Becky as had astonished the member for Queen’s Craw-
ley. He knew everything regarding her: who her father was;
in what year her mother danced at the opera; what had been
her previous history, and what her conduct during her mar-
ried life:—as I have no doubt that the greater part of the
story was false and dictated by interested malevolence, it shall
not be repeated here. But Becky was left with a sad, sad rep-
utation in the esteem of a country gentleman and relative
who had been once rather partial to her.

The revenues of the Governor of Coventry Island are not
large. A part of them were set aside by his Excellency for the
payment of certain outstanding debts and liabilities; the
charges incident on his high situation required considerable
expense; finally, it was found that he could not spare to his
wife more than three hundred pounds a year, which he pro-
posed to pay to her on an undertaking that she would never
trouble him. Otherwise, scandal, separation, Doctors’ Com-
mons would ensue. But it was Mr. Wenham’s business, Lord
310 VANITY FAIR.

Steyne’s business, Rawdon’s, everybody’s,—to get her out of
the country, and hush up a most disagreeable attair.

She was probably so much occupied in arranging these
affairs of business with her husband’s lawyers, that she for-
got to take any step whatever about her son, the little Raw-
don, and did not even once propose to go and see him. That.
young gentleman was consigned to the entire guardianship
of his aunt and uncle, the former of whom had always pos-
sessed a great share of the child’s affection. His mamma wrote
him a neat letter from Boulogne when she quitted England,
in which she requested him to mind his book, and said she was
going to take a Continental tour, during which she would
have the pleasure of writing to him again. But she never did
for a year afterwards, and not, indeed, until Sir Pitt’s only
boy, always sickly, died of whooping-cough and measles;—then
Rawdon’s mamma wrote the most affectionate composition to
her darling son, who was made heir of Queen’s Crawley by this
accident, and drawn more closely than ever to the kind lady,
whose tender heart had already adopted him. Rawdon Craw-
ley, then grown a tall, fine lad, blushed when he got the let-
ter. “O Aunt Jane, you are my mother!” he said; ‘and not—
and not that one.” But he wrote back a kind and respect-
ful letter to Mrs. Rebecca, then living at a boarding-house at
Florence. But we are advancing matters.

Our darling Becky’s first flight was not very far. She perched
upon the French coast at Boulogne, that refuge of so much
exiled English innocence; and there lived in rather a genteel,
widowed manner, with a femme de chambre and a couple of
rooms, at an hotel. She dined at the table d’héte, where peo-
ple thought her very pleasant, and where she entertained her
neighbors by stories of her brother, Sir Pitt, and her great
London acquaintance; talking that easy, fashionable slipslop,
which has so much effect upon certain folks of small breeding.
She passed with many of them for a person of importance}.
she gave little tea-parties in her private room, and shared in
the innocent amusements of the place,—in sea-bathing, and
in jaunts in open carriages, in strolls on the sands, and in
visits to the play. Mrs. Burjoice, the printer’s lady, who was
boarding with her family at the hotel for the summer, and to
whom her Burjoice came of a Saturday and Sunday, voted
her charming, until that little rogue of a Burjoice began to pay
her too much attention. But there was nothing in the story,
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 311

only that Becky was always affable, easy, and good-natured,—
and with men especially.

Numbers of people were going abroad as usual at the end
of the season, and Becky had plenty of opportunities of find-
ing out by the behavior of her acquaintances of the great
London world the opinion of “society” as regarded her con-
duct. One day it was Lady Partlet and her daughters whom
Becky confronted as she was walking modestly on Boulogne
pier, the cliffs of Albion shining in the distance across the deep
blue sea. Lady Partlet marshaled all her daughters round
her with a sweep of her parasol, and retreated from the pier,
darting savage glances at poor little Becky who stood alone
there.

On another day the packet came in. It had been blowing
fresh, and it always suited Becky’s humor to see the droll woe-
begone faces of the people as they emerged from the boat.
Lady Slingstone happened to be on board this day. Her Lady-
ship had been exceedingly ill in her carriage, and was greatly
exhausted and scarcely fit to walk up the plank from the ship
to the pier. But all her energies rallied the instant she saw
Becky smiling roguishly under a pink bonnet: and giving her
a glance of scorn, such as would have shriveled up most wo-
men, she walked into the Custom House quite unsupported.
Becky only laughed: but I don’t think she liked it. She felt
she was alone, quite alone: and the far-off shining cliffs of
England were impassable to her.

The behavior of the men had undergone, too, I don’t know
what change. Grinstone showed his teeth and laughed in her
face with a familiarity that was not pleasant. Little Bob
Suckling, who was cap in hand to her three months before,
and would walk a mile in the rain to see for her carriage in
the line at Gaunt House, was talking to Fitzoof of the Guards
(Lord Heehaw’s son) one day upon the jetty, as Becky took
her walk there. Little Bobby nodded to her over his shoulder
without removing his hat, and continued his conversation with
the heir of Heehaw. Tom Raikes tried to walk into her sit-
ting-room at the inn with a cigar in his mouth; but she closed
the door upon him, and would have locked it, only that his
fingers were inside. She began to feel that she was very lone-
ly indeed. “If he’d becn here,” she said, “those cowards
would never have dared to insult me.” She thought about
“him” with great sadness, and perhaps longing,—ahout his
honest, stunid, constent kindness and fidelity; his never-
312 VANITY FAIR,

ceasing obedience; his good-humor; his bravery and courage.
Very likely she cried, for she was particularly lvely, and had
put on a little extra rouge, when she came down to dinner.

She rouged regularly now: and—and her maid got Cognac
for her besides that which was charged in the hotel bill.

Perhaps the insults of the men were not, however, so intol-
erable to her as the sympathy of certain women. Mrs. Crack-
enbury and Mrs. Washington White passed through Boulogne
on their way to Switzerland. (The party were protected by
Colonel Horner, young Beaumoris, and of course old Cracken-
bury, and Mrs. White’s little girl.) They did not avoid her.
They giggled, cackled, tattled, condoled, consoled, and pat-
ronized her until they drove her almost wild with rage. To
be patronized by them! she thought, as they went away
simpering after kissing her. And she heard Beaumoris’s laugh
ringing on the stair, and knew quite well how to interpret his
hilarity.

It was after this visit that Becky, who had paid her weekly
bills, Becky, who had made herself agreeable to everybody
in the house, who smiled at the landlady, called the waiters
“Monsieur,” and paid the chambermaids in politeness and
apologies, what far more than compensated for a little nig-
gardliness in point of money (of which Becky never was free),
that Becky, we say, received a notice to quit from the landlord,
who had been told by some one that she was quite an unfit per-
son to have at his hotel, where English ladies would not sit
down with her. And she was forced to fly into lodgings, of
which the dullness and solitude were most wearisome to her.

Still she held up in spite of these rebuffs, and tried to make
a character for herself, and conquer scandal. She went to
church regularly, and sang louder than anybody there. She
took up the cause of the widows of the shipwrecked fisher-
man, and gave work and drawings for the Quashyboo Mission;
she subscribed to the Assembly and wouldn’t waltz. In a
word she did everything that was respectable, and that is why
we dwell upon this part of her career with more fondness than
upon subsequent parts of her history, which are not so pleas-
ant. She saw people avoiding her, and still laboriously smiled
upon them; you never could suppose from her countenance
what pangs of humiliation she might be enduring inwardly.

Her history was after all a mystery. Parties were divided
about her. Some people who took the trouble to busy them-
selves in the matter said that she was the criminal; whilst
3
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 313

others vowed that she was as innocent as a lamb, and that her
odious husband was in fault. She won over a good many by
bursting into tears about her boy, and exhibiting the most
frantic grief when his name was mentioned, or she saw any-
body like him. She gained good Mrs. Alderney’s heart in
that way, who was rather the Queen of British Boulogne, and
gave the most dinners and balls of all the residents there, by
weeping when Master Alderney came from Dr. Swishtail’s
academy to pass his holidays with his mother. “He and her
Rawdon were of the same age, and so like,” Becky said, in a
voice choking with agony; whereas there was five years’ differ-
ence between the boys’ ages, and no more likeness between
them than between my respected reader and his humble serv-
ant. Wenham, when he was going abroad, on his way to
Kissengen to join Lord Steyne, enlightened Mrs. Alderney
on this point, and told her how he was much more able to
describe little Rawdon than his mamma, who notoriously hated
him, and never saw him; how he was thirteen years old, while
little Alderney was but nine; fair, while the other darling was
dark,—in a word, caused the lady in question to repent of her
good-humor.

Whenever Becky made a little circle for herself with in-
credible toils and labor, somebody came and swept it down
rudely, and she had all her work to begin over again. It was
very hard; very hard, lonely, and disheartening.

There was Mrs. Newbright, who took her up for some time,
attracted by the sweetness of her singing at church, and by her
proper views upon serious subjects, concerning which in form-
er days, at Queen’s Crawley, Mrs. Becky had had a good
deal of instruction. Well, she not only took tracts, but she
read them. She worked flannel petticoats for the Quashyboos,
cotton nightcaps for the Cocoanut Indians, painted hand-
screens for the conversion of the Pope and the Jews, sat under
Mr. Rowls on Wednesdays, Mr. Huggleton on Thursdays,
attended two Sunday services at church, besides Mr. Bawler,
the Darbyite, in the evening, and all in vain. Mrs. Newbright
had occasion to correspond with the Countess of Southdown
about the Warming-pan Fund for the Feejee Islanders (for
the management of which admirable charity both these ladies
formed part of a female committee), and having mentioned
her “sweet friend” Mrs. Rawdon Crawley, the Dowager
Countess wrote back such a letter regarding Becky, with such
particulars, hints, facts, falsehoods, and general comminations,
314 VANITY FAIR.

that intimacy between Mrs. Newbright and Mrs. Crawley
ceased forthwith: and all the serious world of Tours, where
this misfortune took place, immediately parted company with
the reprobate. Those who know the Engish Colonies abroad
know that we carry with us our pride, pills, prejudices, Har-
vey-sauces, cayenne-peppers, and other Lares, making a little
Britain wherever we settle down.

From one colony to another Becky fled uneasily. From
Boulogne to Dieppe, from Dieppe to Caen, from Caen to
Tours,—trying with all her might to be respectable, and alas!
always found out some day or other, and pecked out of the
cage by the real daws.

Mrs. Hook Eagles took her up at one of these places:—a
woman without a blemish in her character, and a house in
Portman Square. She was staying at the hotel at Dieppe,
whither Becky fled, and they made each other’s acquaintance
first at sea, where they were swimming together, and subse-
quently at the table d’hote of the hotel. Mrs. Eagles had heard
—who indeed had not?—some of the scandal of the Steyne
affair; but, after a conversation with Becky, she pronounced:
that Mrs. Crawley was an angel, her husband a ruffian, Lord
Steyne an unprincipled wretch, as everybody knew, and the
whole case against Mrs. Crawley an infamous and wicked con-
spiracy of that rascal Wenham. “If you were a man of any
spirit, Mr. Eagles, you would box the wretch’s ears the next
time you see him at the Club,” she said to her husband. But
Eagles was only a quiet old gentleman, husband to Mrs.
Eagles, with a taste for geology, and not tall enough to reach
anybody’s ears.

The Eagles then patronized Mrs. Rawdon, took her to live
with her at her own house at Paris, quarreled with the am-
bassador’s wife because she would not receive her protégée,
and did all that lay in woman’s power to keep Becky straight
in the paths of virtue and good repute.

. Becky was very respectable and orderly at first, but the
life of humdrum virtue grew utterly tedious to her before
long. It was the same routine every day, the same dullness
and comfort, the same drive over the same stupid Bois de
Boulogne, the same company of an evening, the same Blair’s
Sermon of a Sunday night,—the same opera always being
acted over and over again; Becky was dying of weariness,
when, luckily for her, young Mr. Eagles came from Cam-
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HBRO. $15

bridge, and his mother, seeing the impression which her little
friend made upon him, straightway gave Becky warning.

Then she tried keeping house with a female friend; then
the double ménage began to quarrel and get into debt. Then
she determined upon a boarding-house existence, and lived
for some time at that famous mansion kept by Madame de
Saint Amour, in the Rue Royale, at Paris, where she began
exercising her graces and fascinations upon the shabby dandies
and fly-blown beauties who frequented her landlady’s salons.
Becky loved society, indeed, could no more exist without it
than an opiuni-eaier without his dram, and she was happy
enough at the period of her boarding-house life. “The
women here are as amusing as those in May Fair,” she told an
old London friend who met her; “only their dresses are not
quite so fresh. The men wear cleaned gloves, and are sad
rogues, certainly, but they are not worse than Jack This, and
Tom That. The mistress of the house is a little vulgar, but I
don’t think she is so vulgar as Lady 3” and here she named
the name of a great leader of fashion that I would die rather
than reveal. In fact, when you saw Madame de Saint Amour’s
rooms lighted up of a night, men with plaques and cordons at
the écarté tables, and the women at a little distance, you might
fancy yourself for a while in good society, and that Madame
was a real Countess. Many people did so fancy; and Becky
was for a while one of the most dashing ladies of the Countess’s
salons.

But it is probable that her old creditors of 1815 found
her out and caused her to leave Paris, for the poor little
woman was forced to fly from the city rather suddenly; and
went thence to Brussels.

How well she remembered the place! She grinned as she
looked up at the little entresol which she had occupied, and
thought of the Bareacres family, bawling for horses and flight,
as their carriage stood in the porte-cochére of the hotel. She
went to Waterloo and to Lacken, where George Oshorne’s
monument much struck her. She made a little sketch of it.
“That poor Cupid!” she said; “how dreadfully he was in love
with me, and what a fool he was! I wonder whether little Em-
my is alive. It wasa good little creature: and that fat brother
of hers. I have his funny fat picture still among my papers.
They were kind, simple people.”

At Brussels Becky arrived, recommended by Madame de
Saint Amour to her friend, Madame la Comtesse de Borodino,

 
316 VANITY FAIR.

widow of Napoleon’s General, the famous Count de Borodino,
who was left with no resource by the deceased hero but that
of a table @héte and an écarté table. Second-rate dandies
and roués, widow-ladies who always have a lawsuit, and very
simple English folks, who fancy they see “Continental society”
at these houses, put down their money, or ate their meals, at
Madame de Borodino’s tables. The gallant young fellows
treated the company round to champagne at the table d’héte,
rode out with the women, or hired horses on country excur-
sions, clubbed money to take boxes at the play or the opera,
betted over the fair shoulders of the ladies at the écarté tables,
and wrote home to their parents, in Devonshire, about their
felicitous introduction to foreign society.

Here, as at Paris, Becky was a boarding-house queen: and
ruled in select pensions. She never refused the champagne,
or the bouquets, or the drives into the country, or the private
boxes; but what she preferred was the écarté at night,—and
she played audaciously. First she played for a little, then for
five-franc pieces, then for Napoleons, then for notes;
then she would not be able to pay her months’ pen-
sion; then she borrowed from the young gentlemen; then
she got into cash again, and bullied Madame de Borodino,
whom she had coaxed and wheedJed before; then she was play-
ing for ten sous at a time, and in a dire state of poverty; then
her quarter’s allowance would come in, and she would pay off
Madame de Borodino’s score; and would once more take the
cards against Monsieur de Rossignol, or the Chevalier de Raff.

When Becky left Brussels, the sad truth is that she owed
three months’ pension to Madame de Borodino, of which fact,
and of the gambling, and of the drinking, and of the going
down on her knees to the reverend Mr. Muff, Ministre Angli-
can, and borrowing money of him, and of her coaxing and
flirting with Milor Noodle, son of Sir Nocdle, pupil of the Rev.
Mr. Muff, whom she used to take into her private room, and of
whom she won large sums at écarté,—of which fact, I say, and
of a hundred of her other knaveries, the Countess de Borodino
informs every English person who stops at her establishment,
and announces that Madame Rawdon was no better than a
vipére. :

So our little wanderer went about setting up her tent in
various cities of Kurope, as restless as Ulysses or Bampfylde
- Moore Carew. Her taste for disrespectability grew more and
‘more remarkable. She became a perfect Bohemian erelong,
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 317

herding with people whom it would make your hair stand on”

end to meet.

There is no town of any mark in Europe but it has its little
colony of English raffs——men whose names Mr. Temp the of-
ficer reads out periodically at the Sheriffs’ Court,—young gen-
tlemen of very good family often, only that the latter disowns
them; frequenters of billiard-rooms and estimates, patrons of
foreign races and gaming-tables. They people the debtors’
prisons—they drink and swagger—they fight and brawl—they
tun away without paying—they have duels with French and
German officers—they cheat Mr. Spooney at écarté—they get
the money, and drive off to Baden in magnificent britzkas—
they try their infallible martingale, and lurk about the tables
with empty pockets, shabby bullies, penniless bucks, until
they can swindle a Jew banker with a sham bill of exchange,
or find another Mr. Spooney to rob. The alternations of

splendor and misery which these people undergo are very queer__ -

to view. Their life must be one of great excitement. Becky
—must it be owned?—took to this life, and took to it not un-

kindly. She went about from town to town among these Bo-.~

hemians. The lucky Mrs. Rawdon was known at every play-
table in Germany. She and Madame de Cruchecassée kept
house at Florence together. It is said she was ordered out of
Munich; and my friend Mr. Frederick Pigeon avers that it
was at her house at Lausanne that he was hocussed at supper,
and lost eight hundred pounds to Major Loder and the Hon-
orable Mr. Deuceace. We are bound, you see, to give some
account of Becky’s biography; but of this part, the less, per-
haps, that is said the better.

They say that, when Mrs. Crawley was particularly down
on her luck, she gave concerts and lessons in music here and
there. There was a Madame de Raudon who certainly had a
matinée musicale at Wildbad, accompanied by Herr Spoff,
premier pianist to the Hospodar of Wallachia, and my little
friend Mr. Eaves, who knew everybody, and had _ traveled
everywhere, always used to declare that he was at Strasburg
in the year 1830, when a certain Madame Rebecque made her
appearance in the opera of the Dame Blanche, giving occasion
to a furious row in the theater there. She was hissed off the
stage by the audience, partly from her own incompetency,
and chiefly from the ill-advised sympathy of some persons in
the parquet (where the officers of the garrison had their ad-
missions); and Eaves was certain that the unfortunate dé-
318 VANITY FAIR.

butante in question was no other than Mrs. Rawdon Crawley.

She was, in fact, no better than a vagabond upon this earth.
When she got her mouey she gambled; when she had gambled
it she was put to shifts to live; who knows how or by what
means she succeeded? It is said that she was once seen at St.
Petersburg, but was summarily dismissed from that capital by
the police, so that there cannot be any possibility of truth in
the report that she was a Russian spy at Toplitz and Vienna
afterwards. I have even been informed that at Paris she dis-
covered a relation of her own, no less a person than her ma-
ternal grandmother, who was not by any means a Montmoren-
ci, but a hideous old box-opener at a theater on the Boulevards.
The meeting between them, of which other persons, as it is
hinted elsewhere, seem to have been acquainted, must have
been a very affecting interview. The present historian can
give no certain details regarding the event.

It happened at Rome once, that Mrs. de Raudon’s half-year’s
salary had just been paid into the principal banker’s there,
and, as everybody who had a balance of above five hundred
scudi was invited to the ball which this prince of merchants
gave during the winter, Becky had the honor of a card, and
appeared at one of the Prince and Princess Polonia’s splendid
evening entertainments. The Princess was of the family of
Pompili, lineally descended from the second king of Rome
and Egeria of the house of Olympus, while the Prince’s grand-
father, Alessandro Polonia, sold wash-balls, essences, tobacco,
and pocket-handkerchiefs, ran errands for gentlemen, and lent
money in a small way. All the great company in Rome
thronged to his saloons,—Princes, Dukes, Ambassadors, art-
ists, fiddlers, monsignori, young bears with their leaders,—
every rank and condition of man. His halls blazed with light
and magnificence; were resplendent with gilt frames (con-
taining pictures), and dubious antiques: and the enormous
gilt crown and arms of the princely owner, a gold mushroom
on a crimson field (the color of the pocket-handkerchiefs which
he sold), and the silver fountain of the Pompili family, shone
all over the roof, doors, and panels of the house, and over the
grand velvet baldaquins prepared to receive Popes and Em-
perors.

So Becky, who had arrived in the diligence from Florence,
and was lodged at an inn in a very modest way, got a card for
Prince Polonia’s entertainment, and her maid dressed her with
unusual care, and she went to this fine ball leaning on the arm
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. » 319

of Major Loder, with whom she happened to be traveling at
the time—(the same man who shot Prince Ravoli at Naples
the next year, and was caned by Sir John Buckskin for carry-
ing four kings in his hat besides those which he used in play-
iny at écarté),—and this pair went into the rooms together,
and Becky saw a number of old faces which she remembered in
happier days, when she was not innocent, but not found out.
Major Loder knew a great number of foreigners, keen-looking
whiskered men with dirty striped ribbons in their buttonholes,
and a very small display of linen; but his own countrymen, it
might be remarked, eschewed the Major. Becky, too, knew
some ladies here and there,—French widows, dubious Italian
countesses, whose husbands had treated them ill—faugh—
what shall we say, we who have moved among some of the
finest company of Vanity Fair, of this refuse and sediment of
rascals? If we play, let it be with clean cards, and not with
this dirty pack. But every man who has formed one of the
innumerable army of travelers has seen these marauding ir-
regulars hanging on, like Nym and Pistol, to the main force;
wearing the king’s colors, and boasting of his commission,
but pillaging for themselves, and occasionally gibbeted by the
roadside.

Well, she was hanging on the arm of Major Loder, and they
went through the rooms together, and drank a great quantity
of champagne at the buffet, where the people, and especially
the Major’s irregular corps, struggled furiously for refresh-
ments, of which when the pair had had enough, they pushed
on until they reached the Duchess’s own pink velvet saloon,
at the end of the suite of apartments (where the statue of the
Venus is, and the great Venice looking-glasses framed in sil-
ver), and where the princely family were entertaining their
most distinguished guests at a round table at supper. It was
just such a little select banquet as that of which Becky recol-
lected that she had part: ken at Lord Steyne’s,—and there he
sat at Polonia’s table, and she saw him.

The scar cut by the diamond on his white, bald, shining
forehead made a burning red mark; his red whiskers were
dyed of a purple hue, which made his pale face look still paler.
He wore his collar and orders, his blue ribbon and garter. He
was a greater prince than any there, though there was a reign-
ing duke and a royal highness, with their princesses, and
near his Lordship was seated the beautiful Countess of Rella-
donna, née de Glandier, whose husband (the Count Paolo
820 VANITY FAIR.

della Belladonna) so well known for his brilliant entomo-
logical collections, had been long absent on a mission to the
Emperor of Morocco.

When Becky beheld that familiar and illustrious face, how
vulgar all of a sudden did Major Loder appear to her, and
how that odious Captain Rook did smell of tobacco! In
one instant she reassumed her fine-ladyship, and tried to look
and feel as if she was in May Fair once more. “That woman
looks stupid and illhumored,” she thought; “I am sure she
can’t amuse him. No, he must be bored by her,—he never
was by me.” A hundred such touching hopes, fears, and
memories palpitated in her little heart, as she looked with her
brightest eyes (the rouge which she wore up to her eyelids
made them twinkle) towards the great nobleman. Of a Star
and Garter night Lord Steyne used also to put on his grand-
est manner, and to look and speak like a great prince, as he
was. Becky admired him smiling sumptuously, easy, lofty,
and stately. Ah, bon dieu, what a pleasant companion he
was, what a brilliant wit, what a rich fund of talk, what a
grand manner!—and she had exchanged this for Major Loder,
reeking of cigars and brandy-and-water, and Captain Rook
with his horse-jockey jokes and prize-ring slang, and their
like. “I wonder whether he will know me,” she thought.
Lord Steyne was talking and laughing with a great and illus-
trious lady at his side, when he looked up and saw Becky.

She was all over in a flutter as their eyes met, and she put
on the very best smile she could muster, and dropped him a
little, timid, imploring courtesy. He stared aghast at her for
a minute, as Macbeth might on beholding Banquo’s sudden
appearance at his ball-supper; and remained looking at her
with open mouth, when that horrid Major Loder pulled her
away.

“Come away into the supper-room, Mrs. R.,” was that gen-
tleman’s remark; “seeing these nobs grubbing away has made
me peckish too. Let’s go and try the old governor’s cham-
pagne.” Becky thought the Major had had a great deal too
much already.

The day after, she went to walk on the Pincian Hill,—the
Hyde Park of the Roman idlers,—possibly in hopes to have
another sight of Lord Steyne. But she met another acquaint-
ance there: it was Mr. Fiche, his Lordship’s confidential man,
who came up nodding to her rather familiarly, and putting a
finger to his hat. “T knew that Madame was here,” he said;
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO, 821,

*T followed her from her hotel. I have some advice to give
Madame.”

“From the Marquis of Steyne?” Becky asked, resuming as
much of her dignity as she could muster, and not a little
agitated by hope and expectation.

“No,” said the valet; “it is from me. Rome is very un-
wholesome.”

“Not at this season, Monsieur Fiche,—not till after Easter.”

“I tell Madame it is unwholesome now. There is always
malaria for some people. That cursed marsh wind kills many
at all seasons. Look, Madame Crawley, you were always
bon enfant, and I have an interest in you, parole d’honneur.
Be warned. Go away from Rome, I tell you, or you will be
ill and die.”

Becky laughed, though in rage and fury. “What! assas-
sinate poor little me?” she said. “How romantic. Does my
Lord carry bravos for couriers, and stilettos in the fourgons?
Bah! I will stay, if but to plague him. I have those who will
defend me whilst I am here.”

It was Monsieur Fiche’s turn to laugh now. “Defend you,”
he said, “and who? The Major, the Captain, any one of those
gambling men whom Madame sees, would take her life for a
hundred louis. We know things about Major Loder (he is no
more a major than I am my Lord the Marquis) which would
send him to the galleys or worse. We know everything, and
have friends everywhere. We know whom you saw at Paris,
and what relations you found there. Yes, Madame may stare,
but we do. How was it that no minister on the Continent
would receive Madame? She has offended somebody who
never forgives,—whose rage redoubled when he saw you. He
was like a madman last night when he came home. Madame
de Belladonna made him a scene about you, and fired off in
one of her furies.”

“Q, it was Madame de Belladonna, was it?” Becky said,
relieved a little, for the information she had just got had
scared her.

“No—she does not matter—she is always jealous. I tell you
it was Monseigneur. You did wrong to show yourself to
him. And if youstay here you will repent it. Mark my words.
Go. Here is my Lord’s carriage;”—and, seizing Becky’s arm,
he rushed down an alley of the garden as Lord Steyne’s
barouche, blazing with heraldic devices, came whirling along
the avenue, borne hv the almost priceless horses, and bearing

Vol. I1.—21
322 VANITY FATR.

Madame de Belladonna lolling on the cushions, dark, sulky,
and blooming, a King Charles in her lap, a white parasol
swaying over her head, and old Steyne stretched at her side
with a livid face and ghastly eyes. Hate, or anger, or desire,
caused them to brighten now and then still; but ordinarily
they gave no light, and seemed tired of looking out on a
world of which almost all the pleasure and all the best beauty
had palled upon the worn-out, wicked old man.

“Monseigneur has never recovered the shock of that night,
never,” Monsieur Fiche whispered to Mrs. Crawley as the
carriage flashed by, and she peeped out at it from behind the
shrubs that hid her. “That was a consolation at any rate,”
Becky thought.

Whether my Lord really had murderous intentions towards
Mrs. Becky as Monsieur Fiche said (since Monseigneur’s death
he has returned to his native country where he lives much
respected and has purchased from his Prince the title of Baron
Ficci), and the factotum objected to have to do with assassina-
tion; or whether he simply had a comission to frighten Mrs.
Crawley out of a city where his Lordship proposed to pass the
winter, and the sight of her would be eminently disagreeable
to the great nobleman,—is a point which has never been ascer-
tained; but the threat had its effect upon the little woman,
and she sought no more to intrude herself upon the presence
of her old patron.

Everybody knows the melancholy end of that nobleman,
which befell at Naples two months after the French Revolu-
tion of 1830; when the Most Honorable George Gustavus,
Marquis of Steyne, Earl of Gaunt and of Gaunt Castle, in the
Peerage of Ireland, Viscount Hellborough, Baron Pitchley and
Grillsby, a Knight of the Most Noble Order of the Garter, of
the Golden Fleece of Spain, of the Russian Order of Saint
Nicholas of the First Class, of the Turkish Order of the
Crescent, First Lord of the Powder Closet and Groom of the
Back Stairs, Colonel of the Gaunt or Regent’s Own Regiment
of Militia, a. Trustee of the British Museum, an elder Brother
of the Trinity House, a Governor of the White Friars, and
D. C. L.,—died after a series of fits, brought on, as the papers
said, by the shock occasioned to his Lordship’s sensibilities by
the downfall of the ancient French monarchy.

An eloquent catalogue appeared in a weekly print, describ-
ing his virtues, his magnificence, his talents, and his good
actions. His sensibility, his attachment to the illustrious
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 82g

House of Bourbon, with which he claimed an alliance, were
such that he could not survive the misfortunes of his august
kinsmen. His body was buried at Naples, and his heart—
that heart which always beat with every generous and noble
emotion—was brought back to Castle Gaunt in a silver urn.
“In him,” Mr. Wagg said, “the poor and the Fine Arts have
lost a beneficent patron, society one of its most brilliant orna-
ments, and England one of her loftiest patriots and states-
men,” &c., &c.

His will was a good deal disputed and an attempt was made
to force from Madame de Belladonna the celebrated jewel
called the “Jew’s-eye” diamond, which his Lordship always
wore on his fore-finger, and which it was said that she removed
from it after his lamented demise. But his confidential friend
and attendant, Monsieur Fiche, proved that the ring had
been presented to the said Madame de Belladonna two days
before the Marquis’s death; as were the bank-notes, jewels,
Neapolitan and French bonds, &c., found in his Lordship’s
secretaire, and claimed by his heirs from that injured woman.

CHAPTER XXXI.

FULL OF BUSINESS AND PLEASURE.

The day after the meeting at the play-table, Jos had him-
self arrayed with unusual care and spl_nd r.and wi hout th'nk-
ing it necessary to say a word to any member of his family
regarding the occurrences of the previous night, or asking
for their company in his walk, he sallied forth at an early hour,
and was presently seen making inquiries at the door of the
Elephant Hotel. In consequence of the fétes the house was
full of company, the tables in the street were already sur-
rounded by persons smoking and drinking the national small-
beer, the public rooms were in a cloud of smoke, and Mr.
Jos having, in his pompous way, and with his clumsy German,
made inquiries for the person of whom he was in search, was
directed to the very top of the house, above the first-floor
rooms where some traveling pedlers had lived, and were ex-
hibiting their jewelry and brocades; above the second-floor
apartments occupied by the état major of the gambling firm;
above the third-flocr rooms, tenanted by the band of renowned

44

.
824 VANITY FAIR.

Bohemian vaulters and tumblers; and so on to the little
cabins of the roof, where, among students, bag-men, small
tradesmen, and country-folks, come in for the festival, Becky
had found a little nest,—as dirty a little refuge as ever beauty
lay hid in.

Becky liked the life. She was at home with everybody in
the place, pedlers, punters, tumblers, students, and all. She
was of a wild, roving nature, inherited from father and mother,
who were both Bohemians, by taste and circumstance; if a
lord was not by, she would talk to his courier with the great-
est pleasure; the din, the stir, the drink, the smoke, the -
tattle of the Hebrew pedlers, the solemn, braggart ways of
the poor tumblers, the surnois talk of the gambling-table
officials, the songs and swagger of the students, and the gen-
eral buzz and hum of the place had pleased and tickled the
little woman, even when her luck was down, and she had not
wherewithal to pay her bill. How pleasant was all the bustle
to her now that her purse was full of the money which little
Georgy had won for her the night before!

As Jos came creaking and puffing up the final stairs, and was
speechless when he got to the landing, and began to wipe his
face and then to look for No. 92, the room where he was
directed to seck for the person he wanted, the door of the
opposite chamber, No. 90, was open, and a student, in jack-
boots and a dirty schlafrock, was lying ‘on the bed smoking a
long pipe; whilst another student, in long yellow hair and a
braided coat, exceeding smart and dirty, too, was actually on
his knees at No. 92, bawling through the keyhole supplica-
tions to the person within.

“Go away,” said a well-known voice, which made Jos thrill;
“T expect somebody; J expect my grandpapa. He mustn’t see
you there.”

“Angel Englanderinn!” bellowed the kneeling student with
the whity-brown ringlets and the large finger-ring, “do take
compassion upon us. Make an appointment. Dine with me
and Fritz at the inn in the park. We will have roast pheasants
and porter, plum-pudding and French wine. We shall die if
you don’t.”

“That we will,” said the young nobleman on the bed; and
this colloquy Jos overheard, though he did not comprehend
it, for the reason that he had never studied the language in
which it was carried on.
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HBRO, $25

_‘Newmero kattervang dooze, si vous plait,” Jos said, in
his grandest manner, when he was able to speak.

*“Quater fang tooce!” said the student, starting up, and he
bounced into his own room, where he locked the door, and
ca Jos heard him laughing with his comrade on the

ed.

The gentleman from Bengal was standing, disconcerted by
this incident, when the door of the 92 opened of itself, and
Becky’s little head peeped out, full of archness and mischief.
She lighted on Jos. “It’s you,” she said, coming out. “How I
have been waiting for you! Stop! not yet,—in one minute
you shall come in.” In that instant she put a rouge-pot, a
brandy bottle, and a plate of broken meat into the bed, gave
one smooth to her hair, and finally let in her visitor.

She had, by way of morning robe a pink domino, a trifle
faded and soiled, and marked here and there with pomatum;
but her arms shone out from the loose sleeves of the dress
very white and fair, and it was tied round her little waist,
so as not ill to set off the trim little figure of the wearer. She
led Jos by the hand into her garret. “Come in,” she said.
“Come, and talk to me. Sit yonder on the chair;” and she
gave the civilian’s hand a little squeeze, and laughingly
placed him upon it. As for herself, she placed herself on
the bed,—not on the bottle and plate, you may be sure,—on
which Jos might have reposed, had he chosen that seat; and
so there she sat and talked with her old admirer.

“How little years have changed you,” she said, with a look
of tender interest. “I should have known you anywhere.
What a comfort it is amongst strangers to see once more
the frank, honest face of an old friend!”

The frank, honest face, to tell the truth, at this moment
bore any expression but one of openness and honesty: it was,
on the contrary, much perturbed and puzzled in look. Jos
was surveying the queer little apartment in which he found
his old flame. One of her gowns hung over the bed, another
depending from a hook of the door; her bonnet obscured
half the looking-glass, on which too, lay the prettiest little
pair of bronze boots; a French novel was on the table by
the bedside, with a candle, not of wax. Becky thought of
popping that into the bed, too, but she only put in the little
paper nightcap with which she had put the candle out on go-
ing to sleep. E

“T should have known you anywhere,” she continued; “a
826 VANITY FAIR.

woman never forgets some things. And you were the first
man I ever—I ever saw.”

“Was I, really?” said Jos. “God bless my soul, you—you
don’t say so.”

“When I came with your sister from Chiswick, I was scarcely -
more than a child,” Becky said. “How is that dear love?
Oh, her husband was a sad, wicked man, and, of course, it
was of me that the poor dear was jealous. As if I cared
about him, heigho! when there was somebody—but no—
don’t let us talk of old times;” and she passed her hand-
kerchief with the tattered lace across her eyelids.

“Ts not this a strange place,” she continued, “for a woman,
who has lived in a very different world, too, to be found in?
I have had so many griefs and wrongs, Joseph Sedley, I
have been made to suffer so cruelly, that I am almost made
mad, sometimes. I can’t stay still in any place, but wander
about, always restless and unhappy. All my friends have
been false to me—all. There is no such thing as an honest
man in the world. I was the truest wife that ever lived,
though I married my husband out of pique, because some-
body else—but never mind that. I was true, and he trampled
upon me, and deserted me. I was the fondest mother. I
had but one child, one darling, one hope, one joy, which I
held to my heart with a mother’s affection, which was my life,
my prayer, my—my blessing; and they—they tore it from
me—tore it from me;” and she put her hand to her heart
with a passionate gesture of despair, burying her face for a
moment on the bed.

The brandy-bottle inside clinked up against the plate which
held the cold sausage. Both were moved, no doubt, by the
exhibition of so much grief. Max and Fritz were at the door
listening with wonder to Mrs. Becky’s sobs and cries. Jos,
too, was a good deal frightened and affected at seeing his
old flame in this condition. And she began, forthwith, to
tell her story,—a tale so neat, simple, and artless, that it was
quite evident from hearing her that, if ever there was a white-
tobed angel escaped from heaven to be subject to the infernal
machinations and villainy of fiends here below, that spotless
being, that miserable unsullied martyr, was present on the
bed before Jus,—on the bed, sitting on the brandy-bottle.

They had a very long, amicable, and confidential talk there;
in the course of which, Jos Sedley was somehow made aware
(but in a manner that did not in the least scare or offend him)
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 327

that Becky’s heart had first learned to beat at his enchanting
presence: that George Osborne had certainly paid an un-
justifiable court to her, which might account for Amelia’s
jealousy, and their little rupture; but that Becky never gave
the least encouragement to the unfortunate officer, and that
she had never ceased to think about Jos from the very first
day she had seen him, though, of course, her duties as a
married woman were paramount,—duties which she had al-
ways preserved, and would, to her dying day, or until the
proverbially bad climate in which Colonel Crawley was liv-
ing should release her from a yoke which his cruelty had
rendered odious to her.

Jos went away, convinced that she was the most virtuous,
as she was one of the most fascinating of women, and revolv-
ing in his mind all sorts of benevolent schemes for her wel-
fare. Her persecutions ought to be ended: she ought to re-
turn to the society of which she was an ornament. He would
see what ought to be done. She must quit that place, and take
a quiet lodging. Amelia must come and see her, and be-
friend her. He would go and settle about it, and consult
with the Major. She wept tears of heartfelt gratitude as she
parted from him, and pressed his hand as the gallant stout
gentleman stooped down to kiss hers.

So Becky bowed Jos out of her little garret with as much
grace as if it was a palace of which she did the honors;
and that heavy gentleman having disappeared down the stairs,
Hans and Fritz came out of their hole, pipe in mouth, and
she amused herself by mimicking Jos to them as she munched
her cold bread and sausage and took draughts of her favorite
brandy-and-water.

Jos walked over to Dobbin’s lodgings with great solemnity,
and there imparted to him the affecting history with which
he had just been made acquainted, without, however, mention-
ing the play-business of the night before. And the two gentle-
men were laying their heads together, and consulting as to the
best means of being useful to Mrs. Becky, while she was
finishing her interrupted déjeziner & la fourchette.

How was it that she had come to that little town? How
was it that she had no friends and was wandering about alone?
Little boys at school are taught in their earliest Latin book,
that the path of Avernus is very easy of descent. Let us
skip over the interval in the history of her downward pro-
328 VANITY FAIR.

gress. She was not worse now than she had been in the days
of her prosperity:—only a little down on her luck.

As for Mrs. Amelia, she was a woman of such a soft and
foolish disposition, that, when she heard of anybody unhappy,
her heart straightway melted towards the sufferer; and as
she had never thought or done anything mortally guilty her-
self, she had not that abhorrence for wickedness which dis-
tinguishes moralists much more knowing. If she spoiled
everybody who came near her with kindness and compli-
ments,—if she begged pardon of all her servants for troub-
ling them to answer the bell,—if she apologized to a shop-
boy who showed her a piece of silk, or made a courtesy to a
street-sweeper, with a complimentary remark upon the elegant
state of his crossing,—and she was almost capable of every
one of these follies—the notion that an old acquaintance
was miserable was sure to soften her heart; nor would she
hear of anybody’s being deservedly unhappy. A world under
such legislation as hers would not be a very orderly place of
abode; but there are not many women, at least not of the
rulers, who are of her sort. This lady, I believe, would have
abolished all jails, punishments, handcuffs, whippings, pover-
ty, sickness, hunger, in the world; and was such a mean-
spirited creature, that—we are obliged to confess it—she could
even forget a mortal injury.

When the Major heard from Jos of the sentimental adven-
ture which had just befallen the latter, he was not, it must
be owned, nearly as much interested as the gentleman from
Bengal. On the contrary, his excitement was quite the re-
verse from a pleasurable one; he made use of a brief but im-
proper expression regarding a poor woman in distress, saying,
in fact,—‘the little minx, has she come to light again?” He
never had had the slightest liking for her; but had heartily
mistrusted her from the very first moment when her green
eyes had looked at, and turned away from, his own.

“That little devil brings mischief wherever she goes,” the
Major said, disrespectfully. “Who knows what sort of life
she has been leading? and what business has she here abroad
and alone? Don’t tell me about persecutors and enemies; an
honest woman always has friends, and never is separated from
her family. Why has she left her husband? He may have
been disreputable and wicked, as you say. He always was.
[ remember the confounded blackleg, and the way in which
b* nsed to cheat and hoodwink poor George. Wasn’t there a
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 329

scandal about their separation? I think I heard something,”
cried out Major Dobbin, who did not care much about gossip;
and whom Jos tried in vain to convince that Mrs. Becky was
in all respects a most injured and virtuous female.

“Well, well; let’s ask Mrs. George,” said that arch-diplo-
matist of a Major. “Only let us go and consult her. I sup-
pose you will allow that she is a good judge at any rate, and
knows what is right in such matters.”

“Hm! Emmy is very well,” said Jos, who did not happen to
be in love with his sister.

“Very well? by Gad, sir, she’s:the finest lady I ever met
in my life,” bounced out the Major. “I say at once, let us
ge and ask her if this woman ought to be visited or not; I
will be content with her verdict.” Now this odious, artful
rogue of a Major was thinking in his own mind that he was
sure of his case. Emmy, he remembered, was at one time
eruelly and deservedly jealous of Rebecca, never mentioned
her name but with a shrinking and terror,—a jealous woman
never forgives, thought Dobbin; and so the pair went across
the street to Mrs. George’s house, where she was contentedly
warbling at a music-lesson with Madame Strumpff.

When that lady took her leave, Jos opened the business
with his usual pomp of words. “Amelia, my dear,” said he,
“TI have just had a most extraordinary—yes—God bless my
soul! the most extraordinary adventure—an old friend—yes,
a most interesting old friend of yours, and I may say in old
ae has just arrived here, and I should like you to see

er.”

“Her!” said Amelia; “who is it? Major Dobbin, if you
please not to break my scissors.” The Major was twirling
them round by the little chain from which they sometimes
hung to their lady’s waist, and was thereby endangering his
own eye.

“Tt is a woman whom I dislike very much,” said the Major,
doggedly; “and whom you have no cause to love.”

“It is Rebecca, I’m sure it is Rebecca,” Amelia said, blush-
ing, and being very much agitated.

“You are right; you always are,’ Dobbin answered. Brus-
sels, Waterloo, old, old times, griefs, pangs, remembrances,
tushed back into Amelia’s gentle heart, and caused a cruel
agitation there.

“Ton’t let me see her,” Emmy continued. “I couldn’t see
her.”
350 VANITY FAIR.

“T told you so,” Dobbin said to Jos.

“She is very unhappy, and—and that sort of thing,” Jos
urged. “She is very poor and unprotected, and has been ill,
exceedingly ill; and that scoundrel of a husband has de-
serted her.”

“Ah!” said Amelia.

“She hasn’t a friend in the world,” Jos went on, not undex-
terously; “and she said she thought she might trust in you.
She’s so miserable, Emmy. She has been almost mad with
grief. Her story quite affected me, pon my word and honor,
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 lit-
tle. Perhaps she figured Jos to herself panting up the stair.

“She’s beside herself with grief,” he resumed. “The agonics
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
tuffians 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 adjoin-
ing bedchamber, tied on her bonnet in a flutter, came out
with her shawl on her arm, and ordered Dobbin to fol-
low. :
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
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 331

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 favorite 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, knock-
ing at Becky’s door; he had called her Madame the day be-
fore, 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 XXXII.

AMANTIUM IRA.

Frankness and kindness like Amelia’s were likely to touch”
even such a hardened little reprobate as Becky. She re-.-
turned 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 simple-
ton cried out. “O Rebecca, my poor, dear, suffering friend,
T know what it is to lose a boy, and to feel for those who have

ox

ror
a
332 VANITY FAIR.

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? O 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 detec-
tion 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 recov-
ered, and—and here I am, poor and friendless.”

“How old is he?” Emmy asked. .

“leven,” said Becky.

“Eleven!” cried the other. “Why, he was born the same
year with Georgy, who is—”

“T 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 ear-
ly 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 hand-
somest, 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, :
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 333

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 his-
tory. She showed how her marriage with Rawdon Craw-
ley had always been viewed by the family with feelings of the
utzzost 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 affec-
tions 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 hy the most
flagrant outrage, she had been driven into demanding a separa-
tion 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, in-
deed. The atrocious monster!

This part of her eventful history Becky gave with the ut- .
most 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 fond-
ly: 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 au-
dience.

Whilst the ladies were carrying on their conversation, Ame-
lia’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-

 
334 VANITY FAIR.

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 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-mer-
chants, with their packs; students recruiting themselves with
butterbrods and meat; idlers, playing cards or dominoes on
the sloppy, beery tables; tumblers refreshing during the ces-
sation 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 down stairs, 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 con-
versation of which he could not help hearing somewhat. It
was mainly about “Fuchs” and “Philister,” and duels and
drinking-bouts at the neighboring University of Schoppen-
hausen, 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 fétes at Pumper-
nickel.

“The little Englanderinn seems to be en bays de gonnois-
ance,” 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 tn nubibus.”
Hans said that she advertised one at Leipzig: and the
Burschen took many tickets. But she went off without sing-
ing. 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
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. $35

schrecklich English ballad, called ‘De Rose upon de Balgeny’ ”

“Saufen and singen go not together,” observed Fritz with
the red nose, who evidently preferred the former amuse-
ment. “No, thou shalt take none of her tickets. She won
money at the frente and guarante last night. I saw her: she
made a little English boy play for her. We will spend thy
money there or at the theater, 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 number 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,”
336 VANITY FAIR,

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 “Pumper-
nickel Gazette” of last week unread under his nose, when some-
body 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 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 down stairs?”
she said, giving a little toss of her head, and a most sarcastic
courtesy.

“T couldw’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 humor, and tripped across
the market-place very briskly. She wanted to see Jos that in-
stant. 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.

cas poor dear creature, how she has suffered!” Emmy
said.
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO, 337

“God bless my soul, yes,’ Jos said, wagging his head, so
that his cheeks (iigentl Rs jellies. alas

“She may have Payne’s room; who can go up stairs,” Em-
my continued. Payne was a staid English maid and personal
attendant upon Mrs. Osborne, to whom the courier, as in duty
bound, paid court, and whom Georgy used to “lark” dread-
fully with accounts of German robbers and ghosts. She passed
her time chiefly in grumbling, in ordering about her mistress,
and in stating her intention to return the next morning to her
native village of Clapham. “She may have Payne’s room,”
Emmy said.

“Why, you don’t mean to say you are going to have that
woman into the house?” 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, Ma-
jor Dobbin. Of course we are going to have her here.”

“Of course, my dear,” Jos said.

“The poor creature, after all her sufferings,’ Emmy con-
tinued; “her horrid banker broken and run away; her hus-
band—-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 isthe 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 Em-
my, 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.
“QO, 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 por-
trait of the boy underneath. “It was cruel of him. If I had

Vol. 11.2
338 VANITY FAIR,

forgiven it, ought he to have spoken? No. And it is from
his own lips that I know how wicked and groundless my jeal-
ousy was; and that you were pure. O 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 O 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, un-
counted struggles, unknown sacrifices,—a little word was spok-
en, 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 eager-
ly, almost frantically, adjured Jos not to receive her. He be-
sought 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 dan-
gerous companion she would be for his sister, who knew noth-
ing 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 his journey, and who sided
with his master), and he began a blustering speech about his
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 339

competency to defend his own honor, 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 meager 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 conse-
quent upon her arrival brought Amelia out of her room. Em-
my 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 courtesy with which the little woman
chose to bid him farewell.

He being gone, Emmy was particularly lively and affection-
ate to Rebecca, and bustled about the apartments, and in-
stalled 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 ven-
eration for the late Captain Osborne in her present behavior.

Georgy came in from the fétes for dinner-time, and found
four covers laid as usual; but one of the places was occupied
by a lady, instead of by Major Dobbin. “Hello! where’s Dob?”
the young gentleman asked, with his usual simplicity of lan-
guage. “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 fond-
ly. “Dear boy!” she said,—‘“he is just like my ” Emo-
tion 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.

45

 
340 VANITY FAIR.

During the repast, she had occasion to speak several times,
when Georgy eyed her and listened to her. At the dessert
Emmy was gone out to superintend further domestic arrange-
ments: Jos was in his great chair dozing over 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 nut-crackers.

“T say,” said Georgy.

“What do you say?” Becky said, laughing.

“Yow’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 com-
panion into her house.

William, in a state of great indignation, though still un-
aware of all the treason that was in store for him, walked
about the town wildly until he fell upon the Secretary of Le-
gation, 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 Craw-
ley, 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 con-
nected with Becky and her previous life passed under the rec-
ord 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
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 341

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
Tinglet, one hair of a whisker, will turn the scale against them
allin a minute. They did not weigh with Emmy more than
with other women. She had tried them; wanted to make
them pass; and the pitiless little woman had found a pretext,
and determined to be free.

When at length, in the afternoon, the Major gained ad-
mission 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 courtesy, and of a lit-
tle gloved hand, retracted the moment after it was accorded to
him.

Rebecca, too, was in the room, and advanced to meet him
with a smile and an extended hand. Dobbin drew back rather
confusedly. “I—I beg your pardon, ma’am,” he said; “but
I am bound to tell you that it is not as your friend that I am
come here now.”

“Pooh! damn! don’t let us have this sort of thing!’ Jos
cried out, alarmed, and anxious to get rid of a scene.

“I wonder what Major Dobbin has to say against Rebecca?”
342 VANITY FAIR.

Amelia said, in a low, clear voice, with a slight quiver in it,
and a very determined look about the eyes.

“JT 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,
yow’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.”

“T 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 pleas-
ure 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 ina pet. The expression
of Dobbin’s face, as she spoke in this imperious manner, was
not pleasant.

“T 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—”

“Tt 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—be-
fore Mrs. Osborne.”

“Yours is a very modest and convenient sort of calumny,
Major Dobbin,” Rebecca said. “You leave me under the weight
of an accusation which, after all, is unsaid. What is it? Is
it unfaithfulness to my husband? I scorn it, and defy any-
body to prove it,—I defy you, I say. My honor 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,
Iam 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
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 348

old, dear old days? I have been wandering ever since then,—
a poor castaway, scorned for being miserable, and insulted be-
cause Iam alone. Let me go! my stay here interferes with the
plans of this gentleman.”

“Indeed it does, madam,” said the Major. “Tf 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 perse-
cuted, or insult you, because—because Major Dobbin chooses
to do so. Come away, dear.” And the two women made
towards their 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 griped her hand in reply.

“Upon my honor 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
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 re-
proaches, I at least merit none from his widow and the mother
of his son. Reflect, afterwards, when—when you are at leis-
ure, and your conscience will withdraw this accusation. It
does even now.” Amelia held down her head.

“Tt is not that speech of yesterday,” he continued, “which
344 VANITY FAIR.

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 ardor 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 in-
dependence 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 isa 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 rancor 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
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 345

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 ap-
pearance, and again remarked the absence of “Old Dob.” The
meal was eaten in silence by the party; Jos’s appetite not be-
ing 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 car-
riage 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, com-
ing down the market with three schimmels. Look at his boots
and yellow jacket,—ain’t he a rum one? Why—they’re put-
ting the horses to Dob’s carriage. Is he going anywhere?”

“Yes,” said Emmy, “he is going on a journey.”

“Going 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 ard 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. Fran-
cis brought out the stained old blue cloak lined with red cam-
346 VANITY FAIR,

let, which had wrapped the owner up any time these fifteen
years, and had manchen Sturm erlebt, as a favorite song of
those days said. It had been new for the campaign of Water-
loo, 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 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 em-
braces 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. Wil-
liam 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 hum-
ble, 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.
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 347

CHAPTER XXXIII.

WHICH CONTAINS BIRTHS, MARRIAGES, AND DEATHS.

Whatever Becky’s private plan might be by which Dob-
bin’s true love was to be crowned with success, the little wom-
an 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, com-
fortable quarters: surrounded by friends, kindness, and good-
natured, simple people, such as she had not met with for many
along day; and, wanderer as she was, bv 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 in the
bazaars, refresh himself in the baths, and say his prayers in
the mosques, before he goes out again marauding; Jos’s tents
and pilau were pleasant to this little Ishmaelite. She pick-
eted 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 success-
ful 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 honor.

Tapeworm, the Chargé 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 talka-
tive, and more glum and silent than ever after Dobbin’s de-
yarture, was quite forgotten when this superior genius made
348 VANITY FAIR.

her appearance. The French Minister was as much charmed
with her as his English rival. The German ladies, never par-
ticularly squeamish as regards morals, especially in English
people, were delighted with the cleverness and wit of Mrs.
Osborne’s charming friend; and though she did not ask to go
to court, yet the most august and ‘Transparent Personages
there heard of her fascinations, and were quite curious to
know her. When it became known that she was noble, of an
ancient English family, that her husband was a Colonel of the
Guard, Excellenz, and Governor of an island, only separated
from his lady by one of those trifling differences which are of
little account in a country where “Werther” is still read, and
the “Wahlverwandschaften” of Goethe is considered an edi-
fying 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 in-
estimable benefits upon Amelia. Love and Liberty are in-
terpreted 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 is 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 ex-
cellent, 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 pur-
est religious principles; that a woman once, &c., and to such
an angel as him whom she had had the good fortune to mar-
ry, 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 favor of Georgy and
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 349

the servants. Amelia’s maid, it has been said, was heart and
soul in favor of the generous Major. Having at first disliked
Becky for being the means of dismissing him from the pres-
ence of her mistress, she was reconciled to Mrs. Crawley sub-
sequently, because the latter became William’s most ardent
admirer and champion. And in these mighty 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, Ma-
jor 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 and 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
vou 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 neighboring apartment,
and there, no doubt, take refuge in the miniature of her hus-
band.

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 be-
longed 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, Em- .
my’s chief pleasure in the summer evenings was to take long
walks with Georgy (during which Rebecca was left to the so-
350 VANITY FAIR.

ciety of Mr. Joseph), and then the mother and son used to
talk about the Major in a way which even made the boy smile.
She told him that she thought Major William was the best
man in all the world; the gentlest and the kindest, the bravest
and the humblest. Over and over again, she told him how
they owed everything which they possessed in the world to
that kind friend’s benevolent care of them; how he had be-
friended them all through their poverty and misfortunes;
watched over them when nobody cared for them; how all his
comrades admired him, though he never spoke of his own gal-
lant actions; how Georgy’s father trusted him beyond all
other men, and had been constantly befriended by the good
William. “Why, when your papa was a little boy,” she said,
“he often told me that it was William who defended him
against a tyrant at the school where they were; and their
friendship never ceased from that day until the last, when
your dear father fell.”

“Did Dobbin kill the man who killed papa?” Georgy said.
“Y’m sure he did, or he would if he could have caught him;
wouldn’t he, mother? When I’m in the army, won’t I hate
the French?—that’s all.”

In such colloquies the mother and the child passed a great
deal of their time together. The artless woman had made a
confidant of the boy. He was as much William’s friend as
everybody else who knew him well.

By the way, Mrs. Becky, not to be behindhand in senti-
ment, had got a miniature, too, hanging up in her room, to
the surprise and amusement of most people, and the delight
of the original, who was no other than our friend Jos. On her
first coming to favor the Sedleys with a visit, the little woman,
who had arrived with a remarkably small, shabby kit, was,
perhaps, ashamed of the meanness of her trunks and band-
boxes, and often spoke with great respect about her baggage
left behind at Leipzig, which she must have from that city.
When a traveler talks to you perpetually about the splendor of
his luggage, which he does not happen to have with him, my
son, beware of that traveler! He is, ten to one, an impostor.

Neither Jos nor Emmy knew this important maxim. It
seemed to them of no consequence whether Becky had a
quantity of very fine clothes in invisible trunks; but, as her
present supply was exceedingly shabby, Emmy supplied her
out of her own stores, or took her to the best milliner in the
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 351

town, and there fitted her out. It was no more torn collars
now, I promise you, and faded silks trailing off at the should-
er. Becky changed her habits with her situation in life,—the
rouge-pot was suspended,—another excitement to which she
had accustomed herself was also put aside, or at least only in-
dulged in in privacy; as when she was prevailed on by Jos of a
summer evening, Emmy and the boy being absent on their
walks, to take a little spirit-and-water. But if she did not in-
dulge, the courier did: that rascal Kirsch could not be kept
from the bottle; nor could he tell how much he took when he
applied to it. He was sometimes surprised himself at the way
in which Mr. Sedley’s Cognac diminished. Well, well; this
is a painful subject. Becky did not very likely indulge so
much as she used before she entered a decorous family.

At last the much-bragged about boxes arrived from Liepzig,
—three of them, not by any means large or splendid;—nor did
Becky appear to take out any sort of dresses or ornaments
from the boxes when they did arrive. But out of one, which
contained a mass of her papers (it was that very box which
Rawdon Crawley had ransacked in his furious hunt for Becky’s
concealed money), she took a picture with great glee, which
she pinned up in her room, and to which she introduced Jos.
It was the portrait of a gentleman in pencil, his face having
the advantage of being painted up in pink. He was riding on
an elephant away from some cocoanut-trees, and a pagoda:
it was an Eastern scene. ;

“God bless my soul, it is my portrait,” Jos cried out. It
was he, indeed, blooming in youth and beauty, in a nankeen
jacket of the cut of 1804. It was the old picture that used
to hang up in Russell Square.

“T bought it,” said Becky, in a voice trembling with emo-
tion; “I went to see if I could be of any use to my kind friends.
I have never parted with that picture—TI never will.”

“Won’t you?” Jos cried, with a look of unutterable rapture
and satisfaction. “Did you really now value it for my sake?”

“You know I did, well enough,” said Becky; “but why
speak,—why think,—why look back! It is too late now!”

That evening’s conversation was delicious for Jos. Emmy
only came in to go to bed very tired and unwell. Jos and his
fair guest had a charming téte-d-téte, and his sister could hear,
as she law awake in her adjoining chamber, Rebecca singing
over to Jos the old songs of 1815. He did not sleep, for a
wonder, that night, any more than Amelia.
352 VANITY FAIR.

It was June, and, by consequence, high season in London;
Jos, who read the incomparable Galignani (the exile’s best
friend) through every day, used to favor the ladies with ex-
tracts from his paper during their breakfast. Lvery week in
this paper there is a full account of military movements, in
which Jos, as a man who had seen service, was especially in-
terested. On one occasion he read out,—“Arrival of the —th
regiment.—Gravesend, June 20.—The Ramchunder, East In-
diaman, came into the river this morning, having on board 14
officers, and 182 rank and file of this gallant corps. They
have been absent from England fourteen years, having been
embarked the year after Waterloo, in which glorious conflict
they took an active part, and having subsequently distin-
guished themselves in the Burmese war. The veteran colonel,
Sir Michael O’Dowd, K. C. B., with his lady and sister, landed
here yesterday, with Captains Posky, Stubble, Macraw, Ma-
lony; Lieutenants Smith, Jones, Thompson, I’. Thompson;
Ensigns Hicks and Grady; the band on the pier playing the
national anthem, and the crowd loudly cheering the gallant
veterans as they went into Wayte’s hotel, where a sumptuous
banquet was provided for the defenders of Old England. Dur-
ing the repast, which we need not say was served up in Wayte’s
best style, the cheering continued so enthusiastically that Lady
O’Dowd and the Colonel came forward to the balcony, and
drank the healths of their fellow-countrymen in a bumper of
Wayte’s best claret.”

On a second occasion Jos read a brief announcement,—Ma-
jor Dobbin had joined the —th regiment at Chatham; and
subsequently he promulgated accounts of the presentations, at
the Drawing-room, of Colonel Sir Michael O’Dowd, K. C. B.,
Lady O’Dowd (by Mrs. Molloy Malony of Ballymalony), and
Miss Glorvina O’Dowd (by Lady O’Dowd). Almost directly
after this, Dobbin’s name appeared among the Lieutenant-
Colonels: for old Marshal Tiptoff had died during the passage
of the —th from Madras, and the Sovereign was pleased to
advance Colonel Sir Michael O’Dowd to the rank of Major-
General on his return to England, with an intimation that he
should be Colonel of the distinguished regiment which he
had so long commanded.

Amelia had been made aware of some of these movements.
The correspondence between George and his guardian had not
ceased by any means: William had even written once or twice
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 353

to her since his departure, but in a manner so unconstrainedly
cold that the poor woman felt now in her turn that she had
lost her power over him, and that, as he had said, he was
free. He had left her, and she was wretched. The memory
of his almost countless services, and lofty and affectionate
regard, now presented itself to her, and rebuked her day and
night. She brooded over those recollections according to her
wont; saw the purity and beauty of the affection with which
she had trifled, and reproached herself for having flung away
such a treasure.

It was gone indeed. William had spent it all out. He
loved her no more, he thought, as he had loved her. He never
could again. That sort of regard, which he had proffered to
her for so many faithful years, can’t be flung down and shat-
tered, and mended so as to show no scars. The little heedless
tyrant had so destroyed it. No. William thought again and
again, “It was myself I deluded, and persisted in cajoling;
had she been worthy of the love I gave her, she would have
returned it long ago. It was a fond mistake. Isn’t the whole
course of life made up of such? and, suppose I had won her,
should I not have been disenchanted the day after my vic-
tory? Why pine, or be ashamed of my defeat?” The more
he thought of this long passage of his life, the more clearly
he saw his deception. “I'll go into harness again,” he said,
“and do my duty in that state of life in which it has pleased
Heaven to place me. I will see that the buttons of the re-
cruits are properly bright, and that the sergeants make no
mistake in their accounts. I will dine at mess, and listen to
the Scotch surgeon telling his stories. When I am old and
broke, I will go on half-pay, and my old sisters shall scold
me. I have ‘geliebt and gelebet’ as the girl in Wallenstein
says. [amdone. Pay the bills, and get me a cigar: find out
what there is at the play to-night, Francis; to-morrow we
cross by the ‘Batavier.” He made the above speech, where-
of Francis only heard the last two lines, pacing up and down
the Boompjes at Rotterdam. The “Batavier” was lying in
the basin. He could see the place on the quarterdeck where
he and Emmy had sat on the happy voyage out. What had
that little Mrs. Crawley to say to him? Psha! to-morrow we
will put to sea, and return to England, home, and duty!

After June all the little Court Society of Pumpernickel
used to separate, according to the German plan, and make
Vol. I1.—23
354 VANITY FAIR.

for a hundred watering-places, where they drank at the wells;
rode upon donkeys; gambled at the redoutes, if they had
money and a mind; rushed with hundreds of their kind to
gormandize at the tables @héte; and idled away the sum-
mer. The English diplomatists went off to Toeplitz and Kis-
singen, their french rivals shut up their chancellerie and
whisked away to their darling Boulevard de Gand. The
Transparent reigning family took too to the waters, or retired
to their hunting-lodges. Everybody went away having any
pretentions to politeness, and, of course, with them, Doctor
von Glauber, the court doctor, and his Baroness. The seasons
for the baths were the most productive periods of the Doc-
tor’s practice,—he united business with pleasure, and his
chief place of resort was Ostend, which is much frequented
by Germans, and where the Doctor treated himself and his
spouse to what he called a “dib” in the sea.

His interesting patient, Jos, was a regular milch cow to the
Doctor, and he easily persuaded the civilian, both for his own
health’s sake and that of his charming sister, which was really
very much shattered, to pass the summer at that hideous sea-
port town. Emmy did not care where she went much. Georgy
jumped at the idea of a move. As for Becky, she came as a
matter of course in the fourth place inside of the fine barouche
Mr. Jos had bought: the two domestics being on the box in
front. She might have some misgivings about the friends
whom she should meet at Ostend, and who might be likely to
tell ugly stories,—but, bah! she was strong enough to hold
her own. She had cast such an anchor in Jos now as would
require a strong storm to shake. That incident of the picture
had finished him. Becky took down her elephant, and put it
into the little box which she had had from Amelia ever so
many years ago. Emmy also came off with her Lares,—her
two pictures,—and the party, finally, were lodged in an ex-
ceedingly dear and uncomfortable house at Ostend.

There Amelia began to take baths, and get what good she
could from them, and though scores of people of Becky’s ac-
quaintance passed her and cut her, yet Mrs. Osborne, who
walked about with her, and who knew nobody, was not aware
of the treatment experienced by the friend whom she had
chosen so judiciously as a companion; indeed, Becky never
thought fit to tell her what was passing under her innocent
eyes.

Some of Mrs. Rawdon Crawley’s acquaintances, however,
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 365

acknowledged her readily enough,—perhaps more readily than
she would have desired. Among those were Major Loder
(unattached), and Captain Rook (late of the Rifles),
who might be seen any day on_ the Dyke, smok-
ing and staring at the women, and who speedily got an in-
troduction to the hospitable board and select circle of Mr.
Joseph Sedley. In fact, they would take no denial; they burst
into the house whether Becky was at home or not, walked into
Mrs. Osborne’s drawing-room, which they perfumed with their
coats and mustachios, called Jos “Old buck,” and invaded
. dinner-table, and laughed and drank for long hours
ere.

“What can they mean?” asked Georgy, who did not like
these gentlemen. “I heard the Major say to Mrs. Crawley
yesterday, ‘No, no, Becky, you sha’n’t keep the old buck to
yourself. We must have the bones in, or, dammy, I’ll split”
What could the Major mean, mamma?”

“Major! don’t call him Major!” Emmy said. “I’m sure I
can’t tell what he meant.” His presence and that of his friend
inspired the little lady with intolerable terror and aversion.
They paid her tipsy compliments; they leered at her over the
dinner table. And the Captain made her advances that filled
her with sickening dismay, nor would she ever see him un-
less she had George by her side.

Rebecca, to do her justice, never would let either of these
men remain alone with Amelia; the Major was disengaged
too, and swore he would be the winner of her. A couple of
ruffans were fighting for this innocent creature, gambling
for her at her own table; and though she was not aware of
the rascals’ designs upon her, yet she felt a horror and uneasi-
ness in their presence, and longed to fly.

She besought, she entreated Jos to go. Not he. He was
slow of movement, tied to his doctor, and perhaps to some
other leading-strings. At least Becky was not anxious to go to
England.

At last she took a great resolution,—made the great plunge.
She wrote off a letter to a friend whom she had on the other
side of the water; a letter about which she did not speak a
word to anybody, which she carried herself to the post under
her shawl, nor was any remark made about it; only that she
looked very much flushed and agitated when Georgy met her;
and she kissed him and hung over him a great deal that
night. She did not come out of her room after her return

46
356 VANITY FAIR.

from the walk. Becky thought it was Major Loder and the
Captain who frightened her.

“She musn’t stop here,” Becky reasoned with herself. “She
must go away, the silly little fool. She is still whimpering
after that gaby of a husband,—dead (and served right!) these
fifteen years. She sha’n’t marry either of these men. It’s too
bad of Loder. No; she shall marry the bamboo-cane, I’1l set-
tle it this very night.”

So Becky took a cup of tea to Amelia in her private apart-
ment, and found that lady in the company of her miniatures,
and in a most melancholy and nervous condition. She laid
down the cup of tea.

“Thank you,” said Amelia.

“Listen to me, Amelia,” said Becky, marching up and down
the room before the other, and surveying her with a sort of
contemptuous kindness. “I want to talk to you. You must
go away from here and from the impertinences of these men.
I won’t have you harassed by them; and they will insult you
if you stay. I tell you they are rascals; men fit to send to
the hulks. Never mind how I know them. I know every-
body. Jos can’t protect you; he is too weak, and wants a
protector himself. You are no more fit to live in the world
than a baby in arms. You must marry, or you and your pre-
cious boy will go to ruin. You must have a husband, you
fool; and one of the best gentlemen I ever saw has offered
you a hundred times, and you have rejected him, you silly,
heartless, ungrateful little creature!”

“T tried—I tried my best, indeed I did, Rebecca,” said Ame-
lia, deprecatingly; but I couldn’t forget—;” and she finished
the sentence by looking up at the portrait.

“Couldn’t forget him!” cried out Becky, “that selfish hum-
bug, that low-bred cockney-dandy, that padded booby, who
had neither wit, nor manners, nor heart, and was no more to
be compared to your friend with the bamboo-cane than you
are to Queen Elizabeth. Why, the man was weary of you,
and would have jilted you, but that Dobbin forced him to
keep his word. He owned it to me. He never cared for you.
He used to sneer about you to me, time after time; and made
love to me the week after he married you.”

“Tt’s false! It’s false! Rebecca,” cried out Amelia, starting
up.
“Look there, you fool,” Becky said, still with provoking
good-humor, and, taking a little paper out of her belt, she
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 357

opened it and flung it into Emmy’s lap. “You know his hand-
writing. He wrote that to me,— wanted me to run away with
him,—gave it me under your nose, the day before he was
shot,—and served him right!’ Becky repeated.

Emmy did not hear her; she was looking at the letter.
It was that which George had put into the bouquet and given
to Becky on the night of the Duke of Richmond’s ball. It
rey as she said: the foolish young man had asked her to

y.
Emmy’s head sank down, and, for almost the last time in
which she shall be called upon to weep in this history, she
commenced that work. Her head fell to her bosom, and her
hands went up to her eyes; and there, for a while, she gave
way to her emotions, as Becky stood on and regarded her.
Who shall analyze those tears, and say whether they were
sweet or bitter? Was she most grieved because the idol of
her life was tumbled down and shivered at her feet, or indig-
nant that her love had been so despised, or glad because the
barrier was removed which modesty had placed between her
and a new, a real affection? “There is nothing to forbid me
now,” she thought. “I may love him with all my heart now.
O, I will, I will, if he will but let me, and forgive me.” I
believe it was this feeling rushed over all the others which
agitated that gentle little bosom.

Indeed, she did not cry so much as Becky expected,—the
other soothed and kissed her,—a rare mark of sympathy with
Mrs. Becky. She treated Emmy like a child, and patted her
head. “And now let us get pen and ink, and write to him to
come this minute,” she said.

“T_T wrote to him this morning,” Emmy said, blushing
exceedingly. Becky screamed with laughter,—“ Un bighetto,”
she sang out with Rosina, “eccolo qua!”—the whole house
echoed with her shrill singing.

Two mornings after this little scene, although the day was
rainy and gusty, and Amelia had had an exceedingly wake-
ful night, listening to the wind roaring, and pitying all
travelers by land and by water, yet she got up early, and
insisted upon taking a walk on the Dyke with Georgy; and
there she paced as the rain beat into her face, and she looked
out westward across the dark sea line, and over the swollen
billows which came tumbling and frothing to the shore.
Neither spoke much, except now and then, when the boy
358 VANITY FAIR.

said a few words to his timid companion, indicative of sym-
pathy and protection. :

“T hope he won’t cross in such weather,” Emmy said.

“I bet ten to one he does,” the boy answered. “Look,
mother, there’s the smoke of the steamer.” It was that signal,
sure enough.

But though the steamer was under way, he might not be
on board; he might not have got the letter; he might not
choose to come. A hundred fears poured one over the other
into the little heart, as fast as the waves on to the Dyke.

The boat followed the smoke into sight. Georgy had a dan-
dy telescope, and got the vessel under view in the most skill-
ful manner. And he made appropriate nautical comments
upon the manner of the approach of the steamer as she came
nearer and nearer, dipping and rising in the water. The
signal of an English steamer in sight went fluttering up to
the mast on the pier. I dare say Mrs. Amelia’s heart was in a
similar flutter.

Emmy tried to look through the telescope over George’s
shoulder, but she could make nothing of it. She only saw
a black eclipse bobbing up and down before her eyes.

George took the glass again and raked the vessel. “How
she does pitch!” he said. “There goes a wave slap over her
bows. There’s only two people on deck besides the steersman.
There’s a man lying down, and a—chap in a—cloak with a—
Hooray!—It’s Dob, by Jingo!’ He clapped to the telescope
and flung his arms round his mother. As for that lady, let
us say what she did in the words of a favorite poet,—4akprozv
yedacaéa. She was sure it was William. It could be no
other. What she had said about hoping that he would not
come was all hypocrisy. Of course he would come: what
could he do else but come? She knew he would come.

The ship came swiftly nearer and nearer. As they went
in to meet her at the landing-place at the quay, Emmy’s knees
trembled so that she scarcely could run. She would have
liked to kneel down and say her prayers of thanks there.
O, she thought, she would be all her life saying them!

It was such a bad day that as the vessel came alongside
of the quay there were no idlers abroad; scarcely even a
commissioner on the lookout for the passengers in the steamer.
That young scapegrace, George, had fled too; and as the
gentleman in the old cloak lined with red stuff stepped on to
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 369

the shore, there was scarcely any one present to see what
took place, which was briefly this:—

_A lady in a dripping white bonnet and shawl, with her two
little hands out before her, went up to him, and in the next
minute she had altogether disappeared under the folds of the
old cloak, and was kissing one of his hands with all her might;
whilst the other, I suppose, was engaged in holding her to
his heart (which her head just about reached) and in pre-
venting her from tumbling down. She was murmuring some-
thing about—forgive—dear William—dear, dear, dearest
friend,—kiss, kiss, kiss, and so forth,—and in fact went on
under the cloak in an absurd manner.

When Emmy emerged from it, she still kept tight hold of
one of William’s hands, and looked up in his face. It was
full of sadness and tender love and pity. She understood
its reproach, and hung down her head.

“Tt was time you sent for me, dear Amelia,” he said.

“You will never go again, William.”

“No, never,” he answered; and pressed the dear little soul
once more to his heart.

As they issued out of the Custom-house precincts, Georgy
broke out on them, with his telescope up to his eye, and a loud
laugh of welcome; he danced round the couple, and per-
formed many facetious antics as he led them up to the house.
Jos wasn’t up yet; Becky not visible (though she looked at
them through the blinds). Georgy ran off to see about break-
fast. Emmy, whose shawl and bonnet were off in the passage
in the hands of Mrs. Payne, now went to undo the clasp of
William’s cloak,— and—vwe will, if you please, go with George,
and look after breakfast for the Colonel. The vessel is in port.
He has got the prize he has been trying for all his life. The
bird has come in at last. There it is with its head on his
shoulder, billing and cooing close up to his heart, with soft,
outstretched, fluttering wings. This is what he has asked for
every day and hour for eighteen years. This is what he pined
after. Here it is—the summit, the end,—the last page of the
third volume. Good bye, Colonel,—God bless you, honest
William!—Farewell, dear Amelia,—grow green again, tender
little parasite, round the rugged old oak to which you cling!

 

Perhaps it was compunction towards the kind and simple
creature who had been the first in life to defend her, perhaps
360 VANITY FAIR.

it-was a dislike to all such sentimental scenes,—but Rebecca,

__-~ satisfied with her part in the transaction, never presented
herself before Colonel Dobbin and the lady whom he married.
“Particular business,” she said, took her to Bruges, whither
she went; and only Georgy and his uncle were present at the
marriage ceremony. When it was over, and Georgy had re-
joined his parents, Mrs. Becky returned (just for a few days)
to comfort the solitary bachelor, Joseph Sedley. He preferred
a Continental life, he said, and declined to join in house-
keeping with his sister and her husband.

Emmy was very glad in her heart to think that she had
written to her husband before she read or knew of that letter
of George’s. “I knew it all along,” William said; “but could
I use that weapon against the poor fellow’s memory? It was
that which made me suffer so when you—”

“Never speak of that day again,” Emmy cried out, so con-
trite and humble that William turned off the conversation,
by his account of Glorvina and dear old Peggy O'Dowd,
with whom he was sitting when the letter of recall reached
him. “If you hadn’t sent for me,” he added, with a laugh,
“who knows what Glorvina’s name might be now?”

At present it is Glorvina Posky (now Mrs. Major Posky),
she took him on the death of his first wife; having
resolved never to marry out of the regiment. Lady
O’Dowd is also so attached to it that, she says, if any-
thing were to happen to Mick, bedad she’d come back and
marry some of ’em. But the Major-General is quite well,
and lives in great splendor at O’Dowdstown, with a pack of
beagles, and (with the exception of perhaps their neighbor,
Hoggarty of Castle Hoggarty) he is the first man of his county.
Her Ladyship still dances jigs, and insisted on standing up
to the Master of the Horse at the Lord Lieutenant’s last ball.
Both she and Glorvina declared that Dobbin had used the
latter sheamfully, but Posky falling in, Glorvina was con-
soled, and a beautiful turban from Paris appeased the wrath
of Lady O’Dowd.

When Colonel Dobbin quitted the service, which he did
immediately after his marriage, he rented a pretty little coun-
try place in Hampshire, not far from Queen’s Crawley, where,
after the passing of the Reform Bill, Sir Pitt and his family
constantly resided now. All idea of a Peerage was out of
the question, the Baronet’s two seats in Parliament being lost.
He waa both out of pocket and out of spirits by that catas-
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO, 361

trophe, failed in his health, and prophesied the speedy ruin of
the Empire.

Lady Jane and Mrs. Dobbin became great friends,— there
was a perpetual crossing of pony-chaises between the Hall and
the Evergreens, the Colonel’s place (rented of his friend
Major Ponto, who was abroad with his family). Her Lady-
ship was godmother to Mrs. Dobbin’s child, which bore her
name, and was christened by the Rev. James Crawley, who
succeeded his father in the living: and a pretty close friend-
ship subsisted between the two lads, George and Rawdon,
who hunted and shot together in the vacations, were both
entered of the same college at Cambridge, and quarreled with
éach other about Lady Jane’s daughter, with whom they were
both, of course, in love. A match between George and that
young lady was long a favorite scheme of both the matrons,
though I have heard that Miss Crawley herself inclined to-
wards her cousin.

Mrs. Rawdon Crawley’s name was never mentioned by
either family. There were reasons why all should be silent
regarding her. For wherever Mr. Joseph Sedley went, she
traveled likewise; and that infatuated man seemed to be en-
tirely her slave. The Colonel’s lawyers informed him that
his brother-in-law had effected a heavy insurance upon his
life, whence it was probable that he had been raising money
to discharge debts. He procured prolonged leave of absence
from the East India House, and indeed his infirmities were
daily increasing.

On hearing the news about the insurance, Amelia, in a good
deal of alarm, entreated her husband to go to Brussels, where
Jos then was, and inquire into the state of his affairs. The
Colonel quitted home with reluctance (for he was deeply im-
mersed in his “History of the Punjaub,” which still occupies
him, and much alarmed about his little daughter, whom he
idolizes, and who was just recovering from the chicken-pox),
and went to Brussels and found Jos living at one of the enor-
mous hotels in that city. Mrs. Crawley, who had her carriage,
gave entertainments, and lived in a very genteel manner,
occupied another suite of apartments in the same hotel.

The Colonel, of course, did not desire to see that lady, or
even think proper to notify his arrival at Brussels, except
privately to Jos by a message through his valet. Jos begged
the Colonel to come and see him that night, when Mrs. Craw-
ley would be at a soirée, and when they could meet alone. He
362 VANITY FAIR.

‘found his brother-in-law in a condition of pitiable infirmity;
and dreadfully afraid of Rebecca, though eager in his praises
of her. She tended him through a series of unheard-of-ill-
nesses, with a fidelity most admirable. She had been a daugh-
ter to him. “But—but—O, for God’s sake, do come and live
near me, and—and—see me sometimes,” whimpered out the
unfortunate man.

The Colonel’s brow darkened at this. “We can’t, Jos,” he
said. “Considering the circumstances, Amelia can’t visit

ou.”
“T swear to you,—I swear to you on the Bible,” gasped out
Joseph, wanting to kiss the book, “that she is as innocent as
a child, as spotless as your own wife.”

“It may be so,” said the Colonel, gloomily; “but Emmy
can’t come to you. Bea man, Jos; break off this disreputable
connection. Come home to your family. We hear your affairs
are involved.”

“Involved!” cried Jos. “Who has told such calumnies?
All my money is placed out most advantageously. Mrs.
Crawley—that is—I mean—it is laid out to the best inter-
est.”

“You are not in debt, then? Why did you insure your
life?”

“T thought—a little present to her—in case anything hap-
pened; and you know my health is so delicate,—common
gratitude, you know,—and I intend to leave all my money to
you,—and I can spare it out of my income, indeed I can,”
cried out William’s weak brother-in-law.

The Colonel besought Jos to fly at once,—to go back to
India, whither Mrs. Crawley could not follow him; to do any-
thing to break off a connection which might have the most
fatal consequences to him.

Jos clasped his hands, and cried,—“ He would go back to
India. He would do anything: only he must have time: they
mustn’t say anything to Mrs. Crawley:—she’d—she'd kill me
if she knew it. You don’t know what a terrible woman she
is,’ the poor wretch said.

“Then why not come away with me?” said Dobbin, in
reply; but Jos had not the courage. “He would see Dobbin
again in the morning; he must on no account say that he had
been there. He must go now. Becky might come in.” And
Dobbin quitted him full of forebodings.

He never saw Jos more. Three months afterwards Joseph
A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 363

Sedley died at Aix-la-Chapelle. It was found that all his
property had been muddled away in speculations, and was re-
presented by valueless shares in different bubble companies.
All his available assets were the two thousand pouads for
which his life was insured, and which were left equally be-
tween his beloved “sister Amelia, wife of, &c., and his friend
and invaluable attendant during sickness, Rebecca, wife of
Lieutenant-Colonel Rawdon Crawley, C. B.,’ who was ap-
pointed administratrix.

The solicitor of the Insurance Company swore it was the
blackest case that ever had come before him; talked of send-
ing a commission to Aix to examine into the death, and the
Company refused payment of the policy. But Mrs. or Lady
Crawley, as she styled herself, came to town at once (attended.
with her solicito:s, Messrs. Burke, Thurtell, and Hayes, of
Thavies Inn), and dared the Company to refuse the payment.
They invited examination, they declared that she was the ob-
ject of an infamous conspiracy which had been pursuing her
all through life, and triumphed finally. The money was paid,
and her character established, but Colonel Dobbin sent back
his share of the legacy to the Insurance Office, and rigidly
declined to hold any communication with Rebecca.

She never was Lady Crawley, though she continued so to
call herself. His Excellency Colonel Rawdon Crawley died
of yellow fever at Coventry Island, most deeply beloved and
deplored, and six weeks before the demise of his brother, Sir
Pitt. The estate consequently devolved upon the present Sir
Rawdon Crawley, Bart.

He, too, has declined to see his mother, to whom he makes
a liberal allowance; and who, besides, appears to be very
wealthy. The Baronet lives entirely at Queen’s Crawley, with
Lady Jane and her daughter; whilst Rebecca, Lady Crawley,
chiefly hangs about Bath and Cheltenham, where a very strong
party of excellent people consider her to be a most injured
woman. She has her enemies. Who has not? Her life is
her answer to them. She busies herself in works of piety.
She goes to church, and never without a footman. Her name
is in all the Charity Lists. The Destitute Orange-girl, the
Neglected Washerwoman, the Distressed Muffinman, find in
her a fast and generous friend. She is always having stalls
at Fancy Fairs for the benefit of these hapless beings. Emmy,
ther children, and the Colonel, coming to London some time
back, found themselves suddenly before her at one of these
364 VANITY FAIR.

fairs. She cast down her eyes demurely and smiled as they
started away from her; Emmy skurrying off on the arm of
George (now grown a dashing young gentleman), and the
Colonel seizing up his little Janey, of whom he is fonder than
of anything in th: world,—fonder even than of his “History
of the Punjaub.”

“Fonder than he is of me,” Emmy thinks, with a sigh. But
he never said a word to Amelia that was not kind and gentle;
or thought of a want of hers that he did not try to gratify.

Ah! Vanitas Vanitatum! which of us is happy in this
world? Which of us has his desire? or, having it, is satisfied?
—Come, children, let us shut up the box and the puppets, for
our play is played out.

THE END.
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