Vanity Fair (illustrated)

by William Makepeace Thackeray

  “What’s the matter now, my dear?” asked one of the other, as they rose and tripped gingerly behind the sire. “I suppose the funds are falling,” whispered Miss Wirt; and so, trembling and in silence, this hushed female company followed their dark leader. They took their places in silence. He growled out a blessing, which sounded as gruffly as a curse. The great silver dish-covers were removed. Amelia trembled in her place, for she was next to the awful Osborne, and alone on her side of the table — the gap being occasioned by the absence of George.

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

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

  Having concluded his observations upon the soup, Mr. Osborne made a few curt remarks respecting the fish, also of a savage and satirical tendency, and cursed Billingsgate with an emphasis quite worthy of 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 humour contrasted with his father’s severity; and he rattled on unceasingly during dinner, to the delight of all — of one especially, who need not be mentioned.

  As soon as the young ladies had discussed the orange and the glass of wine which formed the ordinary conclusion of the dismal banquets at Mr. Osborne’s house, the signal to make sail for the drawing-room was given, and they all arose and departed. Amelia hoped George would soon join them there. She began playing some of his favourite waltzes (then newly imported) at the great carved-legged, leather-cased grand piano in the 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 instrument presently; and though her three friends performed some of the loudest and most brilliant new pieces of their repertoire, she did not hear a single note, but sate thinking, and boding evil. Old Osborne’s scowl, terrific 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? Oh, those women! They nurse and cuddle their presentiments, and make darlings of their ugliest thoughts, as they do of their deformed children.

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

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

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

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

  Amelia heard the claret bell ringing as she sat nervously upstairs. She thought, somehow, it was a mysterious and presentimental 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 upstairs, are carrying on?”

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

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

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

  “And you yourself?”

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

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

  The old gentleman pronounced these aristocratic names with the greatest gusto. Whenever he met a great man he grovelled before him, and my-lorded him as only a free-born Briton can do. He came home and looked out his history in the Peerage: he introduced his name into his daily conversation; he bragged about his Lordship to his daughters. He fell down prostrate and basked 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 comfort to me is, George, that living in the best society in England, as I hope you do; as I think you do; as my means will allow you to do — ”

  “Thank you, sir,” says George, making his point at once. “One can’t live with these great folks for nothing; and my purse, sir, look at it”; and he held up a little token which had been netted by Amelia, and contained the very last of Dobbin’s pound notes.

  “You shan’t want, sir. The British merchant’s son shan’t want, sir. My guineas are as good as theirs, George, my boy; and I don’t grudge ’em. Call on Mr. Chopper as you go through the City to-morrow; he’ll have something for you. I don’t grudge money when I know you’re in good society, because I know that good society can never go wrong. There’s no pride in me. I was a humbly born man — but you have had advantages. Make a good use of ’em. Mix with the young nobility. There’s many of ’em who can’t spend a dollar to your guinea, my boy. And as for the pink bonnets (here from under the heavy 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.”

  “Oh, 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?”

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

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

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

  He hurried upstairs to Amelia in the highest spirits. What was it that made him more attentive to her on that night than he had been for a long time — more eager to amuse her, more tender, more brilliant in talk? Was it that his generous heart warmed to her at the prospect of misfortune; or that the idea of losing the dear little prize made him value it more?

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

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

  And as the swinging doors of Hulker, Bullock amp; 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.

  Lieutenant Osborne and his ardent love letters

  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 forebodings.

  “Poor little Emmy — dear little Emmy. How fond she is of me,” George said, as he perused the missive — “and Gad, what a headache that mixed punch has given me!” Poor little Emmy, indeed.

  CHAPTER XIV

  Miss Crawley at Home

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

  Captain Crawley of the Life Guards rode up from Knightsbridge Barracks the next day; his black charger pawed the straw before his invalid aunt’s door. He was most affectionate in his inquiries regarding that amiable relative. There seemed to be much source of apprehension. He found Miss Crawley’s maid (the discontented female) unusually sulky and despondent; he found Miss Briggs, her dame de compagnie, in tears alone in the drawing-room. She had hastened home, hearing of her 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 compagnie, and she buried her crushed affections and her poor old red nose in her pocket handkerchief.

  Rawdon Crawley sent up his name by the sulky femme de chambre, and Miss Crawley’s new companion, coming tripping down from the sick-room, put a little hand into his as he stepped forward eagerly to meet her, gave a glance of great scorn at the bewildered Briggs, and beckoning the young Guardsman out of the back drawing-room, led him downstairs into that now desolate dining-parlour, where so many a good dinner had been celebrated.

  Here these two talked for ten minutes, discussing, no doubt, the symptoms of the old invalid above stairs; at the end of which period the parlour bell was rung briskly, and answered on that instant by Mr. Bowls, Miss Crawley’s large confidential butler (who, indeed, happened to be at the keyhole during the most part of the interview); and the Captain coming out, curling his mustachios, mounted the black charger pawing among the straw, to the admiration of the little blackguard boys collected in the street. He looked in at the dining-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, doubtless, she went upstairs again to resume the affecting duties of benevolence.

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

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

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

  “I think we shall be able to help each other,” said the person with great suavity: “and shall have no need of Mr. Bowls’s kind services. Mr. Bowls, if you please, we will ring when we want you.” He went downstairs, where, by the way, he vented the most horrid curses upon the unoffending footman, his subordinate.

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

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

  “She’s not very ill any more. Console yourself, dear Miss 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. “Oh, Matilda, Matilda, after three-and-twenty years’ tenderness! is this the return to your poor, poor Arabella?”

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

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

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

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

  “Never be well or never go, Miss Briggs?” the other said, with the same provoking good-nature. “Pooh — she will be well in a fortnight, when I shall go back to my little pupils at 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 name of her who has been described ingeniously as “the person” hitherto), went upstairs 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 wanted.” “Thank you”; and Firkin came downstairs in a tempest of jealousy, only the more dangerous because she was forced to confine it in her own bosom.