Vanity Fair (Barnes & Noble Classics Series)

by William Makepeace Thackeray

  ‘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 appetite or the slumber of Mr. Joseph Sedley; but he thought to himself how delightful it would be to hear such songs as those after Cutcherryad—what a distinguée girl she was how she could speak French better than the Governor-General‘s lady herself—and what a sensation she would make at the Calcutta balls. ‘It‘s evident the poor devil‘s in love with me,‘ thought he. ‘She is just as rich as most of the girls who come out to India. I might go farther and fare worse, egad!‘ And in these 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 luncheon. He had never been known before to confer such an honour on Russell Square. George Osborne was somehow there already (sadly ‘putting out‘ Amelia, who was writing to her twelve dearest friends at Chiswick Mall), and Rebecca was employed upon her yesterday‘s work. As Joe‘s buggy drove up, and while, after his usual thundering knock and pompous bustle at the door, the ex-collector of Boggley Wollah laboured upstairs to the drawing-room, knowing glances were telegraphed between Osborne and Miss Sedley, and the pair, smiling archly, looked at Rebecca, who actually blushed as she bent her fair ringlets over her netting. How her heart beat as Joseph appeared,—Joseph, puffing from the staircase in shining creaking boots,—Joseph, in a new waistcoat, red with heat and nervousness, and blushing behind his wadded neckcloth. It was a nervous moment for all; and as for Amelia, I think she was more frightened than even the people most concerned.

  Sambo, who flung open the door and announced Mr. Joseph, followed grinning, in the collector‘s rear, and bearing two handsome nosegays of flowers, which the monster had actually had the gallantry to purchase in Covent Garden market that morning—they were not as big as the haystacks which ladies carry about with them 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.

  MR. JOSEPH ENTANGLED

  ‘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.)

  ‘O heavenly, heavenly flowers!‘ exclaimed Miss Sharp, and smelt them delicately, and held them to her bosom, and cast up her eyes to the ceiling, in an ecstasy of admiration. Perhaps she just looked first into the bouquet, to see whether there was a billet-douxae 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;af very cool and nice this hot weather.‘ Rebecca said she had never tasted a pine, and longed beyond everything to taste one.

  So the conversation went on. I don‘t know on what pretext Osborne left the room, or why, presently, Amelia went away, perhaps to superintend the slicing of the pineapple; but Jos was left alone with Rebecca, who had resumed her work, and the green silk and the shining needles were quivering rapidly under her white slender fingers.

  ‘What a beautiful, byoo-ootiful song that was you sang last night, dear Miss Sharp,‘ said the collector. ‘It made me cry almost; ‘pon my honour it did.‘

  ‘Because you have a kind heart, Mr. Joseph; all the Sedleys have, I think.‘

  ‘It kept me awake last night, and I was trying to hum it this morning in bed; I was, upon my honour. 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.‘

  ‘Oh, 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 tête-à-tête with a young lady, looking at her with a most killing expression; his arms stretched out before her in an imploring attitude, and his hands bound in a web of green 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, I‘ll pop the question at Vauxhall.‘

  CHAPTER V

  Dobbin of Oursag

  Cuff‘s fight with Dobbin, and the unexpected issue of that contest, will long be remembered by every man who was educated at Dr. Swishtail‘s famous school. The latter youth (who used to be called Heigh-ho Dobbin, Gee-ho Dobbin, and by many other names indicative of puerile contempt) was the quietest, the clumsiest, and, as it seemed, the dullest of all Dr. Swishtail‘s young gentlemen. His parent was a grocer in the city: and it was bruited abroad that he was admitted into Dr. Swishtail‘s academy upon what are called ‘mutual principles‘—that is to say, the expenses of his board and schooling were defrayed by his father in goods, not money; and he stood there-almost at the bottom of the school—in his scraggy corduroys and 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,ah espied the cart of Dobbin & Rudge, Grocers and Oilmen, Thames Street, London, at the doctor‘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. Sugars is ris‘, my boy.‘ Another would set a sum—‘If a pound of mutton-candles cost sevenpence-halfpenny, how much must Dobbin cost?‘ and a roar would follow from all the circle of young knaves, usheraiand 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 father‘s a gentleman, and keeps his carriage;‘ and Mr. William Dobbin retreated to a remote out-house in the playground, where he passed a half-holiday in the bitterest sadness and woe. Who amongst us is there that does not recollect similar hours of bitter, bitter childish grief? Who feels injustice; who shrinks before a slight; who has a sense of wrong so acute, and so glowing 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 Dr. Swishtail‘s scholars, and was ‘taken down‘ continually by little fellows with pink faces and pinafores when he marched up with the lower form,aj 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 be
d-strings. They upset buckets and benches, so that he might break his shins over them, which he never failed to do. They sent him parcels, which, when opened, were found 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.ak He could knock you off forty Latin verses in an hour. He could make French poetry. What else didn‘t he know, or couldn‘t he do? They said even the Doctor himself was afraid of him.

  Cuff, the unquestioned king of the school, ruled over his 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 communication.

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

  ‘I can‘t,‘ says Dobbin; ‘I want to finish my letter.‘

  ‘You can‘t?‘ says Mr. Cuff, laying hold of that document (in which many words were scratched out, many were misspelt, on which had been spent I don‘t know how much thought, and labour, and tears; for the poor fellow was writing to his mother, who was fond of him, although she was a grocer‘s wife, and lived in a back-parlour in Thames Street). ‘You can‘t?‘ says Mr. Cuff: ‘I should like to know why, pray? Can‘t you write to old Mother Figs to-morrow?‘

  ‘Don‘t call names,‘ Dobbin said, getting off the bench, very nervous.

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

  ‘Put down the letter,‘ Dobbin replied; ‘no gentleman readth letterth.‘

  ‘Well, now will you go?‘ says the other.

  ‘No, I won‘t. Don‘t strike, or I‘ll 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 always spoke of Mr. Dobbin with contempt behind his back.

  Some time after this interview, it happened that Mr. Cuff, on a sunshiny afternoon, was in the neighbourhood of poor William Dobbin, who was lying under a tree in the playground, spelling over a favourite copy of the Arabian Nights which he had—apart from the rest of the school, who were pursuing their various sports—quite lonely, and almost happy. If people would but leave children to themselves; if teachers would cease to bully them; if parents would not insist upon directing their thoughts, and dominating their feelings—those feelings and thoughts which are a mystery to all (for how much do you and I know of each other, of our children, of our fathers, of our neighbour, and how far more beautiful and sacred are the thoughts of the poor lad or girl whom you govern likely to be, than those of the dull and world-corrupted person who rules him?)—if, I say, parents and masters would leave their children alone a little more,—small harm would accrue, although a less quantity of as in praesential might be acquired.

  Well, William Dobbin had for once forgotten the world, and was away with Sindbad the Sailor in the Valley of Diamonds, or with Prince Ahmed and the Fairy Peribanou in that delightful cavern where the prince found her,am and whither we should all like to make a tour; when shrill cries, as of a little fellow weeping, woke up his pleasant reverie; and, looking up, he saw Cuff before him, belabouring a little boy.

  It was the lad who had peached upon him about the grocer‘s cart; but he bore little malice, not at least towards the young and small. ‘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 playground wall (at a selected spot where the broken-glass had been removed from the top, and niches made convenient in the brick); to run a quarter of a mile; to purchase a pint of rum-shruban on credit; to brave all the Doctor‘s outlying spies, and to clamber back into the playground again during the performance of which feat his foot had 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 perfectly 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 everyday life before honest William; and a big boy beating a little one without cause.

  ‘Hold out your other hand, sir,‘ roars Cuff to his little 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 horrified, 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.

  I can‘t tell what his motive was. Torture in a public schoolao is as much licensed as the knoutap in Russia. It would be ungentlemanlike (in a manner) to resist it. Perhaps Dobbin‘s foolish soul revolted against that exercise of tyranny; or perhaps he had a hankering feeling of revenge in his mind, and longed to measure himself against that splendid bully and tyrant, who had all the glory, pride, pomp, circumstance, banners flying, drums beating, guards saluting, in the place. Whatever may have been his incentive, however, up he sprang, and screamed out, ‘Hold off, Cuff; don‘t bully that child any more; or I‘ll—‘

  ‘Or you‘ll what?‘ Cuff asked in amazement at this interruption. ‘Hold out your hand, you little beast.‘

  ‘I‘ll give you the worst thrashing you ever had in your life,‘ Dobbin said, in reply to the first part of Cuffs sentence; and little Osborne, gasping and in tears, looked up with wonder and incredulity at seeing this amazing champion put up suddenly to defend him: while Cuff‘s astonish ment was scarcely less. Fancy our late monarch George III when he heard of the revolt of the North American colonies: fancy brazen Goliath when little David stepped forward and claimed a meeting; and you have the feelings of Mr. Reginald Cuff when this rencontreaq 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 champion.

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

  ‘What a licking I shall get when it‘s over,‘ young Osborne thought, picking up his man. �
��You‘d best give in,‘ he said to Dobbin; ‘it‘s only a thrashing, Figs, and you know I‘m used to it.‘ But Figs, all whose limbs were in a quiver, and whose nostrils were breathing rage, put his little bottle-holder aside, and 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 engagement by a charge on his own part; and accordingly, being a left-handed man, brought that arm into action, and hit out a couple of times with all his might once at Mr. Cuff‘s left eye, and once on his beautiful Roman nose.

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