Vanity Fair (Barnes & Noble Classics Series)

by William Makepeace Thackeray

  Thus, for instance, Mrs. Bute, with the best intentions no doubt in the world, and wearing herself to death as she did by forgoing 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.

  ‘I 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 sacrifice myself.‘

  ‘Your devotion, it must be confessed, is admirable,‘ Mr. Clump says, with a low bow; ‘but—‘

  ‘I 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 grey head with sorrow to the bed of sickness‘ (here Mrs. Bute, waving her hand, pointed to one of old Miss Crawley‘s coffee-coloured fronts,gg 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 sentiments which do you so much honour, was that I think you alarm yourself needlessly about our kind friend, and sacrifice your own health too prodigally in her favour.‘

  ‘I would lay down my life for my duty, or for any member 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.‘

  ‘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, to 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 depression. She should have change, fresh air, gaiety; 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 matters it? I give it cheerfully, sir. I sacrifice it at the altar of my duty‘

  ‘Upon my word, madam,‘ Mr. Clump now said bluntly, ‘I 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 thirteenth blessing), regarding Miss 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 madeira.‘

  ‘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 development,‘ 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 physician, and after a pause added, ‘She‘ll cut up well,gh I suppose.‘

  ‘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. ‘Old woman; full feeder; nervous subject; palpitation of the heart; pressure on the brain; apoplexy; off she goes. Get her up, Clump; 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 candour 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 London,‘ she then thought. ‘I hear they are the most picturesque 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 Miss 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; Rebecca was seated by him. In the enemy‘s equipage Miss Crawley 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 the 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 moustachios. Only old Briggs was moved in the other carriage, and cast her great eyes nervously towards her old friends. Miss 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 doff 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 striking 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 evident 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 Hymengi

  W ithout 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 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 indeed the conducting of this negotiation was about as painful a task as could be set to him, yet when he had a duty to perform, Captain Dobbin was accustomed to go through it without 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 determined to use all his best endeavours 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 William. 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 supreme chief and master, and as if she were quite a guilty and unworthy person needing every favour 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: besides, 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 maidservant, delighted with the change, asked leave to kiss the face that had grown all of a 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 gen erousest creatures alive; and that he was making a tremendous sacrifice in marrying this young creature.

  While she and Osborne were having their delightful tête-à-tête 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 embracing 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 splendours, 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 accommodated her at the birth of one of Osborne‘s own children. The fiendish ingratitude of that man, she was sure, had broken Mr. S.‘s heart: and as for a marriage, he would never, never, never, never consent.

  ‘They must run away together, ma‘am,‘ Dobbin said, laughing, ‘and follow the example of Captain Rawdon Crawley, and Miss Emmy‘s friend the little governess.‘ Was it possible? 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 behaviour of the black-browed old tyrant of a Russia merchant in Russell Square. He has forbidden the match peremptorily, Dobbin thought. He knew what a savage determined man Osborne was, and how he stuck by his word. ‘The only chance George has 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 mother, I have heard—enough to purchase his majority—or he must sell out and go and dig in Canada, or rough it in a cottage 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 considered 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 people, 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 favourable 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 foreign 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‘ Coffee-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 fortune. My beloved reader has no doubt in the course of his 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 favourite 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 t
reat the boys in old days at a coffee- house, he would shout and laugh louder than anybody 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,gj 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 occasions, 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 himself had been somehow guilty of the misfortunes which had brought Sedley so low.

  MR. SEDLEY AT THE COFFEE-HOUSE

  ‘I am very glad to see you, Captain Dobbin, sir,‘ says he, after a skulking look or two at his visitor (whose lanky figure and military appearance caused some excitement likewise to twinkle in the blear eyes of the waiter in the cracked dancing-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?‘