Vanity Fair (Barnes & Noble Classics Series)

by William Makepeace Thackeray

  ‘And so this devil is still going on with her intrigues,‘ thought William. ‘I wish she were a hundred miles from here. She brings mischief wherever she goes.‘ And he was pursuing these forebodings and this uncomfortable train of thought, with his head between his hands, and the Pumpernickel Gazette of last week unread under his nose, when somebody tapped his shoulder with a parasol, and he looked up and saw Mrs. Amelia.

  This woman had a way of tyrannizing over Major Dobbin (for the weakest of all people will domineer over somebody), and she ordered him about, and patted him, and made him fetch and carry just as if he was a great Newfoundland dog. He liked, so to speak, to jump into the water if she said ‘High, Dobbin!‘ and to trot behind her with her reticule in his mouth. This history has been written to very little purpose if the reader has not perceived that the major was a spoony.

  ‘Why did you not wait for me, sir, to escort me downstairs?‘ she said, giving a little toss of her head, and a most sarcastic curtsy.

  ‘I couldn‘t stand up in the passage,‘ he answered, with a comical deprecatory look; and, delighted to give her his arm, and to take her out of the horrid smoky place, he would have walked off without even so much as remembering the waiter, had not the young fellow run after him and stopped him on the threshold of the ‘Elephant‘, to make him pay for the beer which he had not consumed. Emmy laughed: she called him a naughty man, who wanted to run away in debt; and, in fact, made some jokes suitable to the occasion and the small-beer. She was in high spirits and good humour, and tripped across the market-place very briskly. She wanted to see Jos that instant. The major laughed at the impetuous affection Mrs. Amelia exhibited; for, in truth, it was not very often that she wanted her brother ‘that instant‘.

  They found the civilian in his saloon on the first floor; he had been pacing the room, and biting his nails, and looking over the market-place towards the ‘Elephant‘ a hundred times at least during the past hour, whilst Emmy was closeted with her friend in the garret, and the major was beating the tattoo on the sloppy tables of the public room below, and he was, on his side too, very anxious to see Mrs. Osborne.

  ‘Well?‘ said he.

  ‘The poor dear creature, how she has suffered!‘ Emmy said.

  ‘God bless my soul, yes,‘ Jos said, wagging his head, so that his cheeks quivered like jellies.

  ‘She may have Payne‘s room; who can go upstairs,‘ Emmy continued. Payne was a staid English maid and personal attendant upon Mrs. Osborne, to whom the courier, as in duty bound, paid court, and whom Georgy used to ‘lark‘ dreadfully with accounts of German robbers and ghosts. She passed her time chiefly in grumbling, in ordering about her mistress, and in stating her intention to return the next morning to her native village of Clapham. ‘She may have Payne‘s room,‘ Emmy said.

  ‘Why, you don‘t mean to say you are going to have that woman into the house?‘ bounced out the major, jumping up.

  ‘Of course we are,‘ said Amelia, in the most innocent way in the world. ‘Don‘t be angry, and break the furniture, Major Dobbin. Of course we are going to have her here.‘

  ‘Of course, my dear,‘ Jos said.

  ‘The poor creature, after all her sufferings,‘ Emmy continued: ‘her horrid banker broken and run away: her husband—wicked wretch—having deserted her and taken her child away from her‘ (here she doubled her two little fists and held them in a most menacing attitude before her, so that the major was charmed to see such a dauntless virago )-‘the poor dear thing! quite alone and absolutely forced to give lessons in singing to get her bread—and not have her here!‘

  ‘Take lessons, my dear Mrs. George,‘ cried the major, ‘but don‘t have her in the house. I implore you, don‘t.‘

  ‘Pooh,‘ said Jos.

  ‘You who are always good and kind: always used to be, at any rate: I‘m astonished at you, Major William,‘Amelia cried. ‘Why, what is the moment to help her but when she is so miserable? Now is the time to be of service to her. The oldest friend I ever had, and not—‘

  ‘She was not always your friend, Amelia,‘ the major said, for lie was quite angry. This allusion was too much for Emmy, who looking the major almost fiercely in the face, said,‘For shame, Major Dobbin!‘ and, after having fired this shot, she walked out of the room with a most majestic air, and shut her own door briskly on herself and her outraged dignity.

  ‘To allude to that!‘ she said, when the door was closed.‘Oh, it was cruel of him to remind me of it,‘ and she looked up at George‘s picture, which hung there as usual, with the portrait of the boy underneath. ‘It was cruel of him. If I had forgiven it, ought he to have spoken? No. And it is from his own lips that I know how wicked and groundless my jealousy was; and that you were pure—Oh yes, you were pure, my saint in heaven!‘

  She paced the room trembling and indignant. She went and leaned on the chest of drawers over which the picture hung, and gazed and gazed at it. Its eyes seemed to look down on her with a reproach that deepened as she looked. The early dear, dear memories of that brief prime of love rushed back upon her. The wound which years had scarcely cicatrized bled afresh, and oh, how bitterly! She could not hear the reproaches of the husband there before her. It couldn‘t be. Never, never!

  Poor Dobbin; poor old William! That unlucky word had undone the work of many a year—the long laborious edifice of a life of love and constancy—raised, too, upon what secret and hidden foundations, wherein lay buried passions, uncounted struggles, unknown sacrifices—a little word was spoken, and down fell the fair palace of hope—one word, and away flew the bird which he had been trying all his life to lure!

  William, though he saw by Amelia‘s looks that a great crisis had come, nevertheless continued to implore Sedley, in the most energetic terms, to beware of Rebecca: and he eagerly, almost frantically, adjured Jos not to receive her. He besought Mr. Sedley to inquire at least regarding her: told him how he had heard that she was in the company of gamblers and people of ill repute: pointed out what evil she had done in former days: how she and Crawley had misled poor George into ruin: how she was now parted from her husband, by her own confession, and, perhaps, for good reason. What a dangerous companion she would be for his sister, who knew nothing of the affairs of the world! William implored Jos, with all the eloquence which he could bring to bear, and a great deal more energy than this quiet gentleman was ordinarily in the habit of showing, to keep Rebecca out of his household.

  Had he been less violent, or more dexterous, he might have succeeded in his supplications to Jos; but the civilian was not a little jealous of the airs of superiority which the major constantly exhibited towards him, as he fancied (indeed, he had imparted his opinions to Mr. Kirsch, the courier, whose bills Major Dobbin checked on this journey, and who sided with his master), and he began a blustering speech about his competency to defend his own honour, his desire not to have his affairs meddled with, his intention, in fine, to rebel against the major, when the colloquy—rather a long and stormy one—was put an end to in the simplest way possible, namely, by the arrival of Mrs. Becky, with a porter from the ‘Elephant‘ Hotel, in charge of her very meagre baggage.

  She greeted her host with affectionate respect, and made a shrinking, but amicable, salutation to Major Dobbin, who, as her instinct assured her at once, was her enemy, and had been speaking against her; and the bustle and clatter consequent upon her arrival brought Amelia out of her room. Emmy went up and embraced her guest with the greatest warmth, and took no notice of the major, except to fling him an angry look—the most unjust and scornful glance that had perhaps ever appeared in that poor little woman‘s face since she was born. But she had private reasons of her own, and was bent upon being angry with him. And Dobbin, indignant at the injustice, not at the defeat, went off, making her a bow quite as haughty as the killing curtsy with which the little woman chose to bid him farewell.

  He being gone, Emmy was particularly lively and affectionate to Rebecca, and bustled about the apartments and installed her guest i
n her room with an eagerness and activity seldom exhibited by our placid little friend. But when an act of injustice is to be done, especially by weak people, it is best that it should be done quickly; and Emmy thought she was displaying a great deal of firmness and proper feeling and veneration for the late Captain Osborne in her present behaviour.

  Georgy came in from the fêtes for dinner-time, and found four covers laid as usual; but one of the places was occupied by a lady, instead of by Major Dobbin.‘Hullo! where‘s Dob?‘ the young gentleman asked, with his usual simplicity of language. ‘Major Dobbin is dining out, I suppose,‘ his mother said; and, drawing the boy to her, kissed him a great deal, and put his hair off his forehead, and introduced him to Mrs. Crawley.‘This is my boy, Rebecca,‘ Mrs. Osborne said—as much as to say—can the world produce anything like that? Becky looked at him with rapture, and pressed his hand fondly.‘Dear boy!‘ she said—‘he is just like my—‘ Emotion choked her further utterance; but Amelia understood, as well as if she had spoken, that Becky was thinking of her own blessed child. However, the company of her friend consoled Mrs. Crawley, and she ate a very good dinner.

  During the repast, she had occasion to speak several times, when Georgy eyed her and listened to her. At the dessert Emmy was gone out to superintend further domestic arrangements: Jos was in his great chair dozing over Galignani: Georgy and the new arrival sat close to each other: he had continued to look at her knowingly more than once, and at last, he laid down the nutcrackers.

  ‘I say,‘ said Georgy.

  ‘What do you say?‘ Becky said, laughing.

  ‘You‘re the lady I saw in the mask at the rouge et noir.‘

  ‘Hush! you little sly creature,‘ Becky said, taking up his hand and kissing it. ‘Your uncle was there too, and mamma mustn‘t know.‘

  ‘Oh, no—not by no means,‘ answered the little fellow.

  ‘You see we are quite good friends already,‘ Becky said to Emmy, who now re-entered; and it must be owned that Mrs. Osborne had introduced a most judicious and amiable companion into her house.

  William, in a state of great indignation, though still unaware of all the treason that was in store for him, walked about the town wildly until he fell upon the Secretary of Legation, Tapeworm, who invited him to dinner. As they were discussing that meal, he took occasion to ask the secretary whether he knew anything about a certain Mrs. Rawdon Crawley, who had, he believed, made some noise in London; and then Tapeworm, who of course knew all the London gossip, and was besides a relative of Lady Gaunt, poured out into the astonished major‘s ears such a history about Becky and her husband as astonished the querist, and supplied all the points of this narrative, for it was at that very table years ago that the present writer had the pleasure of hearing the tale.Tufto, Steyne, the Crawleys, and their history—everything connected with Becky and her previous life passed under the record of the bitter diplomatist. He knew everything and a great deal besides, about all the world:—in a word, he made the most astounding revelations to the simple-hearted major. When Dobbin said that Mrs. Osborne and Mr. Sedley had taken her into their house, Tapeworm burst into a peal of laughter which shocked the major, and asked if they had not better send into the prison, and take in one or two of the gentlemen in shaved heads and yellow jackets, who swept the streets of Pumpernickel, chained in pairs, to board and lodge, and act as tutor to that little scapegrace Georgy.

  This information astonished and horrified the major not a little. It had been agreed in the morning (before meeting with Rebecca) that Amelia should go to the Court ball that night. That would be the place where he should tell her. The major went home and dressed himself in his uniform, and repaired to Court in hopes to see Mrs. Osborne. She never came. When he returned to his lodgings all the lights in the Sedley tenement were put out. He could not see her till the morning. I don‘t know what sort of a night‘s rest he had with this frightful secret in bed with him.

  At the earliest convenient hour in the morning he sent his servant across the way with a note, saying, that he wished very particularly to speak with her. A message came back to say, that Mrs. Osborne was exceedingly unwell, and was keeping her room.

  She, too, had been awake all that night. She had been thinking of a thing which had agitated her mind a hundred times before. A hundred times on the point of yielding, she had shrunk back from a sacrifice which she felt was too much for her. She couldn‘t, in spite of his love and constancy, and her own acknowledged regard, respect, and gratitude. What are benefits, what is constancy, or merit? One curl of a girl‘s ringlet, one hair of a whisker, will turn the scale against them all in a minute. They did not weigh with Emmy more than with other women. She had tried them; wanted to make them pass; could not; and the pitiless little woman had found a pretext, and determined to be free.

  When at length, in the afternoon, the major gained admission to Amelia, instead of the cordial and affectionate greeting to which he had been accustomed now for many a long day, he received the salutation of a curtsy, and of a little gloved hand, retracted the moment after it was accorded to him.

  Rebecca, too, was in the room, and advanced to meet him with a smile and an extended hand. Dobbin drew back rather confusedly. ‘I-I beg your pardon,, 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?‘ Amelia said in a low, clear voice with a slight quiver in it, and a very determined look about the eyes.

  ‘I will not have this sort of thing in my house,‘ Jos again interposed.‘I say I will not have it: and Dobbin, I beg, sir, you‘ll stop it.‘ And he looked round trembling and turning very red, and gave a great puff, and made for his door.

  ‘Dear friend!‘ Rebecca said with angelic sweetness, ‘do hear what Major Dobbin has to say against me.‘

  ‘I will not hear it, I say,‘ squeaked out Jos at the top of his voice, and, gathering up his dressing-gown, he was gone.

  ‘We are only two women,‘Amelia said.‘You can speak now, sir.‘

  ‘This manner towards me is one which scarcely becomes you, Amelia,‘ the major answered haughtily;‘nor I believe am I guilty of habitual harshness to women. It is not a pleasure to me to do the duty which I am come to do.‘

  ‘Pray, proceed with it quickly, if you please, Major Dobbin,‘ said Amelia, who was more and more in a pet. The expression of Dobbin‘s face, as she spoke in this imperious manner, was not pleasant.

  ‘I came to say—and as you stay, Mrs. Crawley, I must say it in your presence—that I think you—you ought not to form a member of the family of my friends. A lady who is separated from her husband, who travels not under her own name, who frequents public gaming-tables—‘

  ‘It was to the ball I went,‘ cried out Becky.

  ‘—is not a fit companion for Mrs. Osborne and her son,‘ Dobbin went on: ‘and I may add that there are people here who know you, and who profess to know that regarding your conduct, about which I don‘t even wish to speak before-before Mrs. Osborne.‘

  ‘Yours is a very modest and convenient sort of calumny, Major Dobbin,‘ Rebecca said.‘You leave me under the weight of an accusation which, after all, is unsaid. What is it? Is it unfaithfulness to my husband? I scorn it, and defy anybody to prove it—1 defy you, I say. My honour is as untouched as that of the bitterest enemy who ever maligned me. Is it of being poor, forsaken, wretched, that you accuse me? Yes, I am guilty of those faults, and punished for them every day. Let me go, Emmy. It is only to suppose that I have not met you, and I am no worse to-day than I was yesterday. It is only to suppose that the night is over and the poor wanderer is on her way. Don‘t you remember the song we used to sing in old, dear old days? I have been wandering ever since then—a poor castaway, scorned for being miserable, and insulted because I am alone. Let me go: my stay here interferes with the plans
of this gentleman.‘

  ‘Indeed it does, madam,‘ said the major. ‘If I have any authority in this house—‘

  ‘Authority, none!‘ broke out Amelia. ‘Rebecca, you stay with me. I won‘t desert you, because you have been persecuted, or insult you, because—because Major Dobbin chooses to do so. Come away, dear.‘And the two women made towards 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 gripped her hand in reply.

  ‘Upon my honour it is not about you that I am going to speak,‘ Dobbin said.‘Come back, Amelia,‘ and she came. Dobbin bowed to Mrs. Crawley, as he shut the door upon her. Amelia looked at him, leaning against the glass: her face and her lips were quite white.

  ‘I was confused when I spoke just now,‘ the major said, after a pause; ‘and I misused the word “authority”.‘

  ‘You did,‘ said Amelia, with her teeth chattering.

  ‘At least I have claims to be heard,‘ Dobbin continued.

  ‘It is generous to remind me of our obligations to you,‘ the woman answered.

  ‘The claims I mean, are those left me by George‘s father,‘William said.

  ‘Yes, and you insulted his memory. You did yesterday. You know you did. And I will never forgive you. Never!‘ said Amelia. She shot out each little sentence in a tremor of anger and emotion.

  ‘You don‘t mean that, Amelia?‘ William said, sadly. ‘You don‘t mean that these words, uttered in a hurried moment, are to weigh against a whole life‘s devotion. I think that George‘s memory has not been injured by the way in which I have dealt with it, and if we are come to bandying reproaches, I at least merit none from his widow and the mother of his son. Reflect, afterwards when—when you are at leisure, and your conscience will withdraw this accusation. It does even now.‘Amelia held down her head.