Vanity Fair (Barnes & Noble Classics Series)

by William Makepeace Thackeray

  ‘It is not that speech of yesterday,‘ he continued, ‘which 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 ardour 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 independence 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 is a 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 rancour 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 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 appearance, and again remarked the absence of ‘Old Dob‘. The meal was eaten in silence by the party; Jos‘s appetite not being 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 Dobs‘s trap—they are bringing it out of the courtyard.‘ The ‘trap‘ in question was a carriage 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 port- manteaus, and Kunz, the one-eyed postilion, coming down the market with three Schimmels.vu Look at his boots and yellow jacket,—ain‘t he a rum one? Why—they‘re putting the horses to Dobs‘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 and 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. Francis brought out the stained old blue cloak lined with red camlet,vv which had wrapped the owner up any time these fifteen years, and had ‘manchen Sturm erlebt‘,vw as a favourite song of those days said. It had been new for the campaign of Waterloo, 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 the 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 embraces 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. William 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!vx 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 humble, 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.

  CHAPTER LXVII

  Which Contains Births, Marriages, and Deaths

  Whatever Becky‘s private plan might be by which Dobbin‘s true love was to be crowned with success, the little woman 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 comfortable quarters: surrounded by friends, kindness, and good-natured simple people, such as she had not met with for many a long day; and, wanderer as she was by 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 his little Ishmaelite. She picketed 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 successful as a practitioner in the art of giving pleasure. As f
or 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 goodwill. 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 honour. Tapeworm, the charge 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 talkative, and more glum and silent than ever after Dobbin‘s departure, was quite forgotten when this superior genius made her appearance. The French minister was as much charmed with her as his English rival. The German ladies, never particularly 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 Wahlver wandschaften of Goethe is considered an edifying moral book,vy 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 inestimable benefits upon Amelia. Love and Liberty are interpreted 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 it 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 excellent, 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 purest religious principles; that a woman once, &c., and to such an angel as him whom, she had had the good fortune to marry, was married for ever; 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 favour of Georgy and the servants. Amelia‘s maid, it has been said, was heart and soul in favour of the generous major. Having at first disliked Becky for being the means of dismissing him from the presence of her mistress, she was reconciled to Mrs. Crawley subsequently, 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 Major 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 postcript.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 dis traite,vz 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,wa which, in old-fashioned days, young ladies, and when you 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 neighbouring apartment, and there, no doubt, take refuge in the miniature of her husband.

  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 belonged to the major. Emmy cleared these away, and put them on the drawers, where she placed her workbox, 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, Emmy‘s chief pleasure in the summer evenings was to take long walks with Georgy (during which Rebecca was left to the society 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 befriended 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 gallant 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. ‘I‘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 was everybody else who knew him well.

  By the way, Mrs. Becky, not to be behindhand in sentiment, 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 favour 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 bandboxes, and often spoke with great respect about her baggage left behind at Leipzig, which she must have from that city. When a traveller talks to you perpetually about the splendour of his luggage, which he does not happen to have with him; my son, beware of that traveller! 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 town, and there fitted her out. It was no more torn collars now, I promise you, and faded silks trailing off at the shoulder. 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 indulged 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 indulge—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 surpri
sed 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 Leipzig;-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 coco-nut 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.

  ‘I bought it,‘ said Becky, in a voice trembling with emotion;‘l went to see if I could be of any use to my kind friends. I have never parted with that picture—I 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 tête-à-tête, and his sister could hear, as she lay 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.