Vanity Fair
He saw at a glance what had happened in his absence, and was grateful
to his wife for once. He went and spoke to her, and called her by her
Christian name, so as again to bring blushes to her pale face--"My wife
says you have been singing like an angel," he said to Becky. Now there
are angels of two kinds, and both sorts, it is said, are charming in
their way.
Whatever the previous portion of the evening had been, the rest of that
night was a great triumph for Becky. She sang her very best, and it
was so good that every one of the men came and crowded round the piano.
The women, her enemies, were left quite alone. And Mr. Paul Jefferson
Jones thought he had made a conquest of Lady Gaunt by going up to her
Ladyship and praising her delightful friend's first-rate singing.
CHAPTER L
Contains a Vulgar Incident
The Muse, whoever she be, who presides over this Comic History must now
descend from the genteel heights in which she has been soaring and have
the goodness to drop down upon the lowly roof of John Sedley at
Brompton, and describe what events are taking place there. Here, too,
in this humble tenement, live care, and distrust, and dismay. Mrs.
Clapp in the kitchen is grumbling in secret to her husband about the
rent, and urging the good fellow to rebel against his old friend and
patron and his present lodger. Mrs. Sedley has ceased to visit her
landlady in the lower regions now, and indeed is in a position to
patronize Mrs. Clapp no longer. How can one be condescending to a lady
to whom one owes a matter of forty pounds, and who is perpetually
throwing out hints for the money? The Irish maidservant has not altered
in the least in her kind and respectful behaviour; but Mrs. Sedley
fancies that she is growing insolent and ungrateful, and, as the guilty
thief who fears each bush an officer, sees threatening innuendoes and
hints of capture in all the girl's speeches and answers. Miss Clapp,
grown quite a young woman now, is declared by the soured old lady to be
an unbearable and impudent little minx. Why Amelia can be so fond of
her, or have her in her room so much, or walk out with her so
constantly, Mrs. Sedley cannot conceive. The bitterness of poverty has
poisoned the life of the once cheerful and kindly woman. She is
thankless for Amelia's constant and gentle bearing towards her; carps
at her for her efforts at kindness or service; rails at her for her
silly pride in her child and her neglect of her parents. Georgy's
house is not a very lively one since Uncle Jos's annuity has been
withdrawn and the little family are almost upon famine diet.
Amelia thinks, and thinks, and racks her brain, to find some means of
increasing the small pittance upon which the household is starving.
Can she give lessons in anything? paint card-racks? do fine work? She
finds that women are working hard, and better than she can, for
twopence a day. She buys a couple of begilt Bristol boards at the
Fancy Stationer's and paints her very best upon them--a shepherd with
a red waistcoat on one, and a pink face smiling in the midst of a
pencil landscape--a shepherdess on the other, crossing a little bridge,
with a little dog, nicely shaded. The man of the Fancy Repository and
Brompton Emporium of Fine Arts (of whom she bought the screens, vainly
hoping that he would repurchase them when ornamented by her hand) can
hardly hide the sneer with which he examines these feeble works of art.
He looks askance at the lady who waits in the shop, and ties up the
cards again in their envelope of whitey-brown paper, and hands them to
the poor widow and Miss Clapp, who had never seen such beautiful things
in her life, and had been quite confident that the man must give at
least two guineas for the screens. They try at other shops in the
interior of London, with faint sickening hopes. "Don't want 'em," says
one. "Be off," says another fiercely. Three-and-sixpence has been
spent in vain--the screens retire to Miss Clapp's bedroom, who
persists in thinking them lovely.
She writes out a little card in her neatest hand, and after long
thought and labour of composition, in which the public is informed that
"A Lady who has some time at her disposal, wishes to undertake the
education of some little girls, whom she would instruct in English, in
French, in Geography, in History, and in Music--address A. O., at Mr.
Brown's"; and she confides the card to the gentleman of the Fine Art
Repository, who consents to allow it to lie upon the counter, where it
grows dingy and fly-blown. Amelia passes the door wistfully many a
time, in hopes that Mr. Brown will have some news to give her, but he
never beckons her in. When she goes to make little purchases, there is
no news for her. Poor simple lady, tender and weak--how are you to
battle with the struggling violent world?
She grows daily more care-worn and sad, fixing upon her child alarmed
eyes, whereof the little boy cannot interpret the expression. She
starts up of a night and peeps into his room stealthily, to see that he
is sleeping and not stolen away. She sleeps but little now. A
constant thought and terror is haunting her. How she weeps and prays
in the long silent nights--how she tries to hide from herself the
thought which will return to her, that she ought to part with the boy,
that she is the only barrier between him and prosperity. She can't,
she can't. Not now, at least. Some other day. Oh! it is too hard to
think of and to bear.
A thought comes over her which makes her blush and turn from
herself--her parents might keep the annuity--the curate would marry her
and give a home to her and the boy. But George's picture and dearest
memory are there to rebuke her. Shame and love say no to the
sacrifice. She shrinks from it as from something unholy, and such
thoughts never found a resting-place in that pure and gentle bosom.
The combat, which we describe in a sentence or two, lasted for many
weeks in poor Amelia's heart, during which she had no confidante;
indeed, she could never have one, as she would not allow to herself the
possibility of yielding, though she was giving way daily before the
enemy with whom she had to battle. One truth after another was
marshalling itself silently against her and keeping its ground. Poverty
and misery for all, want and degradation for her parents, injustice to
the boy--one by one the outworks of the little citadel were taken, in
which the poor soul passionately guarded her only love and treasure.
At the beginning of the struggle, she had written off a letter of
tender supplication to her brother at Calcutta, imploring him not to
withdraw the support which he had granted to their parents and painting
in terms of artless pathos their lonely and hapless condition. She did
not know the truth of the matter. The payment of Jos's annuity was
still regular, but it was a money-lender in the City who was receiving
it: old Sedley had sold it for a sum of money wherewith to prosecute
his bootless schemes. Emmy was calculating eagerly the time that would
elapse before the letter would arrive and be answered. She had written
down the date in her pocket-book of the day when she dispatched it. To
her son's guardian, the good Major at Madras, she had not communicated
any of her griefs and perplexities. She had not written to him since
she wrote to congratulate him on his approaching marriage. She thought
with sickening despondency, that that friend--the only one, the one who
had felt such a regard for her--was fallen away.
One day, when things had come to a very bad pass--when the creditors
were pressing, the mother in hysteric grief, the father in more than
usual gloom, the inmates of the family avoiding each other, each
secretly oppressed with his private unhappiness and notion of
wrong--the father and daughter happened to be left alone together, and
Amelia thought to comfort her father by telling him what she had done.
She had written to Joseph--an answer must come in three or four months.
He was always generous, though careless. He could not refuse, when he
knew how straitened were the circumstances of his parents.
Then the poor old gentleman revealed the whole truth to her--that his
son was still paying the annuity, which his own imprudence had flung
away. He had not dared to tell it sooner. He thought Amelia's ghastly
and terrified look, when, with a trembling, miserable voice he made the
confession, conveyed reproaches to him for his concealment. "Ah!" said
he with quivering lips and turning away, "you despise your old father
now!"
"Oh, papa! it is not that," Amelia cried out, falling on his neck and
kissing him many times. "You are always good and kind. You did it for
the best. It is not for the money--it is--my God! my God! have mercy
upon me, and give me strength to bear this trial"; and she kissed him
again wildly and went away.
Still the father did not know what that explanation meant, and the
burst of anguish with which the poor girl left him. It was that she
was conquered. The sentence was passed. The child must go from
her--to others--to forget her. Her heart and her treasure--her joy,
hope, love, worship--her God, almost! She must give him up, and
then--and then she would go to George, and they would watch over the
child and wait for him until he came to them in Heaven.
She put on her bonnet, scarcely knowing what she did, and went out to
walk in the lanes by which George used to come back from school, and
where she was in the habit of going on his return to meet the boy. It
was May, a half-holiday. The leaves were all coming out, the weather
was brilliant; the boy came running to her flushed with health,
singing, his bundle of school-books hanging by a thong. There he was.
Both her arms were round him. No, it was impossible. They could not be
going to part. "What is the matter, Mother?" said he; "you look very
pale."
"Nothing, my child," she said and stooped down and kissed him.
That night Amelia made the boy read the story of Samuel to her, and how
Hannah, his mother, having weaned him, brought him to Eli the High
Priest to minister before the Lord. And he read the song of gratitude
which Hannah sang, and which says, who it is who maketh poor and maketh
rich, and bringeth low and exalteth--how the poor shall be raised up
out of the dust, and how, in his own might, no man shall be strong.
Then he read how Samuel's mother made him a little coat and brought it
to him from year to year when she came up to offer the yearly
sacrifice. And then, in her sweet simple way, George's mother made
commentaries to the boy upon this affecting story. How Hannah, though
she loved her son so much, yet gave him up because of her vow. And how
she must always have thought of him as she sat at home, far away,
making the little coat; and Samuel, she was sure, never forgot his
mother; and how happy she must have been as the time came (and the
years pass away very quick) when she should see her boy and how good
and wise he had grown. This little sermon she spoke with a gentle
solemn voice, and dry eyes, until she came to the account of their
meeting--then the discourse broke off suddenly, the tender heart
overflowed, and taking the boy to her breast, she rocked him in her
arms and wept silently over him in a sainted agony of tears.
Her mind being made up, the widow began to take such measures as seemed
right to her for advancing the end which she proposed. One day, Miss
Osborne, in Russell Square (Amelia had not written the name or number
of the house for ten years--her youth, her early story came back to her
as she wrote the superscription) one day Miss Osborne got a letter from
Amelia which made her blush very much and look towards her father,