Vanity Fair
sitting glooming in his place at the other end of the table.
In simple terms, Amelia told her the reasons which had induced her to
change her mind respecting her boy. Her father had met with fresh
misfortunes which had entirely ruined him. Her own pittance was so
small that it would barely enable her to support her parents and would
not suffice to give George the advantages which were his due. Great as
her sufferings would be at parting with him she would, by God's help,
endure them for the boy's sake. She knew that those to whom he was
going would do all in their power to make him happy. She described his
disposition, such as she fancied it--quick and impatient of control or
harshness, easily to be moved by love and kindness. In a postscript,
she stipulated that she should have a written agreement, that she
should see the child as often as she wished--she could not part with
him under any other terms.
"What? Mrs. Pride has come down, has she?" old Osborne said, when with
a tremulous eager voice Miss Osborne read him the letter. "Reg'lar
starved out, hey? Ha, ha! I knew she would." He tried to keep his
dignity and to read his paper as usual--but he could not follow it. He
chuckled and swore to himself behind the sheet.
At last he flung it down and, scowling at his daughter, as his wont
was, went out of the room into his study adjoining, from whence he
presently returned with a key. He flung it to Miss Osborne.
"Get the room over mine--his room that was--ready," he said. "Yes,
sir," his daughter replied in a tremble. It was George's room. It had
not been opened for more than ten years. Some of his clothes, papers,
handkerchiefs, whips and caps, fishing-rods and sporting gear, were
still there. An Army list of 1814, with his name written on the cover;
a little dictionary he was wont to use in writing; and the Bible his
mother had given him, were on the mantelpiece, with a pair of spurs and
a dried inkstand covered with the dust of ten years. Ah! since that
ink was wet, what days and people had passed away! The writing-book,
still on the table, was blotted with his hand.
Miss Osborne was much affected when she first entered this room with
the servants under her. She sank quite pale on the little bed. "This
is blessed news, m'am--indeed, m'am," the housekeeper said; "and the
good old times is returning, m'am. The dear little feller, to be sure,
m'am; how happy he will be! But some folks in May Fair, m'am, will owe
him a grudge, m'am"; and she clicked back the bolt which held the
window-sash and let the air into the chamber.
"You had better send that woman some money," Mr. Osborne said, before
he went out. "She shan't want for nothing. Send her a hundred pound."
"And I'll go and see her to-morrow?" Miss Osborne asked.
"That's your look out. She don't come in here, mind. No, by ------,
not for all the money in London. But she mustn't want now. So look
out, and get things right." With which brief speeches Mr. Osborne took
leave of his daughter and went on his accustomed way into the City.
"Here, Papa, is some money," Amelia said that night, kissing the old
man, her father, and putting a bill for a hundred pounds into his
hands. "And--and, Mamma, don't be harsh with Georgy. He--he is not
going to stop with us long." She could say nothing more, and walked
away silently to her room. Let us close it upon her prayers and her
sorrow. I think we had best speak little about so much love and grief.
Miss Osborne came the next day, according to the promise contained in
her note, and saw Amelia. The meeting between them was friendly. A
look and a few words from Miss Osborne showed the poor widow that, with
regard to this woman at least, there need be no fear lest she should
take the first place in her son's affection. She was cold, sensible,
not unkind. The mother had not been so well pleased, perhaps, had the
rival been better looking, younger, more affectionate, warmer-hearted.
Miss Osborne, on the other hand, thought of old times and memories and
could not but be touched with the poor mother's pitiful situation. She
was conquered, and laying down her arms, as it were, she humbly
submitted. That day they arranged together the preliminaries of the
treaty of capitulation.
George was kept from school the next day, and saw his aunt. Amelia
left them alone together and went to her room. She was trying the
separation--as that poor gentle Lady Jane Grey felt the edge of the axe
that was to come down and sever her slender life. Days were passed in
parleys, visits, preparations. The widow broke the matter to Georgy
with great caution; she looked to see him very much affected by the
intelligence. He was rather elated than otherwise, and the poor woman
turned sadly away. He bragged about the news that day to the boys at
school; told them how he was going to live with his grandpapa, his
father's father, not the one who comes here sometimes; and that he
would be very rich, and have a carriage, and a pony, and go to a much
finer school, and when he was rich he would buy Leader's pencil-case
and pay the tart-woman. The boy was the image of his father, as his
fond mother thought.
Indeed I have no heart, on account of our dear Amelia's sake, to go
through the story of George's last days at home.
At last the day came, the carriage drove up, the little humble packets
containing tokens of love and remembrance were ready and disposed in
the hall long since--George was in his new suit, for which the tailor
had come previously to measure him. He had sprung up with the sun and
put on the new clothes, his mother hearing him from the room close by,
in which she had been lying, in speechless grief and watching. Days
before she had been making preparations for the end, purchasing little
stores for the boy's use, marking his books and linen, talking with him
and preparing him for the change--fondly fancying that he needed
preparation.
So that he had change, what cared he? He was longing for it. By a
thousand eager declarations as to what he would do, when he went to
live with his grandfather, he had shown the poor widow how little the
idea of parting had cast him down. "He would come and see his mamma
often on the pony," he said. "He would come and fetch her in the
carriage; they would drive in the park, and she should have everything
she wanted." The poor mother was fain to content herself with these
selfish demonstrations of attachment, and tried to convince herself how
sincerely her son loved her. He must love her. All children were so:
a little anxious for novelty, and--no, not selfish, but self-willed.
Her child must have his enjoyments and ambition in the world. She
herself, by her own selfishness and imprudent love for him had denied
him his just rights and pleasures hitherto.
I know few things more affecting than that timorous debasement and
self-humiliation of a woman. How she owns that it is she and not the
man who is guilty; how she takes all the faults on her side; how she
courts in a manner punishment for the wrongs which she has not
committed and persists in shielding the real culprit! It is those who
injure women who get the most kindness from them--they are born timid
and tyrants and maltreat those who are humblest before them.
So poor Amelia had been getting ready in silent misery for her son's
departure, and had passed many and many a long solitary hour in making
preparations for the end. George stood by his mother, watching her
arrangements without the least concern. Tears had fallen into his
boxes; passages had been scored in his favourite books; old toys,
relics, treasures had been hoarded away for him, and packed with
strange neatness and care--and of all these things the boy took no
note. The child goes away smiling as the mother breaks her heart. By
heavens it is pitiful, the bootless love of women for children in
Vanity Fair.
A few days are past, and the great event of Amelia's life is
consummated. No angel has intervened. The child is sacrificed and
offered up to fate, and the widow is quite alone.
The boy comes to see her often, to be sure. He rides on a pony with a
coachman behind him, to the delight of his old grandfather, Sedley, who
walks proudly down the lane by his side. She sees him, but he is not
her boy any more. Why, he rides to see the boys at the little school,
too, and to show off before them his new wealth and splendour. In two
days he has adopted a slightly imperious air and patronizing manner.
He was born to command, his mother thinks, as his father was before him.
It is fine weather now. Of evenings on the days when he does not come,
she takes a long walk into London--yes, as far as Russell Square, and
rests on the stone by the railing of the garden opposite Mr. Osborne's
house. It is so pleasant and cool. She can look up and see the
drawing-room windows illuminated, and, at about nine o'clock, the
chamber in the upper story where Georgy sleeps. She knows--he has told
her. She prays there as the light goes out, prays with an humble
heart, and walks home shrinking and silent. She is very tired when she
comes home. Perhaps she will sleep the better for that long weary
walk, and she may dream about Georgy.
One Sunday she happened to be walking in Russell Square, at some
distance from Mr. Osborne's house (she could see it from a distance
though) when all the bells of Sabbath were ringing, and George and his
aunt came out to go to church; a little sweep asked for charity, and
the footman, who carried the books, tried to drive him away; but Georgy
stopped and gave him money. May God's blessing be on the boy! Emmy
ran round the square and, coming up to the sweep, gave him her mite
too. All the bells of Sabbath were ringing, and she followed them until
she came to the Foundling Church, into which she went. There she sat
in a place whence she could see the head of the boy under his father's
tombstone. Many hundred fresh children's voices rose up there and sang
hymns to the Father Beneficent, and little George's soul thrilled with
delight at the burst of glorious psalmody. His mother could not see
him for awhile, through the mist that dimmed her eyes.
CHAPTER LI
In Which a Charade Is Acted Which May or May Not Puzzle the Reader
After Becky's appearance at my Lord Steyne's private and select
parties, the claims of that estimable woman as regards fashion were
settled, and some of the very greatest and tallest doors in the
metropolis were speedily opened to her--doors so great and tall that
the beloved reader and writer hereof may hope in vain to enter at them.
Dear brethren, let us tremble before those august portals. I fancy
them guarded by grooms of the chamber with flaming silver forks with
which they prong all those who have not the right of the entree. They
say the honest newspaper-fellow who sits in the hall and takes down the
names of the great ones who are admitted to the feasts dies after a
little time. He can't survive the glare of fashion long. It scorches
him up, as the presence of Jupiter in full dress wasted that poor
imprudent Semele--a giddy moth of a creature who ruined herself by
venturing out of her natural atmosphere. Her myth ought to be taken to
heart amongst the Tyburnians, the Belgravians--her story, and perhaps
Becky's too. Ah, ladies!--ask the Reverend Mr. Thurifer if Belgravia is
not a sounding brass and Tyburnia a tinkling cymbal. These are
vanities. Even these will pass away. And some day or other (but it
will be after our time, thank goodness) Hyde Park Gardens will be no
better known than the celebrated horticultural outskirts of Babylon,
and Belgrave Square will be as desolate as Baker Street, or Tadmor in
the wilderness.