Vanity Fair
faithful waiter, who knew and remembered every officer who used the
house, and with whom ten years were but as yesterday, led the way up to
Dobbin's old room, where stood the great moreen bed, and the shabby
carpet, a thought more dingy, and all the old black furniture covered
with faded chintz, just as the Major recollected them in his youth.
He remembered George pacing up and down the room, and biting his nails,
and swearing that the Governor must come round, and that if he didn't,
he didn't care a straw, on the day before he was married. He could
fancy him walking in, banging the door of Dobbin's room, and his own
hard by--
"You ain't got young," John said, calmly surveying his friend of former
days.
Dobbin laughed. "Ten years and a fever don't make a man young, John,"
he said. "It is you that are always young--no, you are always old."
"What became of Captain Osborne's widow?" John said. "Fine young
fellow that. Lord, how he used to spend his money. He never came back
after that day he was marched from here. He owes me three pound at
this minute. Look here, I have it in my book. 'April 10, 1815,
Captain Osborne: 3 pounds.' I wonder whether his father would pay
me," and so saying, John of the Slaughters' pulled out the very morocco
pocket-book in which he had noted his loan to the Captain, upon a
greasy faded page still extant, with many other scrawled memoranda
regarding the bygone frequenters of the house.
Having inducted his customer into the room, John retired with perfect
calmness; and Major Dobbin, not without a blush and a grin at his own
absurdity, chose out of his kit the very smartest and most becoming
civil costume he possessed, and laughed at his own tanned face and grey
hair, as he surveyed them in the dreary little toilet-glass on the
dressing-table.
"I'm glad old John didn't forget me," he thought. "She'll know me, too,
I hope." And he sallied out of the inn, bending his steps once more in
the direction of Brompton.
Every minute incident of his last meeting with Amelia was present to
the constant man's mind as he walked towards her house. The arch and
the Achilles statue were up since he had last been in Piccadilly; a
hundred changes had occurred which his eye and mind vaguely noted. He
began to tremble as he walked up the lane from Brompton, that
well-remembered lane leading to the street where she lived. Was she
going to be married or not? If he were to meet her with the little
boy--Good God, what should he do? He saw a woman coming to him with a
child of five years old--was that she? He began to shake at the mere
possibility. When he came up to the row of houses, at last, where she
lived, and to the gate, he caught hold of it and paused. He might have
heard the thumping of his own heart. "May God Almighty bless her,
whatever has happened," he thought to himself. "Psha! she may be gone
from here," he said and went in through the gate.
The window of the parlour which she used to occupy was open, and there
were no inmates in the room. The Major thought he recognized the
piano, though, with the picture over it, as it used to be in former
days, and his perturbations were renewed. Mr. Clapp's brass plate was
still on the door, at the knocker of which Dobbin performed a summons.
A buxom-looking lass of sixteen, with bright eyes and purple cheeks,
came to answer the knock and looked hard at the Major as he leant back
against the little porch.
He was as pale as a ghost and could hardly falter out the words--"Does
Mrs. Osborne live here?"
She looked him hard in the face for a moment--and then turning white
too--said, "Lord bless me--it's Major Dobbin." She held out both her
hands shaking--"Don't you remember me?" she said. "I used to call you
Major Sugarplums." On which, and I believe it was for the first time
that he ever so conducted himself in his life, the Major took the girl
in his arms and kissed her. She began to laugh and cry hysterically,
and calling out "Ma, Pa!" with all her voice, brought up those worthy
people, who had already been surveying the Major from the casement of
the ornamental kitchen, and were astonished to find their daughter in
the little passage in the embrace of a great tall man in a blue
frock-coat and white duck trousers.
"I'm an old friend," he said--not without blushing though. "Don't you
remember me, Mrs. Clapp, and those good cakes you used to make for tea?
Don't you recollect me, Clapp? I'm George's godfather, and just come
back from India." A great shaking of hands ensued--Mrs. Clapp was
greatly affected and delighted; she called upon heaven to interpose a
vast many times in that passage.
The landlord and landlady of the house led the worthy Major into the
Sedleys' room (whereof he remembered every single article of furniture,
from the old brass ornamented piano, once a natty little instrument,
Stothard maker, to the screens and the alabaster miniature tombstone,
in the midst of which ticked Mr. Sedley's gold watch), and there, as he
sat down in the lodger's vacant arm-chair, the father, the mother, and
the daughter, with a thousand ejaculatory breaks in the narrative,
informed Major Dobbin of what we know already, but of particulars in
Amelia's history of which he was not aware--namely of Mrs. Sedley's
death, of George's reconcilement with his grandfather Osborne, of the
way in which the widow took on at leaving him, and of other particulars
of her life. Twice or thrice he was going to ask about the marriage
question, but his heart failed him. He did not care to lay it bare to
these people. Finally, he was informed that Mrs. O. was gone to walk
with her pa in Kensington Gardens, whither she always went with the old
gentleman (who was very weak and peevish now, and led her a sad life,
though she behaved to him like an angel, to be sure), of a fine
afternoon, after dinner.
"I'm very much pressed for time," the Major said, "and have business
to-night of importance. I should like to see Mrs. Osborne tho'.
Suppose Miss Polly would come with me and show me the way?"
Miss Polly was charmed and astonished at this proposal. She knew the
way. She would show Major Dobbin. She had often been with Mr. Sedley
when Mrs. O. was gone--was gone Russell Square way--and knew the bench
where he liked to sit. She bounced away to her apartment and appeared
presently in her best bonnet and her mamma's yellow shawl and large
pebble brooch, of which she assumed the loan in order to make herself a
worthy companion for the Major.
That officer, then, in his blue frock-coat and buckskin gloves, gave
the young lady his arm, and they walked away very gaily. He was glad
to have a friend at hand for the scene which he dreaded somehow. He
asked a thousand more questions from his companion about Amelia: his
kind heart grieved to think that she should have had to part with her
son. How did she bear it? Did she see him often? Was Mr. Sedley pretty
comfortable now in a worldly point of view? Polly answered all these
questions of Major Sugarplums to the very best of her power.
And in the midst of their walk an incident occurred which, though very
simple in its nature, was productive of the greatest delight to Major
Dobbin. A pale young man with feeble whiskers and a stiff white
neckcloth came walking down the lane, en sandwich--having a lady, that
is, on each arm. One was a tall and commanding middle-aged female,
with features and a complexion similar to those of the clergyman of the
Church of England by whose side she marched, and the other a stunted
little woman with a dark face, ornamented by a fine new bonnet and
white ribbons, and in a smart pelisse, with a rich gold watch in the
midst of her person. The gentleman, pinioned as he was by these two
ladies, carried further a parasol, shawl, and basket, so that his arms
were entirely engaged, and of course he was unable to touch his hat in
acknowledgement of the curtsey with which Miss Mary Clapp greeted him.
He merely bowed his head in reply to her salutation, which the two
ladies returned with a patronizing air, and at the same time looking
severely at the individual in the blue coat and bamboo cane who
accompanied Miss Polly.
"Who's that?" asked the Major, amused by the group, and after he had
made way for the three to pass up the lane. Mary looked at him rather
roguishly.
"That is our curate, the Reverend Mr. Binny (a twitch from Major
Dobbin), and his sister Miss B. Lord bless us, how she did use to
worret us at Sunday-school; and the other lady, the little one with a
cast in her eye and the handsome watch, is Mrs. Binny--Miss Grits that
was; her pa was a grocer, and kept the Little Original Gold Tea Pot in
Kensington Gravel Pits. They were married last month, and are just
come back from Margate. She's five thousand pound to her fortune; but
her and Miss B., who made the match, have quarrelled already."
If the Major had twitched before, he started now, and slapped the
bamboo on the ground with an emphasis which made Miss Clapp cry, "Law,"
and laugh too. He stood for a moment, silent, with open mouth, looking
after the retreating young couple, while Miss Mary told their history;
but he did not hear beyond the announcement of the reverend gentleman's
marriage; his head was swimming with felicity. After this rencontre he
began to walk double quick towards the place of his destination--and
yet they were too soon (for he was in a great tremor at the idea of a
meeting for which he had been longing any time these ten
years)--through the Brompton lanes, and entering at the little old
portal in Kensington Garden wall.
"There they are," said Miss Polly, and she felt him again start back on
her arm. She was a confidante at once of the whole business. She knew
the story as well as if she had read it in one of her favourite
novel-books--Fatherless Fanny, or the Scottish Chiefs.
"Suppose you were to run on and tell her," the Major said. Polly ran
forward, her yellow shawl streaming in the breeze.
Old Sedley was seated on a bench, his handkerchief placed over his
knees, prattling away, according to his wont, with some old story about
old times to which Amelia had listened and awarded a patient smile many
a time before. She could of late think of her own affairs, and smile
or make other marks of recognition of her father's stories, scarcely
hearing a word of the old man's tales. As Mary came bouncing along, and
Amelia caught sight of her, she started up from her bench. Her first
thought was that something had happened to Georgy, but the sight of the
messenger's eager and happy face dissipated that fear in the timorous
mother's bosom.
"News! News!" cried the emissary of Major Dobbin. "He's come! He's
come!"
"Who is come?" said Emmy, still thinking of her son.
"Look there," answered Miss Clapp, turning round and pointing; in which
direction Amelia looking, saw Dobbin's lean figure and long shadow
stalking across the grass. Amelia started in her turn, blushed up,
and, of course, began to cry. At all this simple little creature's
fetes, the grandes eaux were accustomed to play. He looked at her--oh,
how fondly--as she came running towards him, her hands before her,
ready to give them to him. She wasn't changed. She was a little pale,
a little stouter in figure. Her eyes were the same, the kind trustful
eyes. There were scarce three lines of silver in her soft brown hair.
She gave him both her hands as she looked up flushing and smiling
through her tears into his honest homely face. He took the two little
hands between his two and held them there. He was speechless for a
moment. Why did he not take her in his arms and swear that he would
never leave her? She must have yielded: she could not but have obeyed
him.