Vanity Fair
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 Dob's trap--they are bringing it out of the
court-yard." 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
portmanteaus, and Kunz, the one-eyed postilion, coming down the market
with three schimmels. Look at his boots and yellow jacket--ain't he a
rum one? Why--they're putting the horses to Dob's carriage. Is he going
anywhere?"
"Yes," said Emmy, "he is going on a journey."
"Going on 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, which had wrapped the owner up any time these
fifteen years, and had manchen Sturm erlebt, 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! 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 into the
bazaars, refresh himself in the baths, and say his prayers in the
mosques, before he goes out again marauding, so Jos's tents and pilau
were pleasant to this 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 for 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 good-will. 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 Wahlverwandtschaften of
Goethe is considered an edifying moral book, 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 forever;
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 those nightly 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 postscript. 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
distraite, nervous, silent, and ill to please. The family had never
known her so peevish. She grew pale and ill. She used to try to sing
certain songs ("Einsam bin ich nicht alleine," was one of them, that
tender love-song of Weber's 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 work-box,
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