Vanity Fair
eyes of many connoisseurs. And there are sweet modest little souls on
which you light, fragrant and blooming tenderly in quiet shady places;
and there are garden-ornaments, as big as brass warming-pans, that are
fit to stare the sun itself out of countenance. Miss Sedley was not of
the sunflower sort; and I say it is out of the rules of all proportion
to draw a violet of the size of a double dahlia.
No, indeed; the life of a good young girl who is in the paternal nest
as yet, can't have many of those thrilling incidents to which the
heroine of romance commonly lays claim. Snares or shot may take off
the old birds foraging without--hawks may be abroad, from which they
escape or by whom they suffer; but the young ones in the nest have a
pretty comfortable unromantic sort of existence in the down and the
straw, till it comes to their turn, too, to get on the wing. While
Becky Sharp was on her own wing in the country, hopping on all sorts of
twigs, and amid a multiplicity of traps, and pecking up her food quite
harmless and successful, Amelia lay snug in her home of Russell Square;
if she went into the world, it was under the guidance of the elders;
nor did it seem that any evil could befall her or that opulent cheery
comfortable home in which she was affectionately sheltered. Mamma had
her morning duties, and her daily drive, and the delightful round of
visits and shopping which forms the amusement, or the profession as you
may call it, of the rich London lady. Papa conducted his mysterious
operations in the City--a stirring place in those days, when war was
raging all over Europe, and empires were being staked; when the
"Courier" newspaper had tens of thousands of subscribers; when one day
brought you a battle of Vittoria, another a burning of Moscow, or a
newsman's horn blowing down Russell Square about dinner-time, announced
such a fact as--"Battle of Leipsic--six hundred thousand men
engaged--total defeat of the French--two hundred thousand killed." Old
Sedley once or twice came home with a very grave face; and no wonder,
when such news as this was agitating all the hearts and all the Stocks
of Europe.
Meanwhile matters went on in Russell Square, Bloomsbury, just as if
matters in Europe were not in the least disorganised. The retreat from
Leipsic made no difference in the number of meals Mr. Sambo took in the
servants' hall; the allies poured into France, and the dinner-bell rang
at five o'clock just as usual. I don't think poor Amelia cared
anything about Brienne and Montmirail, or was fairly interested in the
war until the abdication of the Emperor; when she clapped her hands and
said prayers--oh, how grateful! and flung herself into George Osborne's
arms with all her soul, to the astonishment of everybody who witnessed
that ebullition of sentiment. The fact is, peace was declared, Europe
was going to be at rest; the Corsican was overthrown, and Lieutenant
Osborne's regiment would not be ordered on service. That was the way
in which Miss Amelia reasoned. The fate of Europe was Lieutenant
George Osborne to her. His dangers being over, she sang Te Deum. He
was her Europe: her emperor: her allied monarchs and august prince
regent. He was her sun and moon; and I believe she thought the grand
illumination and ball at the Mansion House, given to the sovereigns,
were especially in honour of George Osborne.
We have talked of shift, self, and poverty, as those dismal instructors
under whom poor Miss Becky Sharp got her education. Now, love was Miss
Amelia Sedley's last tutoress, and it was amazing what progress our
young lady made under that popular teacher. In the course of fifteen
or eighteen months' daily and constant attention to this eminent
finishing governess, what a deal of secrets Amelia learned, which Miss
Wirt and the black-eyed young ladies over the way, which old Miss
Pinkerton of Chiswick herself, had no cognizance of! As, indeed, how
should any of those prim and reputable virgins? With Misses P. and W.
the tender passion is out of the question: I would not dare to breathe
such an idea regarding them. Miss Maria Osborne, it is true, was
"attached" to Mr. Frederick Augustus Bullock, of the firm of Hulker,
Bullock & Bullock; but hers was a most respectable attachment, and she
would have taken Bullock Senior just the same, her mind being fixed--as
that of a well-bred young woman should be--upon a house in Park Lane, a
country house at Wimbledon, a handsome chariot, and two prodigious tall
horses and footmen, and a fourth of the annual profits of the eminent
firm of Hulker & Bullock, all of which advantages were represented in
the person of Frederick Augustus. Had orange blossoms been invented
then (those touching emblems of female purity imported by us from
France, where people's daughters are universally sold in marriage),
Miss Maria, I say, would have assumed the spotless wreath, and stepped
into the travelling carriage by the side of gouty, old, bald-headed,
bottle-nosed Bullock Senior; and devoted her beautiful existence to his
happiness with perfect modesty--only the old gentleman was married
already; so she bestowed her young affections on the junior partner.
Sweet, blooming, orange flowers! The other day I saw Miss Trotter
(that was), arrayed in them, trip into the travelling carriage at St.
George's, Hanover Square, and Lord Methuselah hobbled in after. With
what an engaging modesty she pulled down the blinds of the chariot--the
dear innocent! There were half the carriages of Vanity Fair at the
wedding.
This was not the sort of love that finished Amelia's education; and in
the course of a year turned a good young girl into a good young
woman--to be a good wife presently, when the happy time should come.
This young person (perhaps it was very imprudent in her parents to
encourage her, and abet her in such idolatry and silly romantic ideas)
loved, with all her heart, the young officer in His Majesty's service
with whom we have made a brief acquaintance. She thought about him the
very first moment on waking; and his was the very last name mentioned
in her prayers. She never had seen a man so beautiful or so clever:
such a figure on horseback: such a dancer: such a hero in general.
Talk of the Prince's bow! what was it to George's? She had seen Mr.
Brummell, whom everybody praised so. Compare such a person as that to
her George! Not amongst all the beaux at the Opera (and there were
beaux in those days with actual opera hats) was there any one to equal
him. He was only good enough to be a fairy prince; and oh, what
magnanimity to stoop to such a humble Cinderella! Miss Pinkerton would
have tried to check this blind devotion very likely, had she been
Amelia's confidante; but not with much success, depend upon it. It is
in the nature and instinct of some women. Some are made to scheme, and
some to love; and I wish any respected bachelor that reads this may
take the sort that best likes him.
While under this overpowering impression, Miss Amelia neglected her
twelve dear friends at Chiswick most cruelly, as such selfish people
commonly will do. She had but this subject, of course, to think about;
and Miss Saltire was too cold for a confidante, and she couldn't bring
her mind to tell Miss Swartz, the woolly-haired young heiress from St.
Kitt's. She had little Laura Martin home for the holidays; and my
belief is, she made a confidante of her, and promised that Laura should
come and live with her when she was married, and gave Laura a great
deal of information regarding the passion of love, which must have been
singularly useful and novel to that little person. Alas, alas! I fear
poor Emmy had not a well-regulated mind.
What were her parents doing, not to keep this little heart from beating
so fast? Old Sedley did not seem much to notice matters. He was graver
of late, and his City affairs absorbed him. Mrs. Sedley was of so easy
and uninquisitive a nature that she wasn't even jealous. Mr. Jos was
away, being besieged by an Irish widow at Cheltenham. Amelia had the
house to herself--ah! too much to herself sometimes--not that she ever
doubted; for, to be sure, George must be at the Horse Guards; and he
can't always get leave from Chatham; and he must see his friends and
sisters, and mingle in society when in town (he, such an ornament to
every society!); and when he is with the regiment, he is too tired to
write long letters. I know where she kept that packet she had--and can
steal in and out of her chamber like Iachimo--like Iachimo? No--that
is a bad part. I will only act Moonshine, and peep harmless into the
bed where faith and beauty and innocence lie dreaming.
But if Osborne's were short and soldierlike letters, it must be
confessed, that were Miss Sedley's letters to Mr. Osborne to be
published, we should have to extend this novel to such a multiplicity
of volumes as not the most sentimental reader could support; that she
not only filled sheets of large paper, but crossed them with the most
astonishing perverseness; that she wrote whole pages out of
poetry-books without the least pity; that she underlined words and
passages with quite a frantic emphasis; and, in fine, gave the usual
tokens of her condition. She wasn't a heroine. Her letters were full
of repetition. She wrote rather doubtful grammar sometimes, and in her
verses took all sorts of liberties with the metre. But oh, mesdames,
if you are not allowed to touch the heart sometimes in spite of syntax,
and are not to be loved until you all know the difference between
trimeter and tetrameter, may all Poetry go to the deuce, and every
schoolmaster perish miserably!
CHAPTER XIII
Sentimental and Otherwise
I fear the gentleman to whom Miss Amelia's letters were addressed was
rather an obdurate critic. Such a number of notes followed Lieutenant
Osborne about the country, that he became almost ashamed of the jokes
of his mess-room companions regarding them, and ordered his servant
never to deliver them except at his private apartment. He was seen
lighting his cigar with one, to the horror of Captain Dobbin, who, it
is my belief, would have given a bank-note for the document.
For some time George strove to keep the liaison a secret. There was a
woman in the case, that he admitted. "And not the first either," said
Ensign Spooney to Ensign Stubble. "That Osborne's a devil of a fellow.
There was a judge's daughter at Demerara went almost mad about him;
then there was that beautiful quadroon girl, Miss Pye, at St.
Vincent's, you know; and since he's been home, they say he's a regular
Don Giovanni, by Jove."
Stubble and Spooney thought that to be a "regular Don Giovanni, by
Jove" was one of the finest qualities a man could possess, and
Osborne's reputation was prodigious amongst the young men of the
regiment. He was famous in field-sports, famous at a song, famous on
parade; free with his money, which was bountifully supplied by his
father. His coats were better made than any man's in the regiment, and
he had more of them. He was adored by the men. He could drink more
than any officer of the whole mess, including old Heavytop, the
colonel. He could spar better than Knuckles, the private (who would
have been a corporal but for his drunkenness, and who had been in the
prize-ring); and was the best batter and bowler, out and out, of the
regimental club. He rode his own horse, Greased Lightning, and won the
Garrison cup at Quebec races. There were other people besides Amelia
who worshipped him. Stubble and Spooney thought him a sort of Apollo;
Dobbin took him to be an Admirable Crichton; and Mrs. Major O'Dowd
acknowledged he was an elegant young fellow, and put her in mind of
Fitzjurld Fogarty, Lord Castlefogarty's second son.