Vanity Fair
not mean to say that all females are so. My dear Miss Bullock, I do
not think your heart would break in this way. You are a strong-minded
young woman with proper principles. I do not venture to say that mine
would; it has suffered, and, it must be confessed, survived. But there
are some souls thus gently constituted, thus frail, and delicate, and
tender.
Whenever old John Sedley thought of the affair between George and
Amelia, or alluded to it, it was with bitterness almost as great as Mr.
Osborne himself had shown. He cursed Osborne and his family as
heartless, wicked, and ungrateful. No power on earth, he swore, would
induce him to marry his daughter to the son of such a villain, and he
ordered Emmy to banish George from her mind, and to return all the
presents and letters which she had ever had from him.
She promised acquiescence, and tried to obey. She put up the two or
three trinkets: and, as for the letters, she drew them out of the place
where she kept them; and read them over--as if she did not know them by
heart already: but she could not part with them. That effort was too
much for her; she placed them back in her bosom again--as you have seen
a woman nurse a child that is dead. Young Amelia felt that she would
die or lose her senses outright, if torn away from this last
consolation. How she used to blush and lighten up when those letters
came! How she used to trip away with a beating heart, so that she
might read unseen! If they were cold, yet how perversely this fond
little soul interpreted them into warmth. If they were short or
selfish, what excuses she found for the writer!
It was over these few worthless papers that she brooded and brooded.
She lived in her past life--every letter seemed to recall some
circumstance of it. How well she remembered them all! His looks and
tones, his dress, what he said and how--these relics and remembrances
of dead affection were all that were left her in the world. And the
business of her life, was--to watch the corpse of Love.
To death she looked with inexpressible longing. Then, she thought, I
shall always be able to follow him. I am not praising her conduct or
setting her up as a model for Miss Bullock to imitate. Miss B. knows
how to regulate her feelings better than this poor little creature.
Miss B. would never have committed herself as that imprudent Amelia had
done; pledged her love irretrievably; confessed her heart away, and got
back nothing--only a brittle promise which was snapt and worthless in a
moment. A long engagement is a partnership which one party is free to
keep or to break, but which involves all the capital of the other.
Be cautious then, young ladies; be wary how you engage. Be shy of
loving frankly; never tell all you feel, or (a better way still), feel
very little. See the consequences of being prematurely honest and
confiding, and mistrust yourselves and everybody. Get yourselves
married as they do in France, where the lawyers are the bridesmaids and
confidantes. At any rate, never have any feelings which may make you
uncomfortable, or make any promises which you cannot at any required
moment command and withdraw. That is the way to get on, and be
respected, and have a virtuous character in Vanity Fair.
If Amelia could have heard the comments regarding her which were made
in the circle from which her father's ruin had just driven her, she
would have seen what her own crimes were, and how entirely her
character was jeopardised. Such criminal imprudence Mrs. Smith never
knew of; such horrid familiarities Mrs. Brown had always condemned, and
the end might be a warning to HER daughters. "Captain Osborne, of
course, could not marry a bankrupt's daughter," the Misses Dobbin said.
"It was quite enough to have been swindled by the father. As for that
little Amelia, her folly had really passed all--"
"All what?" Captain Dobbin roared out. "Haven't they been engaged ever
since they were children? Wasn't it as good as a marriage? Dare any
soul on earth breathe a word against the sweetest, the purest, the
tenderest, the most angelical of young women?"
"La, William, don't be so highty-tighty with US. We're not men. We
can't fight you," Miss Jane said. "We've said nothing against Miss
Sedley: but that her conduct throughout was MOST IMPRUDENT, not to call
it by any worse name; and that her parents are people who certainly
merit their misfortunes."
"Hadn't you better, now that Miss Sedley is free, propose for her
yourself, William?" Miss Ann asked sarcastically. "It would be a most
eligible family connection. He! he!"
"I marry her!" Dobbin said, blushing very much, and talking quick. "If
you are so ready, young ladies, to chop and change, do you suppose that
she is? Laugh and sneer at that angel. She can't hear it; and she's
miserable and unfortunate, and deserves to be laughed at. Go on
joking, Ann. You're the wit of the family, and the others like to hear
it."
"I must tell you again we're not in a barrack, William," Miss Ann
remarked.
"In a barrack, by Jove--I wish anybody in a barrack would say what you
do," cried out this uproused British lion. "I should like to hear a
man breathe a word against her, by Jupiter. But men don't talk in this
way, Ann: it's only women, who get together and hiss, and shriek, and
cackle. There, get away--don't begin to cry. I only said you were a
couple of geese," Will Dobbin said, perceiving Miss Ann's pink eyes
were beginning to moisten as usual. "Well, you're not geese, you're
swans--anything you like, only do, do leave Miss Sedley alone."
Anything like William's infatuation about that silly little flirting,
ogling thing was never known, the mamma and sisters agreed together in
thinking: and they trembled lest, her engagement being off with
Osborne, she should take up immediately her other admirer and Captain.
In which forebodings these worthy young women no doubt judged according
to the best of their experience; or rather (for as yet they had had no
opportunities of marrying or of jilting) according to their own notions
of right and wrong.
"It is a mercy, Mamma, that the regiment is ordered abroad," the girls
said. "THIS danger, at any rate, is spared our brother."
Such, indeed, was the fact; and so it is that the French Emperor comes
in to perform a part in this domestic comedy of Vanity Fair which we
are now playing, and which would never have been enacted without the
intervention of this august mute personage. It was he that ruined the
Bourbons and Mr. John Sedley. It was he whose arrival in his capital
called up all France in arms to defend him there; and all Europe to
oust him. While the French nation and army were swearing fidelity round
the eagles in the Champ de Mars, four mighty European hosts were
getting in motion for the great chasse a l'aigle; and one of these was
a British army, of which two heroes of ours, Captain Dobbin and Captain
Osborne, formed a portion.
The news of Napoleon's escape and landing was received by the gallant
--th with a fiery delight and enthusiasm, which everybody can
understand who knows that famous corps. From the colonel to the
smallest drummer in the regiment, all were filled with hope and
ambition and patriotic fury; and thanked the French Emperor as for a
personal kindness in coming to disturb the peace of Europe. Now was
the time the --th had so long panted for, to show their comrades in
arms that they could fight as well as the Peninsular veterans, and that
all the pluck and valour of the --th had not been killed by the West
Indies and the yellow fever. Stubble and Spooney looked to get their
companies without purchase. Before the end of the campaign (which she
resolved to share), Mrs. Major O'Dowd hoped to write herself Mrs.
Colonel O'Dowd, C.B. Our two friends (Dobbin and Osborne) were quite
as much excited as the rest: and each in his way--Mr. Dobbin very
quietly, Mr. Osborne very loudly and energetically--was bent upon doing
his duty, and gaining his share of honour and distinction.
The agitation thrilling through the country and army in consequence of
this news was so great, that private matters were little heeded: and
hence probably George Osborne, just gazetted to his company, busy with
preparations for the march, which must come inevitably, and panting for
further promotion--was not so much affected by other incidents which
would have interested him at a more quiet period. He was not, it must
be confessed, very much cast down by good old Mr. Sedley's catastrophe.
He tried his new uniform, which became him very handsomely, on the day
when the first meeting of the creditors of the unfortunate gentleman
took place. His father told him of the wicked, rascally, shameful
conduct of the bankrupt, reminded him of what he had said about Amelia,
and that their connection was broken off for ever; and gave him that
evening a good sum of money to pay for the new clothes and epaulets in
which he looked so well. Money was always useful to this free-handed
young fellow, and he took it without many words. The bills were up in
the Sedley house, where he had passed so many, many happy hours. He
could see them as he walked from home that night (to the Old
Slaughters', where he put up when in town) shining white in the moon.
That comfortable home was shut, then, upon Amelia and her parents:
where had they taken refuge? The thought of their ruin affected him not
a little. He was very melancholy that night in the coffee-room at the
Slaughters'; and drank a good deal, as his comrades remarked there.
Dobbin came in presently, cautioned him about the drink, which he only
took, he said, because he was deuced low; but when his friend began to
put to him clumsy inquiries, and asked him for news in a significant
manner, Osborne declined entering into conversation with him, avowing,
however, that he was devilish disturbed and unhappy.
Three days afterwards, Dobbin found Osborne in his room at the
barracks--his head on the table, a number of papers about, the young
Captain evidently in a state of great despondency. "She--she's sent me
back some things I gave her--some damned trinkets. Look here!" There
was a little packet directed in the well-known hand to Captain George
Osborne, and some things lying about--a ring, a silver knife he had
bought, as a boy, for her at a fair; a gold chain, and a locket with
hair in it. "It's all over," said he, with a groan of sickening
remorse. "Look, Will, you may read it if you like."
There was a little letter of a few lines, to which he pointed, which
said:
My papa has ordered me to return to you these presents, which you made
in happier days to me; and I am to write to you for the last time. I
think, I know you feel as much as I do the blow which has come upon us.
It is I that absolve you from an engagement which is impossible in our
present misery. I am sure you had no share in it, or in the cruel
suspicions of Mr. Osborne, which are the hardest of all our griefs to
bear. Farewell. Farewell. I pray God to strengthen me to bear this
and other calamities, and to bless you always. A.
I shall often play upon the piano--your piano. It was like you to send
it.
Dobbin was very soft-hearted. The sight of women and children in pain
always used to melt him. The idea of Amelia broken-hearted and lonely
tore that good-natured soul with anguish. And he broke out into an
emotion, which anybody who likes may consider unmanly. He swore that
Amelia was an angel, to which Osborne said aye with all his heart. He,
too, had been reviewing the history of their lives--and had seen her
from her childhood to her present age, so sweet, so innocent, so
charmingly simple, and artlessly fond and tender.