Vanity Fair
which their regiment was quartered, a great piece of good fortune, as
all said, they found themselves in one of the gayest and most brilliant
little capitals in Europe, and where all the Vanity Fair booths were
laid out with the most tempting liveliness and splendour. Gambling was
here in profusion, and dancing in plenty: feasting was there to fill
with delight that great gourmand of a Jos: there was a theatre where a
miraculous Catalani was delighting all hearers: beautiful rides, all
enlivened with martial splendour; a rare old city, with strange
costumes and wonderful architecture, to delight the eyes of little
Amelia, who had never before seen a foreign country, and fill her with
charming surprises: so that now and for a few weeks' space in a fine
handsome lodging, whereof the expenses were borne by Jos and Osborne,
who was flush of money and full of kind attentions to his wife--for
about a fortnight, I say, during which her honeymoon ended, Mrs. Amelia
was as pleased and happy as any little bride out of England.
Every day during this happy time there was novelty and amusement for
all parties. There was a church to see, or a picture-gallery--there
was a ride, or an opera. The bands of the regiments were making music
at all hours. The greatest folks of England walked in the Park--there
was a perpetual military festival. George, taking out his wife to a
new jaunt or junket every night, was quite pleased with himself as
usual, and swore he was becoming quite a domestic character. And a
jaunt or a junket with HIM! Was it not enough to set this little heart
beating with joy? Her letters home to her mother were filled with
delight and gratitude at this season. Her husband bade her buy laces,
millinery, jewels, and gimcracks of all sorts. Oh, he was the kindest,
best, and most generous of men!
The sight of the very great company of lords and ladies and fashionable
persons who thronged the town, and appeared in every public place,
filled George's truly British soul with intense delight. They flung
off that happy frigidity and insolence of demeanour which occasionally
characterises the great at home, and appearing in numberless public
places, condescended to mingle with the rest of the company whom they
met there. One night at a party given by the general of the division
to which George's regiment belonged, he had the honour of dancing with
Lady Blanche Thistlewood, Lord Bareacres' daughter; he bustled for ices
and refreshments for the two noble ladies; he pushed and squeezed for
Lady Bareacres' carriage; he bragged about the Countess when he got
home, in a way which his own father could not have surpassed. He
called upon the ladies the next day; he rode by their side in the Park;
he asked their party to a great dinner at a restaurateur's, and was
quite wild with exultation when they agreed to come. Old Bareacres,
who had not much pride and a large appetite, would go for a dinner
anywhere.
"I hope there will be no women besides our own party," Lady Bareacres
said, after reflecting upon the invitation which had been made, and
accepted with too much precipitancy.
"Gracious Heaven, Mamma--you don't suppose the man would bring his
wife," shrieked Lady Blanche, who had been languishing in George's arms
in the newly imported waltz for hours the night before. "The men are
bearable, but their women--"
"Wife, just married, dev'lish pretty woman, I hear," the old Earl said.
"Well, my dear Blanche," said the mother, "I suppose, as Papa wants to
go, we must go; but we needn't know them in England, you know." And so,
determined to cut their new acquaintance in Bond Street, these great
folks went to eat his dinner at Brussels, and condescending to make him
pay for their pleasure, showed their dignity by making his wife
uncomfortable, and carefully excluding her from the conversation. This
is a species of dignity in which the high-bred British female reigns
supreme. To watch the behaviour of a fine lady to other and humbler
women, is a very good sport for a philosophical frequenter of Vanity
Fair.
This festival, on which honest George spent a great deal of money, was
the very dismallest of all the entertainments which Amelia had in her
honeymoon. She wrote the most piteous accounts of the feast home to
her mamma: how the Countess of Bareacres would not answer when spoken
to; how Lady Blanche stared at her with her eye-glass; and what a rage
Captain Dobbin was in at their behaviour; and how my lord, as they came
away from the feast, asked to see the bill, and pronounced it a d----
bad dinner, and d---- dear. But though Amelia told all these stories,
and wrote home regarding her guests' rudeness, and her own
discomfiture, old Mrs. Sedley was mightily pleased nevertheless, and
talked about Emmy's friend, the Countess of Bareacres, with such
assiduity that the news how his son was entertaining peers and
peeresses actually came to Osborne's ears in the City.
Those who know the present Lieutenant-General Sir George Tufto, K.C.B.,
and have seen him, as they may on most days in the season, padded and
in stays, strutting down Pall Mall with a rickety swagger on his
high-heeled lacquered boots, leering under the bonnets of passers-by,
or riding a showy chestnut, and ogling broughams in the Parks--those
who know the present Sir George Tufto would hardly recognise the daring
Peninsular and Waterloo officer. He has thick curling brown hair and
black eyebrows now, and his whiskers are of the deepest purple. He was
light-haired and bald in 1815, and stouter in the person and in the
limbs, which especially have shrunk very much of late. When he was
about seventy years of age (he is now nearly eighty), his hair, which
was very scarce and quite white, suddenly grew thick, and brown, and
curly, and his whiskers and eyebrows took their present colour.
Ill-natured people say that his chest is all wool, and that his hair,
because it never grows, is a wig. Tom Tufto, with whose father he
quarrelled ever so many years ago, declares that Mademoiselle de
Jaisey, of the French theatre, pulled his grandpapa's hair off in the
green-room; but Tom is notoriously spiteful and jealous; and the
General's wig has nothing to do with our story.
One day, as some of our friends of the --th were sauntering in the
flower-market of Brussels, having been to see the Hotel de Ville, which
Mrs. Major O'Dowd declared was not near so large or handsome as her
fawther's mansion of Glenmalony, an officer of rank, with an orderly
behind him, rode up to the market, and descending from his horse, came
amongst the flowers, and selected the very finest bouquet which money
could buy. The beautiful bundle being tied up in a paper, the officer
remounted, giving the nosegay into the charge of his military groom,
who carried it with a grin, following his chief, who rode away in great
state and self-satisfaction.
"You should see the flowers at Glenmalony," Mrs. O'Dowd was remarking.
"Me fawther has three Scotch garners with nine helpers. We have an acre
of hot-houses, and pines as common as pays in the sayson. Our greeps
weighs six pounds every bunch of 'em, and upon me honour and conscience
I think our magnolias is as big as taykettles."
Dobbin, who never used to "draw out" Mrs. O'Dowd as that wicked Osborne
delighted in doing (much to Amelia's terror, who implored him to spare
her), fell back in the crowd, crowing and sputtering until he reached a
safe distance, when he exploded amongst the astonished market-people
with shrieks of yelling laughter.
"Hwhat's that gawky guggling about?" said Mrs. O'Dowd. "Is it his nose
bleedn? He always used to say 'twas his nose bleedn, till he must have
pomped all the blood out of 'um. An't the magnolias at Glenmalony as
big as taykettles, O'Dowd?"
"'Deed then they are, and bigger, Peggy," the Major said. When the
conversation was interrupted in the manner stated by the arrival of the
officer who purchased the bouquet.
"Devlish fine horse--who is it?" George asked.
"You should see me brother Molloy Malony's horse, Molasses, that won
the cop at the Curragh," the Major's wife was exclaiming, and was
continuing the family history, when her husband interrupted her by
saying--
"It's General Tufto, who commands the ---- cavalry division"; adding
quietly, "he and I were both shot in the same leg at Talavera."
"Where you got your step," said George with a laugh. "General Tufto!
Then, my dear, the Crawleys are come."
Amelia's heart fell--she knew not why. The sun did not seem to shine
so bright. The tall old roofs and gables looked less picturesque all
of a sudden, though it was a brilliant sunset, and one of the brightest
and most beautiful days at the end of May.
CHAPTER XXIX
Brussels
Mr. Jos had hired a pair of horses for his open carriage, with which
cattle, and the smart London vehicle, he made a very tolerable figure
in the drives about Brussels. George purchased a horse for his private
riding, and he and Captain Dobbin would often accompany the carriage in
which Jos and his sister took daily excursions of pleasure. They went
out that day in the park for their accustomed diversion, and there,
sure enough, George's remark with regard to the arrival of Rawdon
Crawley and his wife proved to be correct. In the midst of a little
troop of horsemen, consisting of some of the very greatest persons in
Brussels, Rebecca was seen in the prettiest and tightest of
riding-habits, mounted on a beautiful little Arab, which she rode to
perfection (having acquired the art at Queen's Crawley, where the
Baronet, Mr. Pitt, and Rawdon himself had given her many lessons), and
by the side of the gallant General Tufto.
"Sure it's the Juke himself," cried Mrs. Major O'Dowd to Jos, who began
to blush violently; "and that's Lord Uxbridge on the bay. How elegant
he looks! Me brother, Molloy Malony, is as like him as two pays."
Rebecca did not make for the carriage; but as soon as she perceived her
old acquaintance Amelia seated in it, acknowledged her presence by a
gracious nod and smile, and by kissing and shaking her fingers
playfully in the direction of the vehicle. Then she resumed her
conversation with General Tufto, who asked "who the fat officer was in
the gold-laced cap?" on which Becky replied, "that he was an officer in
the East Indian service." But Rawdon Crawley rode out of the ranks of
his company, and came up and shook hands heartily with Amelia, and said
to Jos, "Well, old boy, how are you?" and stared in Mrs. O'Dowd's face
and at the black cock's feathers until she began to think she had made
a conquest of him.
George, who had been delayed behind, rode up almost immediately with
Dobbin, and they touched their caps to the august personages, among
whom Osborne at once perceived Mrs. Crawley. He was delighted to see
Rawdon leaning over his carriage familiarly and talking to Amelia, and
met the aide-de-camp's cordial greeting with more than corresponding
warmth. The nods between Rawdon and Dobbin were of the very faintest
specimens of politeness.
Crawley told George where they were stopping with General Tufto at the
Hotel du Parc, and George made his friend promise to come speedily to
Osborne's own residence. "Sorry I hadn't seen you three days ago,"
George said. "Had a dinner at the Restaurateur's--rather a nice thing.
Lord Bareacres, and the Countess, and Lady Blanche, were good enough to
dine with us--wish we'd had you." Having thus let his friend know his
claims to be a man of fashion, Osborne parted from Rawdon, who followed
the august squadron down an alley into which they cantered, while
George and Dobbin resumed their places, one on each side of Amelia's
carriage.
"How well the Juke looked," Mrs. O'Dowd remarked. "The Wellesleys and