Vanity Fair
his restlessness, and he started up after awhile, pocketing his
winnings, and went to a buffet, where he drank off many bumpers of wine.
Here, as he was rattling away to the people around, laughing loudly and
wild with spirits, Dobbin found him. He had been to the card-tables to
look there for his friend. Dobbin looked as pale and grave as his
comrade was flushed and jovial.
"Hullo, Dob! Come and drink, old Dob! The Duke's wine is famous. Give
me some more, you sir"; and he held out a trembling glass for the
liquor.
"Come out, George," said Dobbin, still gravely; "don't drink."
"Drink! there's nothing like it. Drink yourself, and light up your
lantern jaws, old boy. Here's to you."
Dobbin went up and whispered something to him, at which George, giving
a start and a wild hurray, tossed off his glass, clapped it on the
table, and walked away speedily on his friend's arm. "The enemy has
passed the Sambre," William said, "and our left is already engaged.
Come away. We are to march in three hours."
Away went George, his nerves quivering with excitement at the news so
long looked for, so sudden when it came. What were love and intrigue
now? He thought about a thousand things but these in his rapid walk to
his quarters--his past life and future chances--the fate which might be
before him--the wife, the child perhaps, from whom unseen he might be
about to part. Oh, how he wished that night's work undone! and that
with a clear conscience at least he might say farewell to the tender
and guileless being by whose love he had set such little store!
He thought over his brief married life. In those few weeks he had
frightfully dissipated his little capital. How wild and reckless he
had been! Should any mischance befall him: what was then left for
her? How unworthy he was of her. Why had he married her? He was not
fit for marriage. Why had he disobeyed his father, who had been always
so generous to him? Hope, remorse, ambition, tenderness, and selfish
regret filled his heart. He sate down and wrote to his father,
remembering what he had said once before, when he was engaged to fight
a duel. Dawn faintly streaked the sky as he closed this farewell
letter. He sealed it, and kissed the superscription. He thought how he
had deserted that generous father, and of the thousand kindnesses which
the stern old man had done him.
He had looked into Amelia's bedroom when he entered; she lay quiet, and
her eyes seemed closed, and he was glad that she was asleep. On
arriving at his quarters from the ball, he had found his regimental
servant already making preparations for his departure: the man had
understood his signal to be still, and these arrangements were very
quickly and silently made. Should he go in and wake Amelia, he
thought, or leave a note for her brother to break the news of departure
to her? He went in to look at her once again.
She had been awake when he first entered her room, but had kept her
eyes closed, so that even her wakefulness should not seem to reproach
him. But when he had returned, so soon after herself, too, this timid
little heart had felt more at ease, and turning towards him as he stept
softly out of the room, she had fallen into a light sleep. George came
in and looked at her again, entering still more softly. By the pale
night-lamp he could see her sweet, pale face--the purple eyelids were
fringed and closed, and one round arm, smooth and white, lay outside of
the coverlet. Good God! how pure she was; how gentle, how tender, and
how friendless! and he, how selfish, brutal, and black with crime!
Heart-stained, and shame-stricken, he stood at the bed's foot, and
looked at the sleeping girl. How dared he--who was he, to pray for one
so spotless! God bless her! God bless her! He came to the bedside,
and looked at the hand, the little soft hand, lying asleep; and he bent
over the pillow noiselessly towards the gentle pale face.
Two fair arms closed tenderly round his neck as he stooped down. "I am
awake, George," the poor child said, with a sob fit to break the little
heart that nestled so closely by his own. She was awake, poor soul,
and to what? At that moment a bugle from the Place of Arms began
sounding clearly, and was taken up through the town; and amidst the
drums of the infantry, and the shrill pipes of the Scotch, the whole
city awoke.
CHAPTER XXX
"The Girl I Left Behind Me"
We do not claim to rank among the military novelists. Our place is with
the non-combatants. When the decks are cleared for action we go below
and wait meekly. We should only be in the way of the manoeuvres that
the gallant fellows are performing overhead. We shall go no farther
with the --th than to the city gate: and leaving Major O'Dowd to his
duty, come back to the Major's wife, and the ladies and the baggage.
Now the Major and his lady, who had not been invited to the ball at
which in our last chapter other of our friends figured, had much more
time to take their wholesome natural rest in bed, than was accorded to
people who wished to enjoy pleasure as well as to do duty. "It's my
belief, Peggy, my dear," said he, as he placidly pulled his nightcap
over his ears, "that there will be such a ball danced in a day or two
as some of 'em has never heard the chune of"; and he was much more
happy to retire to rest after partaking of a quiet tumbler, than to
figure at any other sort of amusement. Peggy, for her part, would have
liked to have shown her turban and bird of paradise at the ball, but
for the information which her husband had given her, and which made her
very grave.
"I'd like ye wake me about half an hour before the assembly beats," the
Major said to his lady. "Call me at half-past one, Peggy dear, and see
me things is ready. May be I'll not come back to breakfast, Mrs. O'D."
With which words, which signified his opinion that the regiment would
march the next morning, the Major ceased talking, and fell asleep.
Mrs. O'Dowd, the good housewife, arrayed in curl papers and a camisole,
felt that her duty was to act, and not to sleep, at this juncture.
"Time enough for that," she said, "when Mick's gone"; and so she packed
his travelling valise ready for the march, brushed his cloak, his cap,
and other warlike habiliments, set them out in order for him; and
stowed away in the cloak pockets a light package of portable
refreshments, and a wicker-covered flask or pocket-pistol, containing
near a pint of a remarkably sound Cognac brandy, of which she and the
Major approved very much; and as soon as the hands of the "repayther"
pointed to half-past one, and its interior arrangements (it had a tone
quite equal to a cathaydral, its fair owner considered) knelled forth
that fatal hour, Mrs. O'Dowd woke up her Major, and had as comfortable
a cup of coffee prepared for him as any made that morning in Brussels.
And who is there will deny that this worthy lady's preparations
betokened affection as much as the fits of tears and hysterics by which
more sensitive females exhibited their love, and that their partaking
of this coffee, which they drank together while the bugles were
sounding the turn-out and the drums beating in the various quarters of
the town, was not more useful and to the purpose than the outpouring of
any mere sentiment could be? The consequence was, that the Major
appeared on parade quite trim, fresh, and alert, his well-shaved rosy
countenance, as he sate on horseback, giving cheerfulness and
confidence to the whole corps. All the officers saluted her when the
regiment marched by the balcony on which this brave woman stood, and
waved them a cheer as they passed; and I daresay it was not from want
of courage, but from a sense of female delicacy and propriety, that she
refrained from leading the gallant--th personally into action.
On Sundays, and at periods of a solemn nature, Mrs. O'Dowd used to read
with great gravity out of a large volume of her uncle the Dean's
sermons. It had been of great comfort to her on board the transport as
they were coming home, and were very nearly wrecked, on their return
from the West Indies. After the regiment's departure she betook
herself to this volume for meditation; perhaps she did not understand
much of what she was reading, and her thoughts were elsewhere: but the
sleep project, with poor Mick's nightcap there on the pillow, was quite
a vain one. So it is in the world. Jack or Donald marches away to
glory with his knapsack on his shoulder, stepping out briskly to the
tune of "The Girl I Left Behind Me." It is she who remains and
suffers--and has the leisure to think, and brood, and remember.
Knowing how useless regrets are, and how the indulgence of sentiment
only serves to make people more miserable, Mrs. Rebecca wisely
determined to give way to no vain feelings of sorrow, and bore the
parting from her husband with quite a Spartan equanimity. Indeed
Captain Rawdon himself was much more affected at the leave-taking than
the resolute little woman to whom he bade farewell. She had mastered
this rude coarse nature; and he loved and worshipped her with all his
faculties of regard and admiration. In all his life he had never been
so happy, as, during the past few months, his wife had made him. All
former delights of turf, mess, hunting-field, and gambling-table; all
previous loves and courtships of milliners, opera-dancers, and the like
easy triumphs of the clumsy military Adonis, were quite insipid when
compared to the lawful matrimonial pleasures which of late he had
enjoyed. She had known perpetually how to divert him; and he had found
his house and her society a thousand times more pleasant than any place
or company which he had ever frequented from his childhood until now.
And he cursed his past follies and extravagances, and bemoaned his vast
outlying debts above all, which must remain for ever as obstacles to
prevent his wife's advancement in the world. He had often groaned over
these in midnight conversations with Rebecca, although as a bachelor
they had never given him any disquiet. He himself was struck with this
phenomenon. "Hang it," he would say (or perhaps use a still stronger
expression out of his simple vocabulary), "before I was married I
didn't care what bills I put my name to, and so long as Moses would
wait or Levy would renew for three months, I kept on never minding.
But since I'm married, except renewing, of course, I give you my honour
I've not touched a bit of stamped paper."
Rebecca always knew how to conjure away these moods of melancholy.
"Why, my stupid love," she would say, "we have not done with your aunt
yet. If she fails us, isn't there what you call the Gazette? or, stop,
when your uncle Bute's life drops, I have another scheme. The living
has always belonged to the younger brother, and why shouldn't you sell
out and go into the Church?" The idea of this conversion set Rawdon
into roars of laughter: you might have heard the explosion through the
hotel at midnight, and the haw-haws of the great dragoon's voice.
General Tufto heard him from his quarters on the first floor above
them; and Rebecca acted the scene with great spirit, and preached
Rawdon's first sermon, to the immense delight of the General at
breakfast.
But these were mere by-gone days and talk. When the final news arrived
that the campaign was opened, and the troops were to march, Rawdon's
gravity became such that Becky rallied him about it in a manner which
rather hurt the feelings of the Guardsman. "You don't suppose I'm
afraid, Becky, I should think," he said, with a tremor in his voice.
"But I'm a pretty good mark for a shot, and you see if it brings me
down, why I leave one and perhaps two behind me whom I should wish to