Vanity Fair
provide for, as I brought 'em into the scrape. It is no laughing
matter that, Mrs. C., anyways."
Rebecca by a hundred caresses and kind words tried to soothe the
feelings of the wounded lover. It was only when her vivacity and sense
of humour got the better of this sprightly creature (as they would do
under most circumstances of life indeed) that she would break out with
her satire, but she could soon put on a demure face. "Dearest love,"
she said, "do you suppose I feel nothing?" and hastily dashing
something from her eyes, she looked up in her husband's face with a
smile.
"Look here," said he. "If I drop, let us see what there is for you. I
have had a pretty good run of luck here, and here's two hundred and
thirty pounds. I have got ten Napoleons in my pocket. That is as much
as I shall want; for the General pays everything like a prince; and if
I'm hit, why you know I cost nothing. Don't cry, little woman; I may
live to vex you yet. Well, I shan't take either of my horses, but
shall ride the General's grey charger: it's cheaper, and I told him
mine was lame. If I'm done, those two ought to fetch you something.
Grigg offered ninety for the mare yesterday, before this confounded
news came, and like a fool I wouldn't let her go under the two o's.
Bullfinch will fetch his price any day, only you'd better sell him in
this country, because the dealers have so many bills of mine, and so
I'd rather he shouldn't go back to England. Your little mare the
General gave you will fetch something, and there's no d--d livery
stable bills here as there are in London," Rawdon added, with a laugh.
"There's that dressing-case cost me two hundred--that is, I owe two for
it; and the gold tops and bottles must be worth thirty or forty.
Please to put THAT up the spout, ma'am, with my pins, and rings, and
watch and chain, and things. They cost a precious lot of money. Miss
Crawley, I know, paid a hundred down for the chain and ticker. Gold
tops and bottles, indeed! dammy, I'm sorry I didn't take more now.
Edwards pressed on me a silver-gilt boot-jack, and I might have had a
dressing-case fitted up with a silver warming-pan, and a service of
plate. But we must make the best of what we've got, Becky, you know."
And so, making his last dispositions, Captain Crawley, who had seldom
thought about anything but himself, until the last few months of his
life, when Love had obtained the mastery over the dragoon, went through
the various items of his little catalogue of effects, striving to see
how they might be turned into money for his wife's benefit, in case any
accident should befall him. He pleased himself by noting down with a
pencil, in his big schoolboy handwriting, the various items of his
portable property which might be sold for his widow's advantage as, for
example, "My double-barril by Manton, say 40 guineas; my driving cloak,
lined with sable fur, 50 pounds; my duelling pistols in rosewood case
(same which I shot Captain Marker), 20 pounds; my regulation
saddle-holsters and housings; my Laurie ditto," and so forth, over all
of which articles he made Rebecca the mistress.
Faithful to his plan of economy, the Captain dressed himself in his
oldest and shabbiest uniform and epaulets, leaving the newest behind,
under his wife's (or it might be his widow's) guardianship. And this
famous dandy of Windsor and Hyde Park went off on his campaign with a
kit as modest as that of a sergeant, and with something like a prayer
on his lips for the woman he was leaving. He took her up from the
ground, and held her in his arms for a minute, tight pressed against
his strong-beating heart. His face was purple and his eyes dim, as he
put her down and left her. He rode by his General's side, and smoked
his cigar in silence as they hastened after the troops of the General's
brigade, which preceded them; and it was not until they were some miles
on their way that he left off twirling his moustache and broke silence.
And Rebecca, as we have said, wisely determined not to give way to
unavailing sentimentality on her husband's departure. She waved him an
adieu from the window, and stood there for a moment looking out after
he was gone. The cathedral towers and the full gables of the quaint old
houses were just beginning to blush in the sunrise. There had been no
rest for her that night. She was still in her pretty ball-dress, her
fair hair hanging somewhat out of curl on her neck, and the circles
round her eyes dark with watching. "What a fright I seem," she said,
examining herself in the glass, "and how pale this pink makes one
look!" So she divested herself of this pink raiment; in doing which a
note fell out from her corsage, which she picked up with a smile, and
locked into her dressing-box. And then she put her bouquet of the ball
into a glass of water, and went to bed, and slept very comfortably.
The town was quite quiet when she woke up at ten o'clock, and partook
of coffee, very requisite and comforting after the exhaustion and grief
of the morning's occurrences.
This meal over, she resumed honest Rawdon's calculations of the night
previous, and surveyed her position. Should the worst befall, all
things considered, she was pretty well to do. There were her own
trinkets and trousseau, in addition to those which her husband had left
behind. Rawdon's generosity, when they were first married, has already
been described and lauded. Besides these, and the little mare, the
General, her slave and worshipper, had made her many very handsome
presents, in the shape of cashmere shawls bought at the auction of a
bankrupt French general's lady, and numerous tributes from the
jewellers' shops, all of which betokened her admirer's taste and
wealth. As for "tickers," as poor Rawdon called watches, her
apartments were alive with their clicking. For, happening to mention
one night that hers, which Rawdon had given to her, was of English
workmanship, and went ill, on the very next morning there came to her a
little bijou marked Leroy, with a chain and cover charmingly set with
turquoises, and another signed Brequet, which was covered with pearls,
and yet scarcely bigger than a half-crown. General Tufto had bought
one, and Captain Osborne had gallantly presented the other. Mrs.
Osborne had no watch, though, to do George justice, she might have had
one for the asking, and the Honourable Mrs. Tufto in England had an old
instrument of her mother's that might have served for the plate-warming
pan which Rawdon talked about. If Messrs. Howell and James were to
publish a list of the purchasers of all the trinkets which they sell,
how surprised would some families be: and if all these ornaments went
to gentlemen's lawful wives and daughters, what a profusion of
jewellery there would be exhibited in the genteelest homes of Vanity
Fair!
Every calculation made of these valuables Mrs. Rebecca found, not
without a pungent feeling of triumph and self-satisfaction, that should
circumstances occur, she might reckon on six or seven hundred pounds at
the very least, to begin the world with; and she passed the morning
disposing, ordering, looking out, and locking up her properties in the
most agreeable manner. Among the notes in Rawdon's pocket-book was a
draft for twenty pounds on Osborne's banker. This made her think about
Mrs. Osborne. "I will go and get the draft cashed," she said, "and pay
a visit afterwards to poor little Emmy." If this is a novel without a
hero, at least let us lay claim to a heroine. No man in the British
army which has marched away, not the great Duke himself, could be more
cool or collected in the presence of doubts and difficulties, than the
indomitable little aide-de-camp's wife.
And there was another of our acquaintances who was also to be left
behind, a non-combatant, and whose emotions and behaviour we have
therefore a right to know. This was our friend the ex-collector of
Boggley Wollah, whose rest was broken, like other people's, by the
sounding of the bugles in the early morning. Being a great sleeper,
and fond of his bed, it is possible he would have snoozed on until his
usual hour of rising in the forenoon, in spite of all the drums,
bugles, and bagpipes in the British army, but for an interruption,
which did not come from George Osborne, who shared Jos's quarters with
him, and was as usual occupied too much with his own affairs or with
grief at parting with his wife, to think of taking leave of his
slumbering brother-in-law--it was not George, we say, who interposed
between Jos Sedley and sleep, but Captain Dobbin, who came and roused
him up, insisting on shaking hands with him before his departure.
"Very kind of you," said Jos, yawning, and wishing the Captain at the
deuce.
"I--I didn't like to go off without saying good-bye, you know," Dobbin
said in a very incoherent manner; "because you know some of us mayn't
come back again, and I like to see you all well, and--and that sort of
thing, you know."
"What do you mean?" Jos asked, rubbing his eyes. The Captain did not
in the least hear him or look at the stout gentleman in the nightcap,
about whom he professed to have such a tender interest. The hypocrite
was looking and listening with all his might in the direction of
George's apartments, striding about the room, upsetting the chairs,
beating the tattoo, biting his nails, and showing other signs of great
inward emotion.
Jos had always had rather a mean opinion of the Captain, and now began
to think his courage was somewhat equivocal. "What is it I can do for
you, Dobbin?" he said, in a sarcastic tone.
"I tell you what you can do," the Captain replied, coming up to the
bed; "we march in a quarter of an hour, Sedley, and neither George nor
I may ever come back. Mind you, you are not to stir from this town
until you ascertain how things go. You are to stay here and watch over
your sister, and comfort her, and see that no harm comes to her. If
anything happens to George, remember she has no one but you in the
world to look to. If it goes wrong with the army, you'll see her safe
back to England; and you will promise me on your word that you will
never desert her. I know you won't: as far as money goes, you were
always free enough with that. Do you want any? I mean, have you enough
gold to take you back to England in case of a misfortune?"
"Sir," said Jos, majestically, "when I want money, I know where to ask
for it. And as for my sister, you needn't tell me how I ought to
behave to her."
"You speak like a man of spirit, Jos," the other answered good-naturedly,
"and I am glad that George can leave her in such good hands.
So I may give him your word of honour, may I, that in case of extremity
you will stand by her?"
"Of course, of course," answered Mr. Jos, whose generosity in money
matters Dobbin estimated quite correctly.
"And you'll see her safe out of Brussels in the event of a defeat?"
"A defeat! D---- it, sir, it's impossible. Don't try and frighten ME,"
the hero cried from his bed; and Dobbin's mind was thus perfectly set
at ease now that Jos had spoken out so resolutely respecting his
conduct to his sister. "At least," thought the Captain, "there will be
a retreat secured for her in case the worst should ensue."
If Captain Dobbin expected to get any personal comfort and satisfaction
from having one more view of Amelia before the regiment marched away,
his selfishness was punished just as such odious egotism deserved to
be. The door of Jos's bedroom opened into the sitting-room which was
common to the family party, and opposite this door was that of Amelia's
chamber. The bugles had wakened everybody: there was no use in
concealment now. George's servant was packing in this room: Osborne