Vanity Fair
coming in and out of the contiguous bedroom, flinging to the man such
articles as he thought fit to carry on the campaign. And presently
Dobbin had the opportunity which his heart coveted, and he got sight of
Amelia's face once more. But what a face it was! So white, so wild
and despair-stricken, that the remembrance of it haunted him afterwards
like a crime, and the sight smote him with inexpressible pangs of
longing and pity.
She was wrapped in a white morning dress, her hair falling on her
shoulders, and her large eyes fixed and without light. By way of
helping on the preparations for the departure, and showing that she too
could be useful at a moment so critical, this poor soul had taken up a
sash of George's from the drawers whereon it lay, and followed him to
and fro with the sash in her hand, looking on mutely as his packing
proceeded. She came out and stood, leaning at the wall, holding this
sash against her bosom, from which the heavy net of crimson dropped
like a large stain of blood. Our gentle-hearted Captain felt a guilty
shock as he looked at her. "Good God," thought he, "and is it grief
like this I dared to pry into?" And there was no help: no means to
soothe and comfort this helpless, speechless misery. He stood for a
moment and looked at her, powerless and torn with pity, as a parent
regards an infant in pain.
At last, George took Emmy's hand, and led her back into the bedroom,
from whence he came out alone. The parting had taken place in that
moment, and he was gone.
"Thank Heaven that is over," George thought, bounding down the stair,
his sword under his arm, as he ran swiftly to the alarm ground, where
the regiment was mustered, and whither trooped men and officers
hurrying from their billets; his pulse was throbbing and his cheeks
flushed: the great game of war was going to be played, and he one of
the players. What a fierce excitement of doubt, hope, and pleasure!
What tremendous hazards of loss or gain! What were all the games of
chance he had ever played compared to this one? Into all contests
requiring athletic skill and courage, the young man, from his boyhood
upwards, had flung himself with all his might. The champion of his
school and his regiment, the bravos of his companions had followed him
everywhere; from the boys' cricket-match to the garrison-races, he had
won a hundred of triumphs; and wherever he went women and men had
admired and envied him. What qualities are there for which a man gets
so speedy a return of applause, as those of bodily superiority,
activity, and valour? Time out of mind strength and courage have been
the theme of bards and romances; and from the story of Troy down to
to-day, poetry has always chosen a soldier for a hero. I wonder is it
because men are cowards in heart that they admire bravery so much, and
place military valour so far beyond every other quality for reward and
worship?
So, at the sound of that stirring call to battle, George jumped away
from the gentle arms in which he had been dallying; not without a
feeling of shame (although his wife's hold on him had been but feeble),
that he should have been detained there so long. The same feeling of
eagerness and excitement was amongst all those friends of his of whom
we have had occasional glimpses, from the stout senior Major, who led
the regiment into action, to little Stubble, the Ensign, who was to
bear its colours on that day.
The sun was just rising as the march began--it was a gallant sight--the
band led the column, playing the regimental march--then came the
Major in command, riding upon Pyramus, his stout charger--then marched
the grenadiers, their Captain at their head; in the centre were the
colours, borne by the senior and junior Ensigns--then George came
marching at the head of his company. He looked up, and smiled at
Amelia, and passed on; and even the sound of the music died away.
CHAPTER XXXI
In Which Jos Sedley Takes Care of His Sister
Thus all the superior officers being summoned on duty elsewhere, Jos
Sedley was left in command of the little colony at Brussels, with
Amelia invalided, Isidor, his Belgian servant, and the bonne, who was
maid-of-all-work for the establishment, as a garrison under him. Though
he was disturbed in spirit, and his rest destroyed by Dobbin's
interruption and the occurrences of the morning, Jos nevertheless
remained for many hours in bed, wakeful and rolling about there until
his usual hour of rising had arrived. The sun was high in the heavens,
and our gallant friends of the --th miles on their march, before the
civilian appeared in his flowered dressing-gown at breakfast.
About George's absence, his brother-in-law was very easy in mind.
Perhaps Jos was rather pleased in his heart that Osborne was gone, for
during George's presence, the other had played but a very secondary
part in the household, and Osborne did not scruple to show his contempt
for the stout civilian. But Emmy had always been good and attentive to
him. It was she who ministered to his comforts, who superintended the
dishes that he liked, who walked or rode with him (as she had many, too
many, opportunities of doing, for where was George?) and who interposed
her sweet face between his anger and her husband's scorn. Many timid
remonstrances had she uttered to George in behalf of her brother, but
the former in his trenchant way cut these entreaties short. "I'm an
honest man," he said, "and if I have a feeling I show it, as an honest
man will. How the deuce, my dear, would you have me behave
respectfully to such a fool as your brother?" So Jos was pleased with
George's absence. His plain hat, and gloves on a sideboard, and the
idea that the owner was away, caused Jos I don't know what secret
thrill of pleasure. "HE won't be troubling me this morning," Jos
thought, "with his dandified airs and his impudence."
"Put the Captain's hat into the ante-room," he said to Isidor, the
servant.
"Perhaps he won't want it again," replied the lackey, looking knowingly
at his master. He hated George too, whose insolence towards him was
quite of the English sort.
"And ask if Madame is coming to breakfast," Mr. Sedley said with great
majesty, ashamed to enter with a servant upon the subject of his
dislike for George. The truth is, he had abused his brother to the
valet a score of times before.
Alas! Madame could not come to breakfast, and cut the tartines that
Mr. Jos liked. Madame was a great deal too ill, and had been in a
frightful state ever since her husband's departure, so her bonne said.
Jos showed his sympathy by pouring her out a large cup of tea It was
his way of exhibiting kindness: and he improved on this; he not only
sent her breakfast, but he bethought him what delicacies she would most
like for dinner.
Isidor, the valet, had looked on very sulkily, while Osborne's servant
was disposing of his master's baggage previous to the Captain's
departure: for in the first place he hated Mr. Osborne, whose conduct
to him, and to all inferiors, was generally overbearing (nor does the
continental domestic like to be treated with insolence as our own
better-tempered servants do), and secondly, he was angry that so many
valuables should be removed from under his hands, to fall into other
people's possession when the English discomfiture should arrive. Of
this defeat he and a vast number of other persons in Brussels and
Belgium did not make the slightest doubt. The almost universal belief
was, that the Emperor would divide the Prussian and English armies,
annihilate one after the other, and march into Brussels before three
days were over: when all the movables of his present masters, who would
be killed, or fugitives, or prisoners, would lawfully become the
property of Monsieur Isidor.
As he helped Jos through his toilsome and complicated daily toilette,
this faithful servant would calculate what he should do with the very
articles with which he was decorating his master's person. He would
make a present of the silver essence-bottles and toilet knicknacks to a
young lady of whom he was fond; and keep the English cutlery and the
large ruby pin for himself. It would look very smart upon one of the
fine frilled shirts, which, with the gold-laced cap and the frogged
frock coat, that might easily be cut down to suit his shape, and the
Captain's gold-headed cane, and the great double ring with the rubies,
which he would have made into a pair of beautiful earrings, he
calculated would make a perfect Adonis of himself, and render
Mademoiselle Reine an easy prey. "How those sleeve-buttons will suit
me!" thought he, as he fixed a pair on the fat pudgy wrists of Mr.
Sedley. "I long for sleeve-buttons; and the Captain's boots with brass
spurs, in the next room, corbleu! what an effect they will make in the
Allee Verte!" So while Monsieur Isidor with bodily fingers was holding
on to his master's nose, and shaving the lower part of Jos's face, his
imagination was rambling along the Green Avenue, dressed out in a
frogged coat and lace, and in company with Mademoiselle Reine; he was
loitering in spirit on the banks, and examining the barges sailing
slowly under the cool shadows of the trees by the canal, or refreshing
himself with a mug of Faro at the bench of a beer-house on the road to
Laeken.
But Mr. Joseph Sedley, luckily for his own peace, no more knew what was
passing in his domestic's mind than the respected reader, and I suspect
what John or Mary, whose wages we pay, think of ourselves. What our
servants think of us!--Did we know what our intimates and dear
relations thought of us, we should live in a world that we should be
glad to quit, and in a frame of mind and a constant terror, that would
be perfectly unbearable. So Jos's man was marking his victim down, as
you see one of Mr. Paynter's assistants in Leadenhall Street ornament
an unconscious turtle with a placard on which is written, "Soup
to-morrow."
Amelia's attendant was much less selfishly disposed. Few dependents
could come near that kind and gentle creature without paying their
usual tribute of loyalty and affection to her sweet and affectionate
nature. And it is a fact that Pauline, the cook, consoled her mistress
more than anybody whom she saw on this wretched morning; for when she
found how Amelia remained for hours, silent, motionless, and haggard,
by the windows in which she had placed herself to watch the last
bayonets of the column as it marched away, the honest girl took the
lady's hand, and said, Tenez, Madame, est-ce qu'il n'est pas aussi a
l'armee, mon homme a moi? with which she burst into tears, and Amelia
falling into her arms, did likewise, and so each pitied and soothed the
other.
Several times during the forenoon Mr. Jos's Isidor went from his
lodgings into the town, and to the gates of the hotels and lodging-houses
round about the Parc, where the English were congregated, and
there mingled with other valets, couriers, and lackeys, gathered such
news as was abroad, and brought back bulletins for his master's
information. Almost all these gentlemen were in heart partisans of the
Emperor, and had their opinions about the speedy end of the campaign.
The Emperor's proclamation from Avesnes had been distributed everywhere
plentifully in Brussels. "Soldiers!" it said, "this is the
anniversary of Marengo and Friedland, by which the destinies of Europe
were twice decided. Then, as after Austerlitz, as after Wagram, we
were too generous. We believed in the oaths and promises of princes
whom we suffered to remain upon their thrones. Let us march once more
to meet them. We and they, are we not still the same men? Soldiers!
these same Prussians who are so arrogant to-day, were three to one