Vanity Fair (117 page)

"Indeed it does, madam," said the Major. "If I have any authority
in this house—"

"Authority, none!" broke out Amelia "Rebecca, you stay with me. I
won't desert you because you have been persecuted, or insult you
because—because Major Dobbin chooses to do so. Come away, dear."
And the two women made towards the door.

William opened it. As they were going out, however, he took
Amelia's hand and said—"Will you stay a moment and speak to me?"

"He wishes to speak to you away from me," said Becky, looking like a
martyr. Amelia gripped her hand in reply.

"Upon my honour it is not about you that I am going to speak,"
Dobbin said. "Come back, Amelia," and she came. Dobbin bowed to
Mrs. Crawley, as he shut the door upon her. Amelia looked at him,
leaning against the glass: her face and her lips were quite white.

"I was confused when I spoke just now," the Major said after a
pause, "and I misused the word authority."

"You did," said Amelia with her teeth chattering.

"At least I have claims to be heard," Dobbin continued.

"It is generous to remind me of our obligations to you," the woman
answered.

"The claims I mean are those left me by George's father," William
said.

"Yes, and you insulted his memory. You did yesterday. You know you
did. And I will never forgive you. Never!" said Amelia. She shot
out each little sentence in a tremor of anger and emotion.

"You don't mean that, Amelia?" William said sadly. "You don't mean
that these words, uttered in a hurried moment, are to weigh against
a whole life's devotion? I think that George's memory has not been
injured by the way in which I have dealt with it, and if we are come
to bandying reproaches, I at least merit none from his widow and the
mother of his son. Reflect, afterwards when—when you are at
leisure, and your conscience will withdraw this accusation. It does
even now." Amelia held down her head.

"It is not that speech of yesterday," he continued, "which moves
you. That is but the pretext, Amelia, or I have loved you and
watched you for fifteen years in vain. Have I not learned in that
time to read all your feelings and look into your thoughts? I know
what your heart is capable of: it can cling faithfully to a
recollection and cherish a fancy, but it can't feel such an
attachment as mine deserves to mate with, and such as I would have
won from a woman more generous than you. No, you are not worthy of
the love which I have devoted to you. I knew all along that the
prize I had set my life on was not worth the winning; that I was a
fool, with fond fancies, too, bartering away my all of truth and
ardour against your little feeble remnant of love. I will bargain
no more: I withdraw. I find no fault with you. You are very good-
natured, and have done your best, but you couldn't—you couldn't
reach up to the height of the attachment which I bore you, and which
a loftier soul than yours might have been proud to share. Good-bye,
Amelia! I have watched your struggle. Let it end. We are both
weary of it."

Amelia stood scared and silent as William thus suddenly broke the
chain by which she held him and declared his independence and
superiority. He had placed himself at her feet so long that the
poor little woman had been accustomed to trample upon him. She
didn't wish to marry him, but she wished to keep him. She wished to
give him nothing, but that he should give her all. It is a bargain
not unfrequently levied in love.

William's sally had quite broken and cast her down. HER assault was
long since over and beaten back.

"Am I to understand then, that you are going—away, William?" she
said.

He gave a sad laugh. "I went once before," he said, "and came back
after twelve years. We were young then, Amelia. Good-bye. I have
spent enough of my life at this play."

Whilst they had been talking, the door into Mrs. Osborne's room had
opened ever so little; indeed, Becky had kept a hold of the handle
and had turned it on the instant when Dobbin quitted it, and she
heard every word of the conversation that had passed between these
two. "What a noble heart that man has," she thought, "and how
shamefully that woman plays with it!" She admired Dobbin; she bore
him no rancour for the part he had taken against her. It was an
open move in the game, and played fairly. "Ah!" she thought, "if I
could have had such a husband as that—a man with a heart and brains
too! I would not have minded his large feet"; and running into her
room, she absolutely bethought herself of something, and wrote him a
note, beseeching him to stop for a few days—not to think of going—
and that she could serve him with A.

The parting was over. Once more poor William walked to the door and
was gone; and the little widow, the author of all this work, had her
will, and had won her victory, and was left to enjoy it as she best
might. Let the ladies envy her triumph.

At the romantic hour of dinner, Mr. Georgy made his appearance and
again remarked the absence of "Old Dob." The meal was eaten in
silence by the party. Jos's appetite not being diminished, but Emmy
taking nothing at all.

After the meal, Georgy was lolling in the cushions of the old
window, a large window, with three sides of glass abutting from the
gable, and commanding on one side the market-place, where the
Elephant is, his mother being busy hard by, when he remarked
symptoms of movement at the Major's house on the other side of the
street.

"Hullo!" said he, "there's Dob's trap—they are bringing it out of
the court-yard." The "trap" in question was a carriage which the
Major had bought for six pounds sterling, and about which they used
to rally him a good deal.

Emmy gave a little start, but said nothing.

"Hullo!" Georgy continued, "there's Francis coming out with the
portmanteaus, and Kunz, the one-eyed postilion, coming down the
market with three schimmels. Look at his boots and yellow jacket—
ain't he a rum one? Why—they're putting the horses to Dob's
carriage. Is he going anywhere?"

"Yes," said Emmy, "he is going on a journey."

"Going on a journey; and when is he coming back?"

"He is—not coming back," answered Emmy.

"Not coming back!" cried out Georgy, jumping up. "Stay here, sir,"
roared out Jos. "Stay, Georgy," said his mother with a very sad
face. The boy stopped, kicked about the room, jumped up and down
from the window-seat with his knees, and showed every symptom of
uneasiness and curiosity.

The horses were put to. The baggage was strapped on. Francis came
out with his master's sword, cane, and umbrella tied up together,
and laid them in the well, and his desk and old tin cocked-hat case,
which he placed under the seat. Francis brought out the stained old
blue cloak lined with red camlet, which had wrapped the owner up any
time these fifteen years, and had manchen Sturm erlebt, as a
favourite song of those days said. It had been new for the campaign
of Waterloo and had covered George and William after the night of
Quatre Bras.

Old Burcke, the landlord of the lodgings, came out, then Francis,
with more packages—final packages—then Major William—Burcke
wanted to kiss him. The Major was adored by all people with whom he
had to do. It was with difficulty he could escape from this
demonstration of attachment.

"By Jove, I will go!" screamed out George. "Give him this," said
Becky, quite interested, and put a paper into the boy's hand. He
had rushed down the stairs and flung across the street in a minute—
the yellow postilion was cracking his whip gently.

William had got into the carriage, released from the embraces of his
landlord. George bounded in afterwards, and flung his arms round
the Major's neck (as they saw from the window), and began asking him
multiplied questions. Then he felt in his waistcoat pocket and gave
him a note. William seized at it rather eagerly, he opened it
trembling, but instantly his countenance changed, and he tore the
paper in two and dropped it out of the carriage. He kissed Georgy
on the head, and the boy got out, doubling his fists into his eyes,
and with the aid of Francis. He lingered with his hand on the
panel. Fort, Schwager! The yellow postilion cracked his whip
prodigiously, up sprang Francis to the box, away went the schimmels,
and Dobbin with his head on his breast. He never looked up as they
passed under Amelia's window, and Georgy, left alone in the street,
burst out crying in the face of all the crowd.

Emmy's maid heard him howling again during the night and brought him
some preserved apricots to console him. She mingled her
lamentations with his. All the poor, all the humble, all honest
folks, all good men who knew him, loved that kind-hearted and simple
gentleman.

As for Emmy, had she not done her duty? She had her picture of
George for a consolation.

Which Contains Births, Marriages, and Deaths

Whatever Becky's private plan might be by which Dobbin's true love
was to be crowned with success, the little woman thought that the
secret might keep, and indeed, being by no means so much interested
about anybody's welfare as about her own, she had a great number of
things pertaining to herself to consider, and which concerned her a
great deal more than Major Dobbin's happiness in this life.

She found herself suddenly and unexpectedly in snug comfortable
quarters, surrounded by friends, kindness, and good-natured simple
people such as she had not met with for many a long day; and,
wanderer as she was by force and inclination, there were moments
when rest was pleasant to her. As the most hardened Arab that ever
careered across the desert over the hump of a dromedary likes to
repose sometimes under the date-trees by the water, or to come into
the cities, walk into the bazaars, refresh himself in the baths, and
say his prayers in the mosques, before he goes out again marauding,
so Jos's tents and pilau were pleasant to this little Ishmaelite.
She picketed her steed, hung up her weapons, and warmed herself
comfortably by his fire. The halt in that roving, restless life was
inexpressibly soothing and pleasant to her.

So, pleased herself, she tried with all her might to please
everybody; and we know that she was eminent and successful as a
practitioner in the art of giving pleasure. As for Jos, even in
that little interview in the garret at the Elephant Inn, she had
found means to win back a great deal of his good-will. In the
course of a week, the civilian was her sworn slave and frantic
admirer. He didn't go to sleep after dinner, as his custom was in
the much less lively society of Amelia. He drove out with Becky in
his open carriage. He asked little parties and invented festivities
to do her honour.

Tapeworm, the Charge d'Affaires, who had abused her so cruelly, came
to dine with Jos, and then came every day to pay his respects to
Becky. Poor Emmy, who was never very talkative, and more glum and
silent than ever after Dobbin's departure, was quite forgotten when
this superior genius made her appearance. The French Minister was
as much charmed with her as his English rival. The German ladies,
never particularly squeamish as regards morals, especially in
English people, were delighted with the cleverness and wit of Mrs.
Osborne's charming friend, and though she did not ask to go to
Court, yet the most august and Transparent Personages there heard of
her fascinations and were quite curious to know her. When it became
known that she was noble, of an ancient English family, that her
husband was a Colonel of the Guard, Excellenz and Governor of an
island, only separated from his lady by one of those trifling
differences which are of little account in a country where Werther
is still read and the Wahlverwandtschaften of Goethe is considered
an edifying moral book, nobody thought of refusing to receive her in
the very highest society of the little Duchy; and the ladies were
even more ready to call her du and to swear eternal friendship for
her than they had been to bestow the same inestimable benefits upon
Amelia. Love and Liberty are interpreted by those simple Germans in
a way which honest folks in Yorkshire and Somersetshire little
understand, and a lady might, in some philosophic and civilized
towns, be divorced ever so many times from her respective husbands
and keep her character in society. Jos's house never was so
pleasant since he had a house of his own as Rebecca caused it to be.
She sang, she played, she laughed, she talked in two or three
languages, she brought everybody to the house, and she made Jos
believe that it was his own great social talents and wit which
gathered the society of the place round about him.

As for Emmy, who found herself not in the least mistress of her own
house, except when the bills were to be paid, Becky soon discovered
the way to soothe and please her. She talked to her perpetually
about Major Dobbin sent about his business, and made no scruple of
declaring her admiration for that excellent, high-minded gentleman,
and of telling Emmy that she had behaved most cruelly regarding him.
Emmy defended her conduct and showed that it was dictated only by
the purest religious principles; that a woman once, &c., and to such
an angel as him whom she had had the good fortune to marry, was
married forever; but she had no objection to hear the Major praised
as much as ever Becky chose to praise him, and indeed, brought the
conversation round to the Dobbin subject a score of times every day.

Means were easily found to win the favour of Georgy and the
servants. Amelia's maid, it has been said, was heart and soul in
favour of the generous Major. Having at first disliked Becky for
being the means of dismissing him from the presence of her mistress,
she was reconciled to Mrs. Crawley subsequently, because the latter
became William's most ardent admirer and champion. And in those
nightly conclaves in which the two ladies indulged after their
parties, and while Miss Payne was "brushing their 'airs," as she
called the yellow locks of the one and the soft brown tresses of the
other, this girl always put in her word for that dear good gentleman
Major Dobbin. Her advocacy did not make Amelia angry any more than
Rebecca's admiration of him. She made George write to him
constantly and persisted in sending Mamma's kind love in a
postscript. And as she looked at her husband's portrait of nights,
it no longer reproached her—perhaps she reproached it, now William
was gone.