the tiger-hunt story was put aside for more stirring narratives which he had to tell about the great campaign of Waterloo. As soon as he had agreed to escort his sister abroad, it was remarked that he ceased shaving his upper lip. At Chatham he followed the parades and drills with great assiduity. He listened with the utmost attention to the conversation of his brother officers (as he called them in after days sometimes), and learned as many military names as he could. In these studies the excellent Mrs. O’Dowd was of great assistance to him; and on the day finally when they embarked on board the Lovely Rose, which was to carry them to their destination, he made his appearance in a braided frock-coat and duck trousers, with a foraging cap ornamented with a smart gold band. Having his carriage with him, and informing everybody on board confidentially that he was going to join the Duke of Wellington’s army, folks mistook him for a great personage, a commissary-general, or a government courier at the very least.
He suffered hugely on the voyage, during which the ladies were likewise prostrate; but Amelia was brought to life again as the packet made Ostend, by the sight of the transports conveying her regiment, which entered the harbour almost at the same time with the Lovely Rose. Jos went in a collapsed state to an inn, while Captain Dobbin escorted the ladies, and then busied himself in freeing Jos’s carriage and luggage from the ship and the custom-house, for Mr. Jos was at present without a servant, Osborne’s man and his own pampered menial having conspired together at Chatham, and refused point-blank to cross the water. This revolt, which came very suddenly, and on the last day, so alarmed Mr. Sedley, junior, that he was on the point of giving up the expedition, but Captain Dobbin (who made himself immensely officious in the business, Jos said), rated him and laughed at him soundly: the mustachios were grown in advance, and Jos finally was persuaded to embark. In place of the well-bred and well-fed London domestics, who could only speak English, Dobbin procured for Jos’s party a swarthy little Belgian servant who could speak no language at all; but who, by his bustling behaviour, and by invariably addressing Mr. Sedley as “My lord,” speedily acquired that gentleman’s favour. Times are altered at Ostend now; of the Britons who go thither, very few look like lords, or act like those members of our hereditary aristocracy. They seem for the most part shabby in attire, dingy of linen, lovers of billiards and brandy, and cigars and greasy ordinaries.
But it may be said as a rule, that every Englishman in the Duke of Wellington’s army paid his way. The remembrance of such a fact surely becomes a nation of shopkeepers. It was a blessing for a commerce-loving country to be overrun by such an army of customers: and to have such creditable warriors to feed. And the country which they came to protect is not military. For a long period of history they have let other people fight there. When the present writer went to survey with eagle glance the field of Waterloo, we asked the conductor of the diligence, a portly warlike-looking veteran, whether he had been at the battle. “Pas si bete”–such an answer and sentiment as no Frenchman would own to–was his reply. But, on the other hand, the postilion who drove us was a Viscount, a son of some bankrupt Imperial General, who accepted a pennyworth of beer on the road. The moral is surely a good one.
This flat, flourishing, easy country never could have looked more rich and prosperous than in that opening summer of 1815, when its green fields and quiet cities were enlivened by multiplied red- coats: when its wide chaussees swarmed with brilliant English equipages: when its great canal-boats, gliding by rich pastures and pleasant quaint old villages, by old chateaux lying amongst old trees, were all crowded with well-to-do English travellers: when the soldier who drank at the village inn, not only drank, but paid his score; and Donald, the Highlander, billeted in the Flemish farm- house, rocked the baby’s cradle, while Jean and Jeannette were out getting in the hay. As our painters are bent on military subjects just now, I throw out this as a good subject for the pencil, to illustrate the principle of an honest English war. All looked as brilliant and harmless as a Hyde Park review. Meanwhile, Napoleon screened behind his curtain of frontier-fortresses, was preparing for the outbreak which was to drive all these orderly people into fury and blood; and lay so many of them low.
Everybody had such a perfect feeling of confidence in the leader (for the resolute faith which the Duke of Wellington had inspired in the whole English nation was as intense as that more frantic enthusiasm with which at one time the French regarded Napoleon), the country seemed in so perfect a state of orderly defence, and the help at hand in case of need so near and overwhelming, that alarm was unknown, and our travellers, among whom two were naturally of a very timid sort, were, like all the other multiplied English tourists, entirely at ease. The famous regiment, with so many of whose officers we have made acquaintance, was drafted in canal boats to Bruges and Ghent, thence to march to Brussels. Jos accompanied the ladies in the public boats; the which all old travellers in Flanders must remember for the luxury and accommodation they afforded. So prodigiously good was the eating and drinking on board these sluggish but most comfortable vessels, that there are legends extant of an English traveller, who, coming to Belgium for a week, and travelling in one of these boats, was so delighted with the fare there that he went backwards and forwards from Ghent to Bruges perpetually until the railroads were invented, when he drowned himself on the last trip of the passage-boat. Jos’s death was not to be of this sort, but his comfort was exceeding, and Mrs. O’Dowd insisted that he only wanted her sister Glorvina to make his happiness complete. He sate on the roof of the cabin all day drinking Flemish beer, shouting for Isidor, his servant, and talking gallantly to the ladies.
His courage was prodigious. “Boney attack us!” he cried. “My dear creature, my poor Emmy, don’t be frightened. There’s no danger. The allies will be in Paris in two months, I tell you; when I’ll take you to dine in the Palais Royal, by Jove! There are three hundred thousand Rooshians, I tell you, now entering France by Mayence and the Rhine–three hundred thousand under Wittgenstein and Barclay de Tolly, my poor love. You don’t know military affairs, my dear. I do, and I tell you there’s no infantry in France can stand against Rooshian infantry, and no general of Boney’s that’s fit to hold a candle to Wittgenstein. Then there are the Austrians, they are five hundred thousand if a man, and they are within ten marches of the frontier by this time, under Schwartzenberg and Prince Charles. Then there are the Prooshians under the gallant Prince Marshal. Show me a cavalry chief like him now that Murat is gone. Hey, Mrs. O’Dowd? Do you think our little girl here need be afraid? Is there any cause for fear, Isidor? Hey, sir? Get some more beer.”
Mrs. O’Dowd said that her “Glorvina was not afraid of any man alive, let alone a Frenchman,” and tossed off a glass of beer with a wink which expressed her liking for the beverage.
Having frequently been in presence of the enemy, or, in other words, faced the ladies at Cheltenham and Bath, our friend, the Collector, had lost a great deal of his pristine timidity, and was now, especially when fortified with liquor, as talkative as might be. He was rather a favourite with the regiment, treating the young officers with sumptuosity, and amusing them by his military airs. And as there is one well-known regiment of the army which travels with a goat heading the column, whilst another is led by a deer, George said with respect to his brother-in-law, that his regiment marched with an elephant.
Since Amelia’s introduction to the regiment, George began to be rather ashamed of some of the company to which he had been forced to present her; and determined, as he told Dobbin (with what satisfaction to the latter it need not be said), to exchange into some better regiment soon, and to get his wife away from those damned vulgar women. But this vulgarity of being ashamed of one’s society is much more common among men than women (except very great ladies of fashion, who, to be sure, indulge in it); and Mrs. Amelia, a natural and unaffected person, had none of that artificial shamefacedness which her husband mistook for delicacy on his own part. Thus Mrs. O’Dowd had a cock’s plume in her hat, and a very large “repayther” on her stomach, which she used to ring on all occasions, narrating how it had been presented to her by her fawther, as she stipt into the car’ge after her mar’ge; and these ornaments, with other outward peculiarities of the Major’s wife, gave excruciating agonies to Captain Osborne, when his wife and the Major’s came in contact; whereas Amelia was only amused by the honest lady’s eccentricities, and not in the least ashamed of her company.
As they made that well-known journey, which almost every Englishman of middle rank has travelled since, there might have been more instructive, but few more entertaining, companions than Mrs. Major O’Dowd. “Talk about kenal boats; my dear! Ye should see the kenal boats between Dublin and Ballinasloe. It’s there the rapid travelling is; and the beautiful cattle. Sure me fawther got a goold medal (and his Excellency himself eat a slice of it, and said never was finer mate in his loif) for a four-year-old heifer, the like of which ye never saw in this country any day.” And Jos owned with a sigh, “that for good streaky beef, really mingled with fat and lean, there was no country like England.”
“Except Ireland, where all your best mate comes from,” said the Major’s lady; proceeding, as is not unusual with patriots of her nation, to make comparisons greatly in favour of her own country. The idea of comparing the market at Bruges with those of Dublin, although she had suggested it herself, caused immense scorn and derision on her part. “I’ll thank ye tell me what they mean by that old gazabo on the top of the market-place,” said she, in a burst of ridicule fit to have brought the old tower down. The place was full of English soldiery as they passed. English bugles woke them in the morning; at nightfall they went to bed to the note of the British fife and drum: all the country and Europe was in arms, and the greatest event of history pending: and honest Peggy O’Dowd, whom it concerned as well as another, went on prattling about Ballinafad, and the horses in the stables at Glenmalony, and the clar’t drunk there; and Jos Sedley interposed about curry and rice at Dumdum; and Amelia thought about her husband, and how best she should show her love for him; as if these were the great topics of the world.
Those who like to lay down the History-book, and to speculate upon what MIGHT have happened in the world, but for the fatal occurrence of what actually did take place (a most puzzling, amusing, ingenious, and profitable kind of meditation), have no doubt often thought to themselves what a specially bad time Napoleon took to come back from Elba, and to let loose his eagle from Gulf San Juan to Notre Dame. The historians on our side tell us that the armies of the allied powers were all providentially on a war-footing, and ready to bear down at a moment’s notice upon the Elban Emperor. The august jobbers assembled at Vienna, and carving out the kingdoms of Europe according to their wisdom, had such causes of quarrel among themselves as might have set the armies which had overcome Napoleon to fight against each other, but for the return of the object of unanimous hatred and fear. This monarch had an army in full force because he had jobbed to himself Poland, and was determined to keep it: another had robbed half Saxony, and was bent upon maintaining his acquisition: Italy was the object of a third’s solicitude. Each was protesting against the rapacity of the other; and could the Corsican but have waited in prison until all these parties were by the ears, he might have returned and reigned unmolested. But what would have become of our story and all our friends, then? If all the drops in it were dried up, what would become of the sea?
In the meanwhile the business of life and living, and the pursuits of pleasure, especially, went on as if no end were to be expected to them, and no enemy in front. When our travellers arrived at Brussels, in 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 Malonys are related; but, of course, poor I would never dream of introjuicing myself unless his Grace thought proper to remember our family-tie.”
“He’s a great soldier,” Jos said, much more at ease now the great man was gone. “Was there ever a battle won like Salamanca? Hey, Dobbin? But where was it he learnt his art? In India, my boy! The jungle’s the school for a general, mark me that. I knew him myself, too, Mrs. O’Dowd: we both of us danced the same evening with Miss Cutler, daughter of Cutler of the Artillery, and a devilish fine girl, at Dumdum.”
The apparition of the great personages held them all in talk during the drive; and at dinner; and until the hour came when they were all to go to the Opera.
It was almost like Old England. The house was filled with familiar British faces, and those toilettes for which the British female has long been celebrated. Mrs. O’Dowd’s was not the least splendid amongst these, and she had a curl on her forehead, and a set of Irish diamonds and Cairngorms, which outshone all the decorations in the house, in her notion. Her presence used to excruciate Osborne; but go she would upon all parties of pleasure on which she heard her young friends were bent. It never entered into her thought but that they must be charmed with her company.
“She’s been useful to you, my dear,” George said to his wife, whom he could leave alone with less scruple when she had this society. “But what a comfort it is that Rebecca’s come: you will have her for a friend, and we may get rid now of this damn’d Irishwoman.” To this Amelia did not answer, yes or no: and how do we know what her thoughts were?
The coup d’oeil of the Brussels opera-house did not strike Mrs. O’Dowd as being so fine as the theatre in Fishamble Street, Dublin, nor was French music at all equal, in her opinion, to the melodies of her native country. She favoured her friends with these and other opinions in a very loud tone of voice, and tossed about a great clattering fan she sported, with the most splendid complacency.
“Who is that wonderful woman with Amelia, Rawdon, love?” said a lady in an opposite box (who, almost always civil to her husband in private, was more fond than ever of him in company).
“Don’t you see that creature with a yellow thing in her turban, and a red satin gown, and a great watch?”
“Near the pretty little woman in white?” asked a middle-aged gentleman seated by the querist’s side, with orders in his button, and several under-waistcoats, and a great, choky, white stock.
“That pretty woman in white is Amelia, General: you are remarking all the pretty women, you naughty man.”
“Only one, begad, in the world!” said the General, delighted, and the lady gave him a tap with a large bouquet which she had.
“Bedad it’s him,” said Mrs. O’Dowd; “and that’s the very bokay he bought in the Marshy aux Flures!” and when Rebecca, having caught her friend’s eye, performed the little hand-kissing operation once more, Mrs. Major O’D., taking the compliment to herself, returned the salute with a gracious smile, which sent that unfortunate Dobbin shrieking out of the box again.
At the end of the act, George was out of the box in a moment, and he was even going to pay his respects to Rebecca in her loge. He met Crawley in the lobby, however, where they exchanged a few sentences upon the occurrences of the last fortnight.
“You found my cheque all right at the agent’s? George said, with a knowing air.
“All right, my boy,” Rawdon answered. “Happy to give you your revenge. Governor come round?”
“Not yet,” said George, “but he will; and you know I’ve some private fortune through my mother. Has Aunty relented?”
“Sent me twenty pound, damned old screw. When shall we have a meet? The General dines out on Tuesday. Can’t you come Tuesday? I say, make Sedley cut off his moustache. What the devil does a civilian mean with a moustache and those infernal frogs to his coat! By-bye. Try and come on Tuesday”; and Rawdon was going-off with two brilliant young gentlemen of fashion, who were, like himself, on the staff of a general officer.
George was only half pleased to be asked to dinner on that particular day when the General was not to dine. “I will go in and pay my respects to your wife,” said he; at which Rawdon said, “Hm, as you please,” looking very glum, and at which the two young officers exchanged knowing glances. George parted from them and strutted down the lobby to the General’s box, the number of which he had carefully counted.
“Entrez,” said a clear little voice, and our friend found himself in Rebecca’s presence; who jumped up, clapped her hands together, and held out both of them to George, so charmed was she to see him. The General, with the orders in his button, stared at the newcomer with a sulky scowl, as much as to say, who the devil are you?
“My dear Captain George!” cried little Rebecca in an ecstasy. “How good of you to come. The General and I were moping together tete-a- tete. General, this is my Captain George of whom you heard me talk.”
“Indeed,” said the General, with a very small bow; “of what regiment is Captain George?”
George mentioned the –th: how he wished he could have said it was a crack cavalry corps.
“Come home lately from the West Indies, I believe. Not seen much service in the late war. Quartered here, Captain George?”–the General went on with killing haughtiness.
“Not Captain George, you stupid man; Captain Osborne,” Rebecca said. The General all the while was looking savagely from one to the other.
“Captain Osborne, indeed! Any relation to the L—— Osbornes?”
“We bear the same arms,” George said, as indeed was the fact; Mr. Osborne having consulted with a herald in Long Acre, and picked the L—— arms out of the peerage, when he set up his carriage fifteen years before. The General made no reply to this announcement; but took up his opera-glass–the double-barrelled lorgnon was not invented in those days–and pretended to examine the house; but Rebecca saw that his disengaged eye was working round in her direction, and shooting out bloodshot glances at her and George.
She redoubled in cordiality. “How is dearest Amelia? But I needn’t ask: how pretty she looks! And who is that nice good-natured looking creature with her–a flame of yours? O, you wicked men! And there is Mr. Sedley eating ice, I declare: how he seems to enjoy it! General, why have we not had any ices?”
“Shall I go and fetch you some?” said the General, bursting with wrath.
“Let ME go, I entreat you,” George said.
“No, I will go to Amelia’s box. Dear, sweet girl! Give me your arm, Captain George”; and so saying, and with a nod to the General, she tripped into the lobby. She gave George the queerest, knowingest look, when they were together, a look which might have been interpreted, “Don’t you see the state of affairs, and what a fool I’m making of him?” But he did not perceive it. He was thinking of his own plans, and lost in pompous admiration of his own irresistible powers of pleasing.
The curses to which the General gave a low utterance, as soon as Rebecca and her conqueror had quitted him, were so deep, that I am sure no compositor would venture to print them were they written down. They came from the General’s heart; and a wonderful thing it is to think that the human heart is capable of generating such produce, and can throw out, as occasion demands, such a supply of lust and fury, rage and hatred.
Amelia’s gentle eyes, too, had been fixed anxiously on the pair, whose conduct had so chafed the jealous General; but when Rebecca entered her box, she flew to her friend with an affectionate rapture which showed itself, in spite of the publicity of the place; for she embraced her dearest friend in the presence of the whole house, at least in full view of the General’s glass, now brought to bear upon the Osborne party. Mrs. Rawdon saluted Jos, too, with the kindliest greeting: she admired Mrs. O’Dowd’s large Cairngorm brooch and superb Irish diamonds, and wouldn’t believe that they were not from Golconda direct. She bustled, she chattered, she turned and twisted, and smiled upon one, and smirked on another, all in full view of the jealous opera-glass opposite. And when the time for the ballet came (in which there was no dancer that went through her grimaces or performed her comedy of action better), she skipped back to her own box, leaning on Captain Dobbin’s arm this time. No, she would not have George’s: he must stay and talk to his dearest, best, little Amelia.
“What a humbug that woman is!” honest old Dobbin mumbled to George, when he came back from Rebecca’s box, whither he had conducted her in perfect silence, and with a countenance as glum as an undertaker’s. “She writhes and twists about like a snake. All the time she was here, didn’t you see, George, how she was acting at the General over the way?”
“Humbug–acting! Hang it, she’s the nicest little woman in England,” George replied, showing his white teeth, and giving his ambrosial whiskers a twirl. “You ain’t a man of the world, Dobbin. Dammy, look at her now, she’s talked over Tufto in no time. Look how he’s laughing! Gad, what a shoulder she has! Emmy, why didn’t you have a bouquet? Everybody has a bouquet.”
“Faith, then, why didn’t you BOY one?” Mrs. O’Dowd said; and both Amelia and William Dobbin thanked her for this timely observation. But beyond this neither of the ladies rallied. Amelia was overpowered by the flash and the dazzle and the fashionable talk of her worldly rival. Even the O’Dowd was silent and subdued after Becky’s brilliant apparition, and scarcely said a word more about Glenmalony all the evening.
“When do you intend to give up play, George, as you have promised me, any time these hundred years?” Dobbin said to his friend a few days after the night at the Opera. “When do you intend to give up sermonising?” was the other’s reply. “What the deuce, man, are you alarmed about? We play low; I won last night. You don’t suppose Crawley cheats? With fair play it comes to pretty much the same thing at the year’s end.”
“But I don’t think he could pay if he lost,” Dobbin said; and his advice met with the success which advice usually commands. Osborne and Crawley were repeatedly together now. General Tufto dined abroad almost constantly. George was always welcome in the apartments (very close indeed to those of the General) which the aide-de-camp and his wife occupied in the hotel.
Amelia’s manners were such when she and George visited Crawley and his wife at these quarters, that they had very nearly come to their first quarrel; that is, George scolded his wife violently for her evident unwillingness to go, and the high and mighty manner in which she comported herself towards Mrs. Crawley, her old friend; and Amelia did not say one single word in reply; but with her husband’s eye upon her, and Rebecca scanning her as she felt, was, if possible, more bashful and awkward on the second visit which she paid to Mrs. Rawdon, than on her first call.
Rebecca was doubly affectionate, of course, and would not take notice, in the least, of her friend’s coolness. “I think Emmy has become prouder since her father’s name was in the–since Mr. Sedley’s MISFORTUNES,” Rebecca said, softening the phrase charitably for George’s ear.
“Upon my word, I thought when we were at Brighton she was doing me the honour to be jealous of me; and now I suppose she is scandalised because Rawdon, and I, and the General live together. Why, my dear creature, how could we, with our means, live at all, but for a friend to share expenses? And do you suppose that Rawdon is not big enough to take care of my honour? But I’m very much obliged to Emmy, very,” Mrs. Rawdon said.
“Pooh, jealousy!” answered George, “all women are jealous.”
“And all men too. Weren’t you jealous of General Tufto, and the General of you, on the night of the Opera? Why, he was ready to eat me for going with you to visit that foolish little wife of yours; as if I care a pin for either of you,” Crawley’s wife said, with a pert toss of her head. “Will you dine here? The dragon dines with the Commander-in-Chief. Great news is stirring. They say the French have crossed the frontier. We shall have a quiet dinner.”
George accepted the invitation, although his wife was a little ailing. They were now not quite six weeks married. Another woman was laughing or sneering at her expense, and he not angry. He was not even angry with himself, this good-natured fellow. It is a shame, he owned to himself; but hang it, if a pretty woman WILL throw herself in your way, why, what can a fellow do, you know? I AM rather free about women, he had often said, smiling and nodding knowingly to Stubble and Spooney, and other comrades of the mess- table; and they rather respected him than otherwise for this prowess. Next to conquering in war, conquering in love has been a source of pride, time out of mind, amongst men in Vanity Fair, or how should schoolboys brag of their amours, or Don Juan be popular?
So Mr. Osborne, having a firm conviction in his own mind that he was a woman-killer and destined to conquer, did not run counter to his fate, but yielded himself up to it quite complacently. And as Emmy did not say much or plague him with her jealousy, but merely became unhappy and pined over it miserably in secret, he chose to fancy that she was not suspicious of what all his acquaintance were perfectly aware–namely, that he was carrying on a desperate flirtation with Mrs. Crawley. He rode with her whenever she was free. He pretended regimental business to Amelia (by which falsehood she was not in the least deceived), and consigning his wife to solitude or her brother’s society, passed his evenings in the Crawleys’ company; losing money to the husband and flattering himself that the wife was dying of love for him. It is very likely that this worthy couple never absolutely conspired and agreed together in so many words: the one to cajole the young gentleman, whilst the other won his money at cards: but they understood each other perfectly well, and Rawdon let Osborne come and go with entire good humour.
George was so occupied with his new acquaintances that he and William Dobbin were by no means so much together as formerly. George avoided him in public and in the regiment, and, as we see, did not like those sermons which his senior was disposed to inflict upon him. If some parts of his conduct made Captain Dobbin exceedingly grave and cool; of what use was it to tell George that, though his whiskers were large, and his own opinion of his knowingness great, he was as green as a schoolboy? that Rawdon was making a victim of him as he had done of many before, and as soon as he had used him would fling him off with scorn? He would not listen: and so, as Dobbin, upon those days when he visited the Osborne house, seldom had the advantage of meeting his old friend, much painful and unavailing talk between them was spared. Our friend George was in the full career of the pleasures of Vanity Fair.
There never was, since the days of Darius, such a brilliant train of camp-followers as hung round the Duke of Wellington’s army in the Low Countries, in 1815; and led it dancing and feasting, as it were, up to the very brink of battle. A certain ball which a noble Duchess gave at Brussels on the 15th of June in the above-named year is historical. All Brussels had been in a state of excitement about it, and I have heard from ladies who were in that town at the period, that the talk and interest of persons of their own sex regarding the ball was much greater even than in respect of the enemy in their front. The struggles, intrigues, and prayers to get tickets were such as only English ladies will employ, in order to gain admission to the society of the great of their own nation.
Jos and Mrs. O’Dowd, who were panting to be asked, strove in vain to procure tickets; but others of our friends were more lucky. For instance, through the interest of my Lord Bareacres, and as a set- off for the dinner at the restaurateur’s, George got a card for Captain and Mrs. Osborne; which circumstance greatly elated him. Dobbin, who was a friend of the General commanding the division in which their regiment was, came laughing one day to Mrs. Osborne, and displayed a similar invitation, which made Jos envious, and George wonder how the deuce he should be getting into society. Mr. and Mrs. Rawdon, finally, were of course invited; as became the friends of a General commanding a cavalry brigade.
On the appointed night, George, having commanded new dresses and ornaments of all sorts for Amelia, drove to the famous ball, where his wife did not know a single soul. After looking about for Lady Bareacres, who cut him, thinking the card was quite enough–and after placing Amelia on a bench, he left her to her own cogitations there, thinking, on his own part, that he had behaved very handsomely in getting her new clothes, and bringing her to the ball, where she was free to amuse herself as she liked. Her thoughts were not of the pleasantest, and nobody except honest Dobbin came to disturb them.
Whilst her appearance was an utter failure (as her husband felt with a sort of rage), Mrs. Rawdon Crawley’s debut was, on the contrary, very brilliant. She arrived very late. Her face was radiant; her dress perfection. In the midst of the great persons assembled, and the eye-glasses directed to her, Rebecca seemed to be as cool and collected as when she used to marshal Miss Pinkerton’s little girls to church. Numbers of the men she knew already, and the dandies thronged round her. As for the ladies, it was whispered among them that Rawdon had run away with her from out of a convent, and that she was a relation of the Montmorency family. She spoke French so perfectly that there might be some truth in this report, and it was agreed that her manners were fine, and her air distingue. Fifty would-be partners thronged round her at once, and pressed to have the honour to dance with her. But she said she was engaged, and only going to dance very little; and made her way at once to the place where Emmy sate quite unnoticed, and dismally unhappy. And so, to finish the poor child at once, Mrs. Rawdon ran and greeted affectionately her dearest Amelia, and began forthwith to patronise her. She found fault with her friend’s dress, and her hairdresser, and wondered how she could be so chaussee, and vowed that she must send her corsetiere the next morning. She vowed that it was a delightful ball; that there was everybody that every one knew, and only a VERY few nobodies in the whole room. It is a fact, that in a fortnight, and after three dinners in general society, this young woman had got up the genteel jargon so well, that a native could not speak it better; and it was only from her French being so good, that you could know she was not a born woman of fashion.
George, who had left Emmy on her bench on entering the ball-room, very soon found his way back when Rebecca was by her dear friend’s side. Becky was just lecturing Mrs. Osborne upon the follies which her husband was committing. “For God’s sake, stop him from gambling, my dear,” she said, “or he will ruin himself. He and Rawdon are playing at cards every night, and you know he is very poor, and Rawdon will win every shilling from him if he does not take care. Why don’t you prevent him, you little careless creature? Why don’t you come to us of an evening, instead of moping at home with that Captain Dobbin? I dare say he is tres aimable; but how could one love a man with feet of such size? Your husband’s feet are darlings–Here he comes. Where have you been, wretch? Here is Emmy crying her eyes out for you. Are you coming to fetch me for the quadrille?” And she left her bouquet and shawl by Amelia’s side, and tripped off with George to dance. Women only know how to wound so. There is a poison on the tips of their little shafts, which stings a thousand times more than a man’s blunter weapon. Our poor Emmy, who had never hated, never sneered all her life, was powerless in the hands of her remorseless little enemy.
George danced with Rebecca twice or thrice–how many times Amelia scarcely knew. She sat quite unnoticed in her corner, except when Rawdon came up with some words of clumsy conversation: and later in the evening, when Captain Dobbin made so bold as to bring her refreshments and sit beside her. He did not like to ask her why she was so sad; but as a pretext for the tears which were filling in her eyes, she told him that Mrs. Crawley had alarmed her by telling her that George would go on playing.
“It is curious, when a man is bent upon play, by what clumsy rogues he will allow himself to be cheated,” Dobbin said; and Emmy said, “Indeed.” She was thinking of something else. It was not the loss of the money that grieved her.
At last George came back for Rebecca’s shawl and flowers. She was going away. She did not even condescend to come back and say good- bye to Amelia. The poor girl let her husband come and go without saying a word, and her head fell on her breast. Dobbin had been called away, and was whispering deep in conversation with the General of the division, his friend, and had not seen this last parting. George went away then with the bouquet; but when he gave it to the owner, there lay a note, coiled like a snake among the flowers. Rebecca’s eye caught it at once. She had been used to deal with notes in early life. She put out her hand and took the nosegay. He saw by her eyes as they met, that she was aware what she should find there. Her husband hurried her away, still too intent upon his own thoughts, seemingly, to take note of any marks of recognition which might pass between his friend and his wife. These were, however, but trifling. Rebecca gave George her hand with one of her usual quick knowing glances, and made a curtsey and walked away. George bowed over the hand, said nothing in reply to a remark of Crawley’s, did not hear it even, his brain was so throbbing with triumph and excitement, and allowed them to go away without a word.
His wife saw the one part at least of the bouquet-scene. It was quite natural that George should come at Rebecca’s request to get her her scarf and flowers: it was no more than he had done twenty times before in the course of the last few days; but now it was too much for her. “William,” she said, suddenly clinging to Dobbin, who was near her, “you’ve always been very kind to me–I’m–I’m not well. Take me home.” She did not know she called him by his Christian name, as George was accustomed to do. He went away with her quickly. Her lodgings were hard by; and they threaded through the crowd without, where everything seemed to be more astir than even in the ball-room within.
George had been angry twice or thrice at finding his wife up on his return from the parties which he frequented: so she went straight to bed now; but although she did not sleep, and although the din and clatter, and the galloping of horsemen were incessant, she never heard any of these noises, having quite other disturbances to keep her awake.
Osborne meanwhile, wild with elation, went off to a play-table, and began to bet frantically. He won repeatedly. “Everything succeeds with me to-night,” he said. But his luck at play even did not cure him of 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 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 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 against you at Jena, and six to one at Montmirail. Those among you who were prisoners in England can tell their comrades what frightful torments they suffered on board the English hulks. Madmen! a moment of prosperity has blinded them, and if they enter into France it will be to find a grave there!” But the partisans of the French prophesied a more speedy extermination of the Emperor’s enemies than this; and it was agreed on all hands that Prussians and British would never return except as prisoners in the rear of the conquering army.
These opinions in the course of the day were brought to operate upon Mr. Sedley. He was told that the Duke of Wellington had gone to try and rally his army, the advance of which had been utterly crushed the night before.
“Crushed, psha!” said Jos, whose heart was pretty stout at breakfast-time. “The Duke has gone to beat the Emperor as he has beaten all his generals before.”
“His papers are burned, his effects are removed, and his quarters are being got ready for the Duke of Dalmatia,” Jos’s informant replied. “I had it from his own maitre d’hotel. Milor Duc de Richemont’s people are packing up everything. His Grace has fled already, and the Duchess is only waiting to see the plate packed to join the King of France at Ostend.”
“The King of France is at Ghent, fellow,” replied Jos, affecting incredulity.
“He fled last night to Bruges, and embarks today from Ostend. The Duc de Berri is taken prisoner. Those who wish to be safe had better go soon, for the dykes will be opened to-morrow, and who can fly when the whole country is under water?”
“Nonsense, sir, we are three to one, sir, against any force Boney can bring into the field,” Mr. Sedley objected; “the Austrians and the Russians are on their march. He must, he shall be crushed,” Jos said, slapping his hand on the table.
“The Prussians were three to one at Jena, and he took their army and kingdom in a week. They were six to one at Montmirail, and he scattered them like sheep. The Austrian army is coming, but with the Empress and the King of Rome at its head; and the Russians, bah! the Russians will withdraw. No quarter is to be given to the English, on account of their cruelty to our braves on board the infamous pontoons. Look here, here it is in black and white. Here’s the proclamation of his Majesty the Emperor and King,” said the now declared partisan of Napoleon, and taking the document from his pocket, Isidor sternly thrust it into his master’s face, and already looked upon the frogged coat and valuables as his own spoil.
Jos was, if not seriously alarmed as yet, at least considerably disturbed in mind. “Give me my coat and cap, sir, said he, “and follow me. I will go myself and learn the truth of these reports.” Isidor was furious as Jos put on the braided frock. “Milor had better not wear that military coat,” said he; “the Frenchmen have sworn not to give quarter to a single British soldier.”
“Silence, sirrah!” said Jos, with a resolute countenance still, and thrust his arm into the sleeve with indomitable resolution, in the performance of which heroic act he was found by Mrs. Rawdon Crawley, who at this juncture came up to visit Amelia, and entered without ringing at the antechamber door.
Rebecca was dressed very neatly and smartly, as usual: her quiet sleep after Rawdon’s departure had refreshed her, and her pink smiling cheeks were quite pleasant to look at, in a town and on a day when everybody else’s countenance wore the appearance of the deepest anxiety and gloom. She laughed at the attitude in which Jos was discovered, and the struggles and convulsions with which the stout gentleman thrust himself into the braided coat.
“Are you preparing to join the army, Mr. Joseph?” she said. “Is there to be nobody left in Brussels to protect us poor women?” Jos succeeded in plunging into the coat, and came forward blushing and stuttering out excuses to his fair visitor. “How was she after the events of the morning–after the fatigues of the ball the night before?” Monsieur Isidor disappeared into his master’s adjacent bedroom, bearing off the flowered dressing-gown.
“How good of you to ask,” said she, pressing one of his hands in both her own. “How cool and collected you look when everybody else is frightened! How is our dear little Emmy? It must have been an awful, awful parting.”
“Tremendous,” Jos said.
“You men can bear anything,” replied the lady. “Parting or danger are nothing to you. Own now that you were going to join the army and leave us to our fate. I know you were–something tells me you were. I was so frightened, when the thought came into my head (for I do sometimes think of you when I am alone, Mr. Joseph), that I ran off immediately to beg and entreat you not to fly from us.”
This speech might be interpreted, “My dear sir, should an accident befall the army, and a retreat be necessary, you have a very comfortable carriage, in which I propose to take a seat.” I don’t know whether Jos understood the words in this sense. But he was profoundly mortified by the lady’s inattention to him during their stay at Brussels. He had never been presented to any of Rawdon Crawley’s great acquaintances: he had scarcely been invited to Rebecca’s parties; for he was too timid to play much, and his presence bored George and Rawdon equally, who neither of them, perhaps, liked to have a witness of the amusements in which the pair chose to indulge. “Ah!” thought Jos, “now she wants me she comes to me. When there is nobody else in the way she can think about old Joseph Sedley!” But besides these doubts he felt flattered at the idea Rebecca expressed of his courage.
He blushed a good deal, and put on an air of importance. “I should like to see the action,” he said. “Every man of any spirit would, you know. I’ve seen a little service in India, but nothing on this grand scale.”
“You men would sacrifice anything for a pleasure,” Rebecca answered. “Captain Crawley left me this morning as gay as if he were going to a hunting party. What does he care? What do any of you care for the agonies and tortures of a poor forsaken woman? (I wonder whether he could really have been going to the troops, this great lazy gourmand?) Oh! dear Mr. Sedley, I have come to you for comfort–for consolation. I have been on my knees all the morning. I tremble at the frightful danger into which our husbands, our friends, our brave troops and allies, are rushing. And I come here for shelter, and find another of my friends–the last remaining to me–bent upon plunging into the dreadful scene!”
“My dear madam,” Jos replied, now beginning to be quite soothed, “don’t be alarmed. I only said I should like to go–what Briton would not? But my duty keeps me here: I can’t leave that poor creature in the next room.” And he pointed with his finger to the door of the chamber in which Amelia was.
“Good noble brother!” Rebecca said, putting her handkerchief to her eyes, and smelling the eau-de-cologne with which it was scented. “I have done you injustice: you have got a heart. I thought you had not.”
“O, upon my honour!” Jos said, making a motion as if he would lay his hand upon the spot in question. “You do me injustice, indeed you do–my dear Mrs. Crawley.”
“I do, now your heart is true to your sister. But I remember two years ago–when it was false to me!” Rebecca said, fixing her eyes upon him for an instant, and then turning away into the window.
Jos blushed violently. That organ which he was accused by Rebecca of not possessing began to thump tumultuously. He recalled the days when he had fled from her, and the passion which had once inflamed him–the days when he had driven her in his curricle: when she had knit the green purse for him: when he had sate enraptured gazing at her white arms and bright eyes.
“I know you think me ungrateful,” Rebecca continued, coming out of the window, and once more looking at him and addressing him in a low tremulous voice. “Your coldness, your averted looks, your manner when we have met of late–when I came in just now, all proved it to me. But were there no reasons why I should avoid you? Let your own heart answer that question. Do you think my husband was too much inclined to welcome you? The only unkind words I have ever had from him (I will do Captain Crawley that justice) have been about you– and most cruel, cruel words they were.”
“Good gracious! what have I done?” asked Jos in a flurry of pleasure and perplexity; “what have I done–to–to–?”
“Is jealousy nothing?” said Rebecca. “He makes me miserable about you. And whatever it might have been once–my heart is all his. I am innocent now. Am I not, Mr. Sedley?”
All Jos’s blood tingled with delight, as he surveyed this victim to his attractions. A few adroit words, one or two knowing tender glances of the eyes, and his heart was inflamed again and his doubts and suspicions forgotten. From Solomon downwards, have not wiser men than he been cajoled and befooled by women? “If the worst comes to the worst,” Becky thought, “my retreat is secure; and I have a right-hand seat in the barouche.”
There is no knowing into what declarations of love and ardour the tumultuous passions of Mr. Joseph might have led him, if Isidor the valet had not made his reappearance at this minute, and begun to busy himself about the domestic affairs. Jos, who was just going to gasp out an avowal, choked almost with the emotion that he was obliged to restrain. Rebecca too bethought her that it was time she should go in and comfort her dearest Amelia. “Au revoir,” she said, kissing her hand to Mr. Joseph, and tapped gently at the door of his sister’s apartment. As she entered and closed the door on herself, he sank down in a chair, and gazed and sighed and puffed portentously. “That coat is very tight for Milor,” Isidor said, still having his eye on the frogs; but his master heard him not: his thoughts were elsewhere: now glowing, maddening, upon the contemplation of the enchanting Rebecca: anon shrinking guiltily before the vision of the jealous Rawdon Crawley, with his curling, fierce mustachios, and his terrible duelling pistols loaded and cocked.
Rebecca’s appearance struck Amelia with terror, and made her shrink back. It recalled her to the world and the remembrance of yesterday. In the overpowering fears about to-morrow she had forgotten Rebecca–jealousy–everything except that her husband was gone and was in danger. Until this dauntless worldling came in and broke the spell, and lifted the latch, we too have forborne to enter into that sad chamber. How long had that poor girl been on her knees! what hours of speechless prayer and bitter prostration had she passed there! The war-chroniclers who write brilliant stories of fight and triumph scarcely tell us of these. These are too mean parts of the pageant: and you don’t hear widows’ cries or mothers’ sobs in the midst of the shouts and jubilation in the great Chorus of Victory. And yet when was the time that such have not cried out: heart-broken, humble protestants, unheard in the uproar of the triumph!
After the first movement of terror in Amelia’s mind–when Rebecca’s green eyes lighted upon her, and rustling in her fresh silks and brilliant ornaments, the latter tripped up with extended arms to embrace her–a feeling of anger succeeded, and from being deadly pale before, her face flushed up red, and she returned Rebecca’s look after a moment with a steadiness which surprised and somewhat abashed her rival.
“Dearest Amelia, you are very unwell,” the visitor said, putting forth her hand to take Amelia’s. “What is it? I could not rest until I knew how you were.”
Amelia drew back her hand–never since her life began had that gentle soul refused to believe or to answer any demonstration of good-will or affection. But she drew back her hand, and trembled all over. “Why are you here, Rebecca?” she said, still looking at her solemnly with her large eyes. These glances troubled her visitor.
“She must have seen him give me the letter at the ball,” Rebecca thought. “Don’t be agitated, dear Amelia,” she said, looking down. “I came but to see if I could–if you were well.”
“Are you well?” said Amelia. “I dare say you are. You don’t love your husband. You would not be here if you did. Tell me, Rebecca, did I ever do you anything but kindness?”
“Indeed, Amelia, no,” the other said, still hanging down her head.
“When you were quite poor, who was it that befriended you? Was I not a sister to you? You saw us all in happier days before he married me. I was all in all then to him; or would he have given up his fortune, his family, as he nobly did to make me happy? Why did you come between my love and me? Who sent you to separate those whom God joined, and take my darling’s heart from me–my own husband? Do you think you could I love him as I did? His love was everything to me. You knew it, and wanted to rob me of it. For shame, Rebecca; bad and wicked woman–false friend and false wife.”
“Amelia, I protest before God, I have done my husband no wrong,” Rebecca said, turning from her.
“Have you done me no wrong, Rebecca? You did not succeed, but you tried. Ask your heart if you did not.”
She knows nothing, Rebecca thought.
“He came back to me. I knew he would. I knew that no falsehood, no flattery, could keep him from me long. I knew he would come. I prayed so that he should.”
The poor girl spoke these words with a spirit and volubility which Rebecca had never before seen in her, and before which the latter was quite dumb. “But what have I done to you,” she continued in a more pitiful tone, “that you should try and take him from me? I had him but for six weeks. You might have spared me those, Rebecca. And yet, from the very first day of our wedding, you came and blighted it. Now he is gone, are you come to see how unhappy I am?” she continued. “You made me wretched enough for the past fortnight: you might have spared me to-day.”
“I–I never came here,” interposed Rebecca, with unlucky truth.
“No. You didn’t come. You took him away. Are you come to fetch him from me?” she continued in a wilder tone. “He was here, but he is gone now. There on that very sofa he sate. Don’t touch it. We sate and talked there. I was on his knee, and my arms were round his neck, and we said ‘Our Father.’ Yes, he was here: and they came and took him away, but he promised me to come back.”
“He will come back, my dear,” said Rebecca, touched in spite of herself.
“Look,” said Amelia, “this is his sash–isn’t it a pretty colour?” and she took up the fringe and kissed it. She had tied it round her waist at some part of the day. She had forgotten her anger, her jealousy, the very presence of her rival seemingly. For she walked silently and almost with a smile on her face, towards the bed, and began to smooth down George’s pillow.
Rebecca walked, too, silently away. “How is Amelia?” asked Jos, who still held his position in the chair.
“There should be somebody with her,” said Rebecca. “I think she is very unwell”: and she went away with a very grave face, refusing Mr. Sedley’s entreaties that she would stay and partake of the early dinner which he had ordered.
Rebecca was of a good-natured and obliging disposition; and she liked Amelia rather than otherwise. Even her hard words, reproachful as they were, were complimentary–the groans of a person stinging under defeat. Meeting Mrs. O’Dowd, whom the Dean’s sermons had by no means comforted, and who was walking very disconsolately in the Parc, Rebecca accosted the latter, rather to the surprise of the Major’s wife, who was not accustomed to such marks of politeness from Mrs. Rawdon Crawley, and informing her that poor little Mrs. Osborne was in a desperate condition, and almost mad with grief, sent off the good-natured Irishwoman straight to see if she could console her young favourite.
“I’ve cares of my own enough,” Mrs. O’Dowd said, gravely, “and I thought poor Amelia would be little wanting for company this day. But if she’s so bad as you say, and you can’t attend to her, who used to be so fond of her, faith I’ll see if I can be of service. And so good marning to ye, Madam”; with which speech and a toss of her head, the lady of the repayther took a farewell of Mrs. Crawley, whose company she by no means courted.
Becky watched her marching off, with a smile on her lip. She had the keenest sense of humour, and the Parthian look which the retreating Mrs. O’Dowd flung over her shoulder almost upset Mrs. Crawley’s gravity. “My service to ye, me fine Madam, and I’m glad to see ye so cheerful,” thought Peggy. “It’s not YOU that will cry your eyes out with grief, anyway.” And with this she passed on, and speedily found her way to Mrs. Osborne’s lodgings.
The poor soul was still at the bedside, where Rebecca had left her, and stood almost crazy with grief. The Major’s wife, a stronger- minded woman, endeavoured her best to comfort her young friend. “You must bear up, Amelia, dear,” she said kindly, “for he mustn’t find you ill when he sends for you after the victory. It’s not you are the only woman that are in the hands of God this day.”
“I know that. I am very wicked, very weak,” Amelia said. She knew her own weakness well enough. The presence of the more resolute friend checked it, however; and she was the better of this control and company. They went on till two o’clock; their hearts were with the column as it marched farther and farther away. Dreadful doubt and anguish–prayers and fears and griefs unspeakable–followed the regiment. It was the women’s tribute to the war. It taxes both alike, and takes the blood of the men, and the tears of the women.
At half-past two, an event occurred of daily importance to Mr. Joseph: the dinner-hour arrived. Warriors may fight and perish, but he must dine. He came into Amelia’s room to see if he could coax her to share that meal. “Try,” said he; “the soup is very good. Do try, Emmy,” and he kissed her hand. Except when she was married, he had not done so much for years before. “You are very good and kind, Joseph,” she said. “Everybody is, but, if you please, I will stay in my room to-day.”
The savour of the soup, however, was agreeable to Mrs. O’Dowd’s nostrils: and she thought she would bear Mr. Jos company. So the two sate down to their meal. “God bless the meat,” said the Major’s wife, solemnly: she was thinking of her honest Mick, riding at the head of his regiment: “‘Tis but a bad dinner those poor boys will get to-day,” she said, with a sigh, and then, like a philosopher, fell to.
Jos’s spirits rose with his meal. He would drink the regiment’s health; or, indeed, take any other excuse to indulge in a glass of champagne. “We’ll drink to O’Dowd and the brave –th,” said he, bowing gallantly to his guest. “Hey, Mrs. O’Dowd? Fill Mrs. O’Dowd’s glass, Isidor.”
But all of a sudden, Isidor started, and the Major’s wife laid down her knife and fork. The windows of the room were open, and looked southward, and a dull distant sound came over the sun-lighted roofs from that direction. “What is it?” said Jos. “Why don’t you pour, you rascal?”
“Cest le feu!” said Isidor, running to the balcony.
“God defend us; it’s cannon!” Mrs. O’Dowd cried, starting up, and followed too to the window. A thousand pale and anxious faces might have been seen looking from other casements. And presently it seemed as if the whole population of the city rushed into the streets.
CHAPTER XXXII
In Which Jos Takes Flight, and the War Is Brought to a Close
We of peaceful London City have never beheld–and please God never shall witness–such a scene of hurry and alarm, as that which Brussels presented. Crowds rushed to the Namur gate, from which direction the noise proceeded, and many rode along the level chaussee, to be in advance of any intelligence from the army. Each man asked his neighbour for news; and even great English lords and ladies condescended to speak to persons whom they did not know. The friends of the French went abroad, wild with excitement, and prophesying the triumph of their Emperor. The merchants closed their shops, and came out to swell the general chorus of alarm and clamour. Women rushed to the churches, and crowded the chapels, and knelt and prayed on the flags and steps. The dull sound of the cannon went on rolling, rolling. Presently carriages with travellers began to leave the town, galloping away by the Ghent barrier. The prophecies of the French partisans began to pass for facts. “He has cut the armies in two,” it was said. “He is marching straight on Brussels. He will overpower the English, and be here to-night.” “He will overpower the English,” shrieked Isidor to his master, “and will be here to-night.” The man bounded in and out from the lodgings to the street, always returning with some fresh particulars of disaster. Jos’s face grew paler and paler. Alarm began to take entire possession of the stout civilian. All the champagne he drank brought no courage to him. Before sunset he was worked up to such a pitch of nervousness as gratified his friend Isidor to behold, who now counted surely upon the spoils of the owner of the laced coat.
The women were away all this time. After hearing the firing for a moment, the stout Major’s wife bethought her of her friend in the next chamber, and ran in to watch, and if possible to console, Amelia. The idea that she had that helpless and gentle creature to protect, gave additional strength to the natural courage of the honest Irishwoman. She passed five hours by her friend’s side, sometimes in remonstrance, sometimes talking cheerfully, oftener in silence and terrified mental supplication. “I never let go her hand once,” said the stout lady afterwards, “until after sunset, when the firing was over.” Pauline, the bonne, was on her knees at church hard by, praying for son homme a elle.
When the noise of the cannonading was over, Mrs. O’Dowd issued out of Amelia’s room into the parlour adjoining, where Jos sate with two emptied flasks, and courage entirely gone. Once or twice he had ventured into his sister’s bedroom, looking very much alarmed, and as if he would say something. But the Major’s wife kept her place, and he went away without disburthening himself of his speech. He was ashamed to tell her that he wanted to fly.
But when she made her appearance in the dining-room, where he sate in the twilight in the cheerless company of his empty champagne bottles, he began to open his mind to her.
“Mrs. O’Dowd,” he said, “hadn’t you better get Amelia ready?”
“Are you going to take her out for a walk?” said the Major’s lady; “sure she’s too weak to stir.”
“I–I’ve ordered the carriage,” he said, “and–and post-horses; Isidor is gone for them,” Jos continued.
“What do you want with driving to-night?” answered the lady. “Isn’t she better on her bed? I’ve just got her to lie down.”
“Get her up,” said Jos; “she must get up, I say”: and he stamped his foot energetically. “I say the horses are ordered–yes, the horses are ordered. It’s all over, and–”
“And what?” asked Mrs. O’Dowd.
“I’m off for Ghent,” Jos answered. “Everybody is going; there’s a place for you! We shall start in half-an-hour.”
The Major’s wife looked at him with infinite scorn. “I don’t move till O’Dowd gives me the route,” said she. “You may go if you like, Mr. Sedley; but, faith, Amelia and I stop here.”
“She SHALL go,” said Jos, with another stamp of his foot. Mrs. O’Dowd put herself with arms akimbo before the bedroom door.
“Is it her mother you’re going to take her to?” she said; “or do you want to go to Mamma yourself, Mr. Sedley? Good marning–a pleasant journey to ye, sir. Bon voyage, as they say, and take my counsel, and shave off them mustachios, or they’ll bring you into mischief.”
“D–n!” yelled out Jos, wild with fear, rage, and mortification; and Isidor came in at this juncture, swearing in his turn. “Pas de chevaux, sacre bleu!” hissed out the furious domestic. All the horses were gone. Jos was not the only man in Brussels seized with panic that day.
But Jos’s fears, great and cruel as they were already, were destined to increase to an almost frantic pitch before the night was over. It has been mentioned how Pauline, the bonne, had son homme a elle also in the ranks of the army that had gone out to meet the Emperor Napoleon. This lover was a native of Brussels, and a Belgian hussar. The troops of his nation signalised themselves in this war for anything but courage, and young Van Cutsum, Pauline’s admirer, was too good a soldier to disobey his Colonel’s orders to run away. Whilst in garrison at Brussels young Regulus (he had been born in the revolutionary times) found his great comfort, and passed almost all his leisure moments, in Pauline’s kitchen; and it was with pockets and holsters crammed full of good things from her larder, that he had take leave of his weeping sweetheart, to proceed upon the campaign a few days before.
As far as his regiment was concerned, this campaign was over now. They had formed a part of the division under the command of his Sovereign apparent, the Prince of Orange, and as respected length of swords and mustachios, and the richness of uniform and equipments, Regulus and his comrades looked to be as gallant a body of men as ever trumpet sounded for.
When Ney dashed upon the advance of the allied troops, carrying one position after the other, until the arrival of the great body of the British army from Brussels changed the aspect of the combat of Quatre Bras, the squadrons among which Regulus rode showed the greatest activity in retreating before the French, and were dislodged from one post and another which they occupied with perfect alacrity on their part. Their movements were only checked by the advance of the British in their rear. Thus forced to halt, the enemy’s cavalry (whose bloodthirsty obstinacy cannot be too severely reprehended) had at length an opportunity of coming to close quarters with the brave Belgians before them; who preferred to encounter the British rather than the French, and at once turning