not perceived that the Major was a spooney.
"Why did you not wait for me, sir, to escort me
downstairs?" she said, giving a little toss of her head
and a most sarcastic curtsey.
"I couldn't stand up in the passage," he answered with
a comical deprecatory look; and, delighted to give her his
arm and to take her out of the horrid smoky place, he
would have walked off without even so much as
remembering the waiter, had not the young fellow run after
him and stopped him on the threshold of the Elephant
to make him pay for the beer which he had not
consumed. Emmy laughed: she called him a naughty man,
who wanted to run away in debt, and, in fact, made
some jokes suitable to the occasion and the small-beer.
She was in high spirits and good humour, and tripped
across the market-place very briskly. She wanted to see
Jos that instant. The Major laughed at the impetuous
affection Mrs. Amelia exhibited; for, in truth, it was not
very often that she wanted her brother "that instant."
They found the civilian in his saloon on the first-floor;
he had been pacing the room, and biting his nails, and
looking over the market-place towards the Elephant a
hundred times at least during the past hour whilst Emmy
was closeted with her friend in the garret and the Major
was beating the tattoo on the sloppy tables of the public
room below, and he was, on his side too, very anxious to
see Mrs. Osborne.
"Well?" said he.
"The poor dear creature, how she has suffered!"
Emmy said.
"God bless my soul, yes," Jos said, wagging his head,
so that his cheeks quivered like jellies.
"She may have Payne's room, who can go upstairs,"
Emmy continued. Payne was a staid English maid and
personal attendant upon Mrs. Osborne, to whom the
courier, as in duty bound, paid court, and whom Georgy
used to "lark" dreadfully with accounts of German
robbers and ghosts. She passed her time chiefly in grumbling,
in ordering about her mistress, and in stating her intention
to return the next morning to her native village of
Clapham. "She may have Payne's room," Emmy said.
"Why, you don't mean to say you are going to have
that woman into the house?" bounced out the Major,
jumping up.
"Of course we are," said Amelia in the most innocent
way in the world. "Don't be angry and break the
furniture, Major Dobbin. Of course we are going to have her
here."
"Of course, my dear," Jos said.
"The poor creature, after all her sufferings," Emmy
continued; "her horrid banker broken and run away; her
husband--wicked wretch--having deserted her and taken
her child away from her" (here she doubled her two
little fists and held them in a most menacing attitude
before her, so that the Major was charmed to see
such a dauntless virago) "the poor dear thing! quite alone
and absolutely forced to give lessons in singing to get her
bread--and not have her here!"
"Take lessons, my dear Mrs. George," cried the Major,
"but don't have her in the house. I implore you don't."
"Pooh," said Jos.
"You who are always good and kind--always used to
be at any rate--I'm astonished at you, Major William,"
Amelia cried. "Why, what is the moment to help her but
when she is so miserable? Now is the time to be of
service to her. The oldest friend I ever had, and not--"
"She was not always your friend, Amelia," the Major
said, for he was quite angry. This allusion was too much
for Emmy, who, looking the Major almost fiercely in the
face, said, "For shame, Major Dobbin!" and after having
fired this shot, she walked out of the room with a most
majestic air and shut her own door briskly on herself
and her outraged dignity.
"To allude to THAT!" she said, when the door was
closed. "Oh, it was cruel of him to remind me of it," and
she looked up at George's picture, which hung there as
usual, with the portrait of the boy underneath. "It was
cruel of him. If I had forgiven it, ought he to have
spoken? No. And it is from his own lips that I know how
wicked and groundless my jealousy was; and that you
were pure--oh, yes, you were pure, my saint in
heaven!"
She paced the room, trembling and indignant. She went
and leaned on the chest of drawers over which the picture
hung, and gazed and gazed at it. Its eyes seemed to look
down on her with a reproach that deepened as she looked.
The early dear, dear memories of that brief prime of love
rushed back upon her. The wound which years had
scarcely cicatrized bled afresh, and oh, how bitterly! She
could not bear the reproaches of the husband there
before her. It couldn't be. Never, never.
Poor Dobbin; poor old William! That unlucky word
had undone the work of many a year--the long laborious
edifice of a life of love and constancy--raised too upon
what secret and hidden foundations, wherein lay buried
passions, uncounted struggles, unknown sacrifices--a
little word was spoken, and down fell the fair palace of
hope--one word, and away flew the bird which he had
been trying all his life to lure!
William, though he saw by Amelia's looks that a great
crisis had come, nevertheless continued to implore Sedley,
in the most energetic terms, to beware of Rebecca; and he
eagerly, almost frantically, adjured Jos not to receive
her. He besought Mr. Sedley to inquire at least regarding
her; told him how he had heard that she was in the
company of gamblers and people of ill repute; pointed
out what evil she had done in former days, how she
and Crawley had misled poor George into ruin, how she
was now parted from her husband, by her own confession,
and, perhaps, for good reason. What a dangerous
companion she would be for his sister, who knew nothing
of the affairs of the world! William implored Jos, with
all the eloquence which he could bring to bear, and a
great deal more energy than this quiet gentleman was
ordinarily in the habit of showing, to keep Rebecca out
of his household.
Had he been less violent, or more dexterous, he might
have succeeded in his supplications to Jos; but the civilian
was not a little jealous of the airs of superiority
which the Major constantly exhibited towards him, as
he fancied (indeed, he had imparted his opinions to Mr.
Kirsch, the courier, whose bills Major Dobbin checked on
this journey, and who sided with his master), and he
began a blustering speech about his competency to
defend his own honour, his desire not to have his affairs
meddled with, his intention, in fine, to rebel against the
Major, when the colloquy--rather a long and stormy one
--was put an end to in the simplest way possible, namely,
by the arrival of Mrs. Becky, with a porter from
the Elephant Hotel in charge of her very meagre baggage.
She greeted her host with affectionate respect and
made a shrinking, but amicable salutation to Major
Dobbin, who, as her instinct assured her at once, was
her enemy, and had been speaking against her; and the
bustle and clatter consequent upon her arrival brought
Amelia out of her room. Emmy went up and embraced
her guest with the greatest warmth, and took no notice
of the Major, except to fling him an angry look--the
most unjust and scornful glance that had perhaps ever
appeared in that poor little woman's face since she was
born. But she had private reasons of her own, and was
bent upon being angry with him. And Dobbin, indignant
at the injustice, not at the defeat, went off, making her a
bow quite as haughty as the killing curtsey with which
the little woman chose to bid him farewell.
He being gone, Emmy was particularly lively and
affectionate to Rebecca, and bustled about the apartments
and installed her guest in her room with an eagerness and
activity seldom exhibited by our placid little friend. But
when an act of injustice is to be done, especially by
weak people, it is best that it should be done quickly,
and Emmy thought she was displaying a great deal of
firmness and proper feeling and veneration for the late
Captain Osborne in her present behaviour.
Georgy came in from the fetes for dinner-time and
found four covers laid as usual; but one of the places
was occupied by a lady, instead of by Major Dobbin.
"Hullo! where's Dob?" the young gentleman asked with
his usual simplicity of language. "Major Dobbin is dining
out, I suppose," his mother said, and, drawing the boy
to her, kissed him a great deal, and put his hair off his
forehead, and introduced him to Mrs. Crawley. "This
is my boy, Rebecca," Mrs. Osborne said--as much as to
say--can the world produce anything like that? Becky
looked at him with rapture and pressed his hand fondly.
"Dear boy!" she said--"he is just like my--" Emotion
choked her further utterance, but Amelia understood, as
well as if she had spoken, that Becky was thinking of her
own blessed child. However, the company of her friend
consoled Mrs. Crawley, and she ate a very good dinner.
During the repast, she had occasion to speak several
times, when Georgy eyed her and listened to her. At the
desert Emmy was gone out to superintend further
domestic arrangements; Jos was in his great chair dozing
over Galignani; Georgy and the new arrival sat close to
each other--he had continued to look at her knowingly
more than once, and at last he laid down the
nutcrackers.
"I say," said Georgy.
"What do you say?" Becky said, laughing.
"You're the lady I saw in the mask at the Rouge et
Noir."
"Hush! you little sly creature," Becky said, taking
up his hand and kissing it. "Your uncle was there too,
and Mamma mustn't know."
"Oh, no--not by no means," answered the little fellow.
"You see we are quite good friends already," Becky
said to Emmy, who now re-entered; and it must be owned
that Mrs. Osborne had introduced a most judicious and
amiable companion into her house.
William, in a state of great indignation, though still
unaware of all the treason that was in store for him, walked
about the town wildly until he fell upon the Secretary of
Legation, Tapeworm, who invited him to dinner. As they
were discussing that meal, he took occasion to ask the
Secretary whether he knew anything about a certain
Mrs. Rawdon Crawley, who had, he believed, made
some noise in London; and then Tapeworm, who of
course knew all the London gossip, and was besides a
relative of Lady Gaunt, poured out into the astonished
Major's ears such a history about Becky and her husband
as astonished the querist, and supplied all the points of
this narrative, for it was at that very table years ago
that the present writer had the pleasure of hearing the
tale. Tufto, Steyne, the Crawleys, and their history--
everything connected with Becky and her previous life
passed under the record of the bitter diplomatist. He knew
everything and a great deal besides, about all the world
--in a word, he made the most astounding revelations to
the simple-hearted Major. When Dobbin said that Mrs.
Osborne and Mr. Sedley had taken her into their house,
Tapeworm burst into a peal of laughter which shocked
the Major, and asked if they had not better send into the
prison and take in one or two of the gentlemen in shaved
heads and yellow jackets who swept the streets of
Pumpernickel, chained in pairs, to board and lodge, and act
as tutor to that little scapegrace Georgy.
This information astonished and horrified the Major not
a little. It had been agreed in the morning (before meeting
with Rebecca) that Amelia should go to the Court
ball that night. There would be the place where he should
tell her. The Major went home, and dressed himself in his
uniform, and repaired to Court, in hopes to see Mrs.
Osborne. She never came. When he returned to his
lodgings all the lights in the Sedley tenement were put
out. He could not see her till the morning. I don't know
what sort of a night's rest he had with this frightful
secret in bed with him.
At the earliest convenient hour in the morning he sent
his servant across the way with a note, saying that he
wished very particularly to speak with her. A message
came back to say that Mrs. Osborne was exceedingly
unwell and was keeping her room.
She, too, had been awake all that night. She had been
thinking of a thing which had agitated her mind a
hundred times before. A hundred times on the point of yielding,
she had shrunk back from a sacrifice which she felt
was too much for her. She couldn't, in spite of his love
and constancy and her own acknowledged regard,
respect, and gratitude. What are benefits, what is
constancy, or merit? One curl of a girl's ringlet, one hair of a
whisker, will turn the scale against them all in a minute.
They did not weigh with Emmy more than with other
women. She had tried them; wanted to make them pass;
could not; and the pitiless little woman had found a
pretext, and determined to be free.
When at length, in the afternoon, the Major gained
admission to Amelia, instead of the cordial and
affectionate greeting, to which he had been accustomed now
for many a long day, he received the salutation of a
curtsey, and of a little gloved hand, retracted the moment
after it was accorded to him.
Rebecca, too, was in the room, and advanced to meet
him with a smile and an extended hand. Dobbin drew
back rather confusedly, "I--I beg your pardon, m'am,"
he said; "but I am bound to tell you that it is not as your
friend that I am come here now."
"Pooh! damn; don't let us have this sort of thing!"
Jos cried out, alarmed, and anxious to get rid of a scene.
