I suppose Becky was discontented with the new piano
her husband had hired for her, or perhaps the
proprietors of that instrument had fetched it away,
declining farther credit, or perhaps she had a particular
attachment for the one which she had just tried to purchase,
recollecting it in old days, when she used to play upon
it, in the little sitting-room of our dear Amelia Sedley.
The sale was at the old house in Russell Square, where
we passed some evenings together at the beginning of
this story. Good old John Sedley was a ruined man. His
name had been proclaimed as a defaulter on the Stock
Exchange, and his bankruptcy and commercial extermination
had followed. Mr. Osborne's butler came to buy some of the
famous port wine to transfer to the cellars over the way.
As for one dozen well-manufactured silver spoons and
forks at per oz., and one dozen dessert ditto ditto,
there were three young stockbrokers (Messrs. Dale,
Spiggot, and Dale, of Threadneedle Street, indeed),
who, having had dealings with the old man, and
kindnesses from him in days when he was kind to
everybody with whom he dealt, sent this little spar out
of the wreck with their love to good Mrs. Sedley; and with
respect to the piano, as it had been Amelia's, and as she
might miss it and want one now, and as Captain William
Dobbin could no more play upon it than he could dance
on the tight rope, it is probable that he did not purchase
the instrument for his own use.
In a word, it arrived that evening at a wonderful small
cottage in a street leading from the Fulham Road--one
of those streets which have the finest romantic names--
(this was called St. Adelaide Villas, Anna-Maria Road
West), where the houses look like baby-houses; where
the people, looking out of the first-floor windows, must
infallibly, as you think, sit with their feet in the parlours;
where the shrubs in the little gardens in front bloom with
a perennial display of little children's pinafores, little red
socks, caps, &c. (polyandria polygynia); whence you
hear the sound of jingling spinets and women singing;
where little porter pots hang on the railings sunning
themselves; whither of evenings you see City clerks
padding wearily: here it was that Mr. Clapp, the clerk of
Mr. Sedley, had his domicile, and in this asylum the good
old gentleman hid his head with his wife and daughter
when the crash came.
Jos Sedley had acted as a man of his disposition
would, when the announcement of the family misfortune
reached him. He did not come to London, but he wrote
to his mother to draw upon his agents for whatever
money was wanted, so that his kind broken-spirited old
parents had no present poverty to fear. This done, Jos
went on at the boarding-house at Cheltenham pretty
much as before. He drove his curricle; he drank his
claret; he played his rubber; he told his Indian stories,
and the Irish widow consoled and flattered him as usual.
His present of money, needful as it was, made little
impression on his parents; and I have heard Amelia say
that the first day on which she saw her father lift up his
head after the failure was on the receipt of the packet
of forks and spoons with the young stockbrokers' love,
over which he burst out crying like a child, being greatly
more affected than even his wife, to whom the present
was addressed. Edward Dale, the junior of the house,
who purchased the spoons for the firm, was, in fact, very
sweet upon Amelia, and offered for her in spite of all.
He married Miss Louisa Cutts (daughter of Higham and
Cutts, the eminent cornfactors) with a handsome fortune
in 1820; and is now living in splendour, and with a
numerous family, at his elegant villa, Muswell Hill. But
we must not let the recollections of this good fellow
cause us to diverge from the principal history.
I hope the reader has much too good an opinion of
Captain and Mrs. Crawley to suppose that they ever
would have dreamed of paying a visit to so remote a
district as Bloomsbury, if they thought the family whom
they proposed to honour with a visit were not merely
out of fashion, but out of money, and could be
serviceable to them in no possible manner. Rebecca was
entirely surprised at the sight of the comfortable old house
where she had met with no small kindness, ransacked by
brokers and bargainers, and its quiet family treasures
given up to public desecration and plunder. A month
after her flight, she had bethought her of Amelia, and
Rawdon, with a horse-laugh, had expressed a perfect
willingness to see young George Osborne again. "He's a
very agreeable acquaintance, Beck," the wag added. "I'd
like to sell him another horse, Beck. I'd like to play a
few more games at billiards with him. He'd be what I
call useful just now, Mrs. C.--ha, ha!" by which sort of
speech it is not to be supposed that Rawdon Crawley had
a deliberate desire to cheat Mr. Osborne at play, but only
wished to take that fair advantage of him which almost
every sporting gentleman in Vanity Fair considers to be
his due from his neighbour.
The old aunt was long in "coming-to." A month had
elapsed. Rawdon was denied the door by Mr. Bowls; his
servants could not get a lodgment in the house at Park
Lane; his letters were sent back unopened. Miss Crawley
never stirred out--she was unwell--and Mrs. Bute
remained still and never left her. Crawley and his wife both
of them augured evil from the continued presence of
Mrs. Bute.
"Gad, I begin to perceive now why she was always
bringing us together at Queen's Crawley," Rawdon said.
"What an artful little woman!" ejaculated Rebecca.
"Well, I don't regret it, if you don't," the Captain
cried, still in an amorous rapture with his wife, who
rewarded him with a kiss by way of reply, and was
indeed not a little gratified by the generous confidence
of her husband.
"If he had but a little more brains," she thought to
herself, "I might make something of him"; but she never
let him perceive the opinion she had of him; listened
with indefatigable complacency to his stories of the
stable and the mess; laughed at all his jokes; felt the
greatest interest in Jack Spatterdash, whose cab-horse
had come down, and Bob Martingale, who had been
taken up in a gambling-house, and Tom Cinqbars, who
was going to ride the steeplechase. When he came home
she was alert and happy: when he went out she pressed
him to go: when he stayed at home, she played and
sang for him, made him good drinks, superintended his
dinner, warmed his slippers, and steeped his soul in
comfort. The best of women (I have heard my grandmother
say) are hypocrites. We don't know how much
they hide from us: how watchful they are when they
seem most artless and confidential: how often those frank
smiles which they wear so easily, are traps to cajole or
elude or disarm--I don't mean in your mere coquettes,
but your domestic models, and paragons of female virtue.
Who has not seen a woman hide the dulness of a stupid
husband, or coax the fury of a savage one? We accept
this amiable slavishness, and praise a woman for it: we
call this pretty treachery truth. A good housewife is of
necessity a humbug; and Cornelia's husband was
hoodwinked, as Potiphar was--only in a different way.
By these attentions, that veteran rake, Rawdon Crawley,
found himself converted into a very happy and submissive
married man. His former haunts knew him not.
They asked about him once or twice at his clubs, but did
not miss him much: in those booths of Vanity Fair people
seldom do miss each other. His secluded wife ever smiling
and cheerful, his little comfortable lodgings, snug
meals, and homely evenings, had all the charms of novelty
and secrecy. The marriage was not yet declared to the
world, or published in the Morning Post. All his creditors
would have come rushing on him in a body, had they
known that he was united to a woman without fortune.
"My relations won't cry fie upon me," Becky said, with
rather a bitter laugh; and she was quite contented to wait
until the old aunt should be reconciled, before she claimed
her place in society. So she lived at Brompton, and
meanwhile saw no one, or only those few of her husband's
male companions who were admitted into her little
dining-room. These were all charmed with her. The little
dinners, the laughing and chatting, the music afterwards,
delighted all who participated in these enjoyments. Major
Martingale never thought about asking to
see the marriage licence, Captain Cinqbars was perfectly
enchanted with her skill in making punch. And young
Lieutenant Spatterdash (who was fond of piquet, and
whom Crawley would often invite) was evidently and
quickly smitten by Mrs. Crawley; but her own
circumspection and modesty never forsook her for a
moment, and Crawley's reputation as a fire-eating and
jealous warrior was a further and complete defence to
his little wife.
There are gentlemen of very good blood and fashion
in this city, who never have entered a lady's drawing-
room; so that though Rawdon Crawley's marriage might
be talked about in his county, where, of course, Mrs.
Bute had spread the news, in London it was doubted, or
not heeded, or not talked about at all. He lived comfortably
on credit. He had a large capital of debts, which
laid out judiciously, will carry a man along for many
years, and on which certain men about town contrive
to live a hundred times better than even men with ready
money can do. Indeed who is there that walks London
streets, but can point out a half-dozen of men riding
by him splendidly, while he is on foot, courted by fashion,
bowed into their carriages by tradesmen, denying
themselves nothing, and living on who knows what? We
see Jack Thriftless prancing in the park, or darting in his
brougham down Pall Mall: we eat his dinners served on
his miraculous plate. "How did this begin," we say, "or
where will it end?" "My dear fellow," I heard Jack once
say, "I owe money in every capital in Europe." The end
must come some day, but in the meantime Jack thrives
as much as ever; people are glad enough to shake him by
the hand, ignore the little dark stories that are whispered
every now and then against him, and pronounce him a
good-natured, jovial, reckless fellow.
Truth obliges us to confess that Rebecca had married a
gentleman of this order. Everything was plentiful in his
house but ready money, of which their menage pretty
early felt the want; and reading the Gazette one day,
and coming upon the announcement of "Lieutenant G.
Osborne to be Captain by purchase, vice Smith, who
exchanges," Rawdon uttered that sentiment regarding
Amelia's lover, which ended in the visit to Russell Square.
When Rawdon and his wife wished to communicate
with Captain Dobbin at the sale, and to know particulars
of the catastrophe which had befallen Rebecca's
old acquaintances, the Captain had vanished; and such
information as they got was from a stray porter or broker
at the auction.
"Look at them with their hooked beaks," Becky said,
getting into the buggy, her picture under her arm, in
great glee. "They're like vultures after a battle."
"Don't know. Never was in action, my dear. Ask
Martingale; he was in Spain, aide-de-camp to General
Blazes."
"He was a very kind old man, Mr. Sedley," Rebecca
said; "I'm really sorry he's gone wrong."
"O stockbrokers--bankrupts--used to it, you know,"
Rawdon replied, cutting a fly off the horse's ear.
"I wish we could have afforded some of the plate,
Rawdon," the wife continued sentimentally. "Five-and-
twenty guineas was monstrously dear for that little piano.
We chose it at Broadwood's for Amelia, when she came
from school. It only cost five-and-thirty then."
"What-d'-ye-call'em--'Osborne,' will cry off now, I
suppose, since the family is smashed. How cut up your
pretty little friend will be; hey, Becky?"
"I daresay she'll recover it," Becky said with a smile
--and they drove on and talked about something else.
CHAPTER XVIII
Who Played on the Piano Captain Dobbin Bought
Our surprised story now finds itself for a moment
among very famous events and personages, and
hanging on to the skirts of history. When the eagles
of Napoleon Bonaparte, the Corsican upstart, were
flying from Provence, where they had perched after a brief
sojourn in Elba, and from steeple to steeple until they
reached the towers of Notre Dame, I wonder whether the
Imperial birds had any eye for a little corner of the parish
of Bloomsbury, London, which you might have thought so quiet,
that even the whirring and flapping of those mighty wings
would pass unobserved there?
"Napoleon has landed at Cannes." Such news might
create a panic at Vienna, and cause Russia to drop his
cards, and take Prussia into a corner, and Talleyrand
and Metternich to wag their heads together, while Prince
Hardenberg, and even the present Marquis of Londonderry,
were puzzled; but how was this intelligence to affect a young
lady in Russell Square, before whose door the watchman
sang the hours when she was asleep: who, if she
strolled in the square, was guarded there by the
railings and the beadle: who, if she walked ever so short
a distance to buy a ribbon in Southampton Row, was
followed by Black Sambo with an enormous cane: who
was always cared for, dressed, put to bed, and watched
over by ever so many guardian angels, with and without
wages? Bon Dieu, I say, is it not hard that the fateful
rush of the great Imperial struggle can't take place without
affecting a poor little harmless girl of eighteen, who
