and for John Osborne to prove John Sedley to be a very
bad character indeed.
At the meetings of creditors, then, he comported himself
with a savageness and scorn towards Sedley, which
almost succeeded in breaking the heart of that ruined
bankrupt man. On George's intercourse with Amelia he
put an instant veto--menacing the youth with maledictions
if he broke his commands, and vilipending the
poor innocent girl as the basest and most artful of vixens.
One of the great conditions of anger and hatred is, that
you must tell and believe lies against the hated object, in
order, as we said, to be consistent.
When the great crash came--the announcement of
ruin, and the departure from Russell Square, and the
declaration that all was over between her and George--all
over between her and love, her and happiness, her and
faith in the world--a brutal letter from John Osborne
told her in a few curt lines that her father's conduct had
been of such a nature that all engagements between the
families were at an end--when the final award came, it
did not shock her so much as her parents, as her mother
rather expected (for John Sedley himself was entirely
prostrate in the ruins of his own affairs and shattered
honour). Amelia took the news very palely and calmly.
It was only the confirmation of the dark presages which
had long gone before. It was the mere reading of the
sentence--of the crime she had long ago been guilty--the
crime of loving wrongly, too violently, against reason.
She told no more of her thoughts now than she had
before. She seemed scarcely more unhappy now when
convinced all hope was over, than before when she felt but
dared not confess that it was gone. So she changed from
the large house to the small one without any mark or
difference; remained in her little room for the most part;
pined silently; and died away day by day. I do not mean
to say that all females are so. My dear Miss Bullock, I
do not think your heart would break in this way. You are
a strong-minded young woman with proper principles.
I do not venture to say that mine would; it has suffered,
and, it must be confessed, survived. But there are some
souls thus gently constituted, thus frail, and delicate, and
tender.
Whenever old John Sedley thought of the affair
between George and Amelia, or alluded to it, it was with
bitterness almost as great as Mr. Osborne himself had
shown. He cursed Osborne and his family as heartless,
wicked, and ungrateful. No power on earth, he swore,
would induce him to marry his daughter to the son of
such a villain, and he ordered Emmy to banish George
from her mind, and to return all the presents and letters
which she had ever had from him.
She promised acquiescence, and tried to obey. She put
up the two or three trinkets: and, as for the letters, she
drew them out of the place.where she kept them; and
read them over--as if she did not know them by heart
already: but she could not part with them. That effort
was too much for her; she placed them back in her
bosom again--as you have seen a woman nurse a child
that is dead. Young Amelia felt that she would die or lose
her senses outright, if torn away from this last consolation.
How she used to blush and lighten up when those
letters came! How she used to trip away with a beating
heart, so that she might read unseen! If they were cold,
yet how perversely this fond little soul interpreted them
into warmth. If they were short or selfish, what excuses
she found for the writer!
It was over these few worthless papers that she brooded
and brooded. She lived in her past life--every letter
seemed to recall some circumstance of it. How well she
remembered them all! His looks and tones, his dress,
what he said and how--these relics and remembrances
of dead affection were all that were left her in the world.
And the business of her life, was--to watch the corpse
of Love.
To death she looked with inexpressible longing. Then,
she thought, I shall always be able to follow him. I am not
praising her conduct or setting her up as a model for
Miss Bullock to imitate. Miss B. knows how to regulate
her feelings better than this poor little creature. Miss B.
would never have committed herself as that imprudent
Amelia had done; pledged her love irretrievably;
confessed her heart away, and got back nothing--only a
brittle promise which was snapt and worthless in a
moment. A long engagement is a partnership which one
party is free to keep or to break, but which involves all
the capital of the other.
Be cautious then, young ladies; be wary how you
engage. Be shy of loving frankly; never tell all you feel, or
(a better way still), feel very little. See the consequences
of being prematurely honest and confiding, and mistrust
yourselves and everybody. Get yourselves married as they
do in France, where the lawyers are the bridesmaids and
confidantes. At any rate, never have any feelings which
may make you uncomfortable, or make any promises
which you cannot at any required moment command and
withdraw. That is the way to get on, and be respected,
and have a virtuous character in Vanity Fair.
If Amelia could have heard the comments regarding
her which were made in the circle from which her father's
ruin had just driven her, she would have seen what her
own crimes were, and how entirely her character was
jeopardised. Such criminal imprudence Mrs. Smith never
knew of; such horrid familiarities Mrs. Brown had
always condemned, and the end might be a warning to HER
daughters. "Captain Osborne, of course, could not marry
a bankrupt's daughter," the Misses Dobbin said. "It was
quite enough to have been swindled by the father. As for
that little Amelia, her folly had really passed all--"
"All what?" Captain Dobbin roared out. "Haven't they
been engaged ever since they were children? Wasn't it
as good as a marriage? Dare any soul on earth breathe a
word against the sweetest, the purest, the tenderest, the
most angelical of young women?"
"La, William, don't be so highty-tighty with US. We're
not men. We can't fight you," Miss Jane said. "We've said
nothing against Miss Sedley: but that her conduct
throughout was MOST IMPRUDENT, not to call it by any
worse name; and that her parents are people who
certainly merit their misfortunes."
"Hadn't you better, now that Miss Sedley is free,
propose for her yourself, William?" Miss Ann asked
sarcastically. "It would be a most eligible family
connection. He! he!"
"I marry her!" Dobbin said, blushing very much, and
talking quick. "If you are so ready, young ladies, to chop
and change, do you suppose that she is? Laugh and sneer
at that angel. She can't hear it; and she's miserable and
unfortunate, and deserves to be laughed at. Go on
joking, Ann. You're the wit of the family, and the others
like to hear it."
"I must tell you again we're not in a barrack, William,"
Miss Ann remarked.
"In a barrack, by Jove--I wish anybody in a barrack
would say what you do," cried out this uproused British
lion. "I should like to hear a man breathe a word against
her, by Jupiter. But men don't talk in this way, Ann: it's
only women, who get together and hiss, and shriek, and
cackle. There, get away--don't begin to cry. I only said
you were a couple of geese," Will Dobbin said, perceiving
Miss Ann's pink eyes were beginning to moisten as
usual. "Well, you're not geese, you're swans--anything
you like, only do, do leave Miss Sedley alone."
Anything like William's infatuation about that silly little
flirting, ogling thing was never known, the mamma
and sisters agreed together in thinking: and they trembled
lest, her engagement being off with Osborne, she should
take up immediately her other admirer and Captain.
In which forebodings these worthy young women no
doubt judged according to the best of their experience; or
rather (for as yet they had had no opportunities of
marrying or of jilting) according to their own notions of
right and wrong.
"It is a mercy, Mamma, that the regiment is ordered
abroad," the girls said. "THIS danger, at any rate, is
spared our brother."
Such, indeed, was the fact; and so it is that the French
Emperor comes in to perform a part in this domestic
comedy of Vanity Fair which we are now playing, and
which would never have been enacted without the
intervention of this august mute personage. It was he
that ruined the Bourbons and Mr. John Sedley. It was
he whose arrival in his capital called up all France in
arms to defend him there; and all Europe to oust him.
While the French nation and army were swearing fidelity
round the eagles in the Champ de Mars, four mighty
European hosts were getting in motion for the great
chasse a l'aigle; and one of these was a British army, of
which two heroes of ours, Captain Dobbin and Captain
Osborne, formed a portion.
The news of Napoleon's escape and landing was
received by the gallant --th with a fiery delight and
enthusiasm, which everybody can understand who knows
that famous corps. From the colonel to the smallest
drummer in the regiment, all were filled with hope and
ambition and patriotic fury; and thanked the French Emperor
as for a personal kindness in coming to disturb the peace
of Europe. Now was the time the --th had so long
panted for, to show their comrades in arms that they
could fight as well as the Peninsular veterans, and that
all the pluck and valour of the --th had not been killed
by the West Indies and the yellow fever. Stubble and
Spooney looked to get their companies without purchase.
Before the end of the campaign (which she resolved
to share), Mrs. Major O'Dowd hoped to write
herself Mrs. Colonel O'Dowd, C.B. Our two friends
(Dobbin and Osborne) were quite as much excited as the
rest: and each in his way--Mr. Dobbin very quietly, Mr.
Osborne very loudly and energetically--was bent upon
doing his duty, and gaining his share of honour and
distinction.
The agitation thrilling through the country and army
in consequence of this news was so great, that private
matters were little heeded: and hence probably George
Osborne, just gazetted to his company, busy with preparations
for the march, which must come inevitably, and
panting for further promotion--was not so much affected
by other incidents which would have interested him at a
more quiet period. He was not, it must be confessed,
very much cast down by good old Mr. Sedley's catastrophe.
He tried his new uniform, which became him
very handsomely, on the day when the first meeting of
the creditors of the unfortunate gentleman took place.
His father told him of the wicked, rascally, shameful
conduct of the bankrupt, reminded him of what he had
said about Amelia, and that their connection was broken
off for ever; and gave him that evening a good sum of
money to pay for the new clothes and epaulets in which
he looked so well. Money was always useful to this free-
handed young fellow, and he took it without many words.
The bills were up in the Sedley house, where he had
passed so many, many happy hours. He could see
them as he walked from home that night (to the Old
Slaughters', where he put up when in town) shining white
in the moon. That comfortable home was shut, then, upon
Amelia and her parents: where had they taken refuge?
The thought of their ruin affected him not a little. He
was very melancholy that night in the coffee-room at
the Slaughters'; and drank a good deal, as his comrades
remarked there.
Dobbin came in presently, cautioned him about the
drink, which he only took, he said, because he was
deuced low; but when his friend began to put to him
clumsy inquiries, and asked him for news in a significant
manner, Osborne declined entering into conversation with
him, avowing, however, that he was devilish disturbed
and unhappy.
Three days afterwards, Dobbin found Osborne in his
room at the barracks--his head on the table, a number
of papers about, the young Captain evidently in a state
of great despondency. "She--she's sent me back some
things I gave her--some damned trinkets. Look here!"
There was a little packet directed in the well-known hand
to Captain George Osborne, and some things lying about
--a ring, a silver knife he had bought, as a boy, for her
at a fair; a gold chain, and a locket with hair in it. "It's
all over," said he, with a groan of sickening remorse.
"Look, Will, you may read it if you like."
There was a little letter of a few lines, to which he
pointed, which said:
My papa has ordered me to return to you these
presents, which you made in happier days to me; and I
am to write to you for the last time. I think, I know you
feel as much as I do the blow which has come upon us.
It is I that absolve you from an engagement which is
impossible in our present misery. I am sure you had no
share in it, or in the cruel suspicions of Mr. Osborne,
which are the hardest of all our griefs to bear. Farewell.
Farewell. I pray God to strengthen me to bear this and
other calamities, and to bless you always. A.
I shall often play upon the piano--your piano. It was
like you to send it.
Dobbin was very soft-hearted. The sight of women
and children in pain always used to melt him. The idea
of Amelia broken-hearted and lonely tore that good-
natured soul with anguish. And he broke out into an
emotion, which anybody who likes may consider unmanly.
He swore that Amelia was an angel, to which Osborne
said aye with all his heart. He, too, had been reviewing
the history of their lives--and had seen her from her
