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Vanity Fair

W >> William Makepeace Thackeray >> Vanity Fair




Changed into a man of this sort, Dobbin found the once florid,
jovial, and prosperous John Sedley. His coat, that used to be so
glossy and trim, was white at the seams, and the buttons showed the
copper. His face had fallen in, and was unshorn; his frill and
neckcloth hung limp under his bagging waistcoat. When he used to
treat the boys in old days at a coffee-house, he would shout and
laugh louder than anybody there, and have all the waiters skipping
round him; it was quite painful to see how humble and civil he was
to John of the Tapioca, a blear-eyed old attendant in dingy
stockings and cracked pumps, whose business it was to serve glasses
of wafers, and bumpers of ink in pewter, and slices of paper to the
frequenters of this dreary house of entertainment, where nothing
else seemed to be consumed. As for William Dobbin, whom he had
tipped repeatedly in his youth, and who had been the old gentleman's
butt on a thousand occasions, old Sedley gave his hand to him in a
very hesitating humble manner now, and called him "Sir." A feeling
of shame and remorse took possession of William Dobbin as the broken
old man so received and addressed him, as if he himself had been
somehow guilty of the misfortunes which had brought Sedley so low.

"I am very glad to see you, Captain Dobbin, sir," says he, after a
skulking look or two at his visitor (whose lanky figure and military
appearance caused some excitement likewise to twinkle in the blear
eyes of the waiter in the cracked dancing pumps, and awakened the
old lady in black, who dozed among the mouldy old coffee-cups in the
bar). "How is the worthy alderman, and my lady, your excellent
mother, sir?" He looked round at the waiter as he said, "My lady,"
as much as to say, "Hark ye, John, I have friends still, and persons
of rank and reputation, too." "Are you come to do anything in my
way, sir? My young friends Dale and Spiggot do all my business for
me now, until my new offices are ready; for I'm only here
temporarily, you know, Captain. What can we do for you. sir? Will
you like to take anything?"

Dobbin, with a great deal of hesitation and stuttering, protested
that he was not in the least hungry or thirsty; that he had no
business to transact; that he only came to ask if Mr. Sedley was
well, and to shake hands with an old friend; and, he added, with a
desperate perversion of truth, "My mother is very well--that is,
she's been very unwell, and is only waiting for the first fine day
to go out and call upon Mrs. Sedley. How is Mrs. Sedley, sir? I
hope she's quite well." And here he paused, reflecting on his own
consummate hypocrisy; for the day was as fine, and the sunshine as
bright as it ever is in Coffin Court, where the Tapioca Coffee-house
is situated: and Mr. Dobbin remembered that he had seen Mrs. Sedley
himself only an hour before, having driven Osborne down to Fulham in
his gig, and left him there tete-a-tete with Miss Amelia.

"My wife will be very happy to see her ladyship," Sedley replied,
pulling out his papers. "I've a very kind letter here from your
father, sir, and beg my respectful compliments to him. Lady D. will
find us in rather a smaller house than we were accustomed to receive
our friends in; but it's snug, and the change of air does good to my
daughter, who was suffering in town rather--you remember little
Emmy, sir?--yes, suffering a good deal." The old gentleman's eyes
were wandering as he spoke, and he was thinking of something else,
as he sate thrumming on his papers and fumbling at the worn red
tape.

"You're a military man," he went on; "I ask you, Bill Dobbin, could
any man ever have speculated upon the return of that Corsican
scoundrel from Elba? When the allied sovereigns were here last
year, and we gave 'em that dinner in the City, sir, and we saw the
Temple of Concord, and the fireworks, and the Chinese bridge in St.
James's Park, could any sensible man suppose that peace wasn't
really concluded, after we'd actually sung Te Deum for it, sir? I
ask you, William, could I suppose that the Emperor of Austria was a
damned traitor--a traitor, and nothing more? I don't mince words--a
double-faced infernal traitor and schemer, who meant to have his
son-in-law back all along. And I say that the escape of Boney from
Elba was a damned imposition and plot, sir, in which half the powers
of Europe were concerned, to bring the funds down, and to ruin this
country. That's why I'm here, William. That's why my name's in the
Gazette. Why, sir?--because I trusted the Emperor of Russia and the
Prince Regent. Look here. Look at my papers. Look what the funds
were on the 1st of March--what the French fives were when I bought
for the count. And what they're at now. There was collusion, sir,
or that villain never would have escaped. Where was the English
Commissioner who allowed him to get away? He ought to be shot, sir
--brought to a court-martial, and shot, by Jove."

"We're going to hunt Boney out, sir," Dobbin said, rather alarmed at
the fury of the old man, the veins of whose forehead began to swell,
and who sate drumming his papers with his clenched fist. "We are
going to hunt him out, sir--the Duke's in Belgium already, and we
expect marching orders every day."

"Give him no quarter. Bring back the villain's head, sir. Shoot the
coward down, sir," Sedley roared. "I'd enlist myself, by--; but I'm
a broken old man--ruined by that damned scoundrel--and by a parcel
of swindling thieves in this country whom I made, sir, and who are
rolling in their carriages now," he added, with a break in his
voice.

Dobbin was not a little affected by the sight of this once kind old
friend, crazed almost with misfortune and raving with senile anger.
Pity the fallen gentleman: you to whom money and fair repute are the
chiefest good; and so, surely, are they in Vanity Fair.

"Yes," he continued, "there are some vipers that you warm, and they
sting you afterwards. There are some beggars that you put on
horseback, and they're the first to ride you down. You know whom I
mean, William Dobbin, my boy. I mean a purse-proud villain in
Russell Square, whom I knew without a shilling, and whom I pray and
hope to see a beggar as he was when I befriended him."

"I have heard something of this, sir, from my friend George," Dobbin
said, anxious to come to his point. "The quarrel between you and
his father has cut him up a great deal, sir. Indeed, I'm the bearer
of a message from him."

"O, THAT'S your errand, is it?" cried the old man, jumping up.
"What! perhaps he condoles with me, does he? Very kind of him, the
stiff-backed prig, with his dandified airs and West End swagger.
He's hankering about my house, is he still? If my son had the
courage of a man, he'd shoot him. He's as big a villain as his
father. I won't have his name mentioned in my house. I curse the
day that ever I let him into it; and I'd rather see my daughter dead
at my feet than married to him."

"His father's harshness is not George's fault, sir. Your daughter's
love for him is as much your doing as his. Who are you, that you
are to play with two young people's affections and break their
hearts at your will?"

"Recollect it's not his father that breaks the match off," old
Sedley cried out. "It's I that forbid it. That family and mine are
separated for ever. I'm fallen low, but not so low as that: no, no.
And so you may tell the whole race--son, and father and sisters, and
all."

"It's my belief, sir, that you have not the power or the right to
separate those two," Dobbin answered in a low voice; "and that if
you don't give your daughter your consent it will be her duty to
marry without it. There's no reason she should die or live
miserably because you are wrong-headed. To my thinking, she's just
as much married as if the banns had been read in all the churches in
London. And what better answer can there be to Osborne's charges
against you, as charges there are, than that his son claims to enter
your family and marry your daughter?"

A light of something like satisfaction seemed to break over old
Sedley as this point was put to him: but he still persisted that
with his consent the marriage between Amelia and George should never
take place.

"We must do it without," Dobbin said, smiling, and told Mr. Sedley,
as he had told Mrs. Sedley in the day, before, the story of
Rebecca's elopement with Captain Crawley. It evidently amused the
old gentleman. "You're terrible fellows, you Captains," said he,
tying up his papers; and his face wore something like a smile upon
it, to the astonishment of the blear-eyed waiter who now entered,
and had never seen such an expression upon Sedley's countenance
since he had used the dismal coffee-house.

The idea of hitting his enemy Osborne such a blow soothed, perhaps,
the old gentleman: and, their colloquy presently ending, he and
Dobbin parted pretty good friends.

"My sisters say she has diamonds as big as pigeons' eggs," George
said, laughing. "How they must set off her complexion! A perfect
illumination it must be when her jewels are on her neck. Her jet-
black hair is as curly as Sambo's. I dare say she wore a nose ring
when she went to court; and with a plume of feathers in her top-knot
she would look a perfect Belle Sauvage."

George, in conversation with Amelia, was rallying the appearance of
a young lady of whom his father and sisters had lately made the
acquaintance, and who was an object of vast respect to the Russell
Square family. She was reported to have I don't know how many
plantations in the West Indies; a deal of money in the funds; and
three stars to her name in the East India stockholders' list. She
had a mansion in Surrey, and a house in Portland Place. The name of
the rich West India heiress had been mentioned with applause in the
Morning Post. Mrs. Haggistoun, Colonel Haggistoun's widow, her
relative, "chaperoned" her, and kept her house. She was just from
school, where she had completed her education, and George and his
sisters had met her at an evening party at old Hulker's house,
Devonshire Place (Hulker, Bullock, and Co. were long the
correspondents of her house in the West Indies), and the girls had
made the most cordial advances to her, which the heiress had
received with great good humour. An orphan in her position--with her
money--so interesting! the Misses Osborne said. They were full of
their new friend when they returned from the Hulker ball to Miss
Wirt, their companion; they had made arrangements for continually
meeting, and had the carriage and drove to see her the very next
day. Mrs. Haggistoun, Colonel Haggistoun's widow, a relation of
Lord Binkie, and always talking of him, struck the dear
unsophisticated girls as rather haughty, and too much inclined to
talk about her great relations: but Rhoda was everything they could
wish--the frankest, kindest, most agreeable creature--wanting a
little polish, but so good-natured. The girls Christian-named each
other at once.

"You should have seen her dress for court, Emmy," Osborne cried,
laughing. "She came to my sisters to show it off, before she was
presented in state by my Lady Binkie, the Haggistoun's kinswoman.
She's related to every one, that Haggistoun. Her diamonds blazed
out like Vauxhall on the night we were there. (Do you remember
Vauxhall, Emmy, and Jos singing to his dearest diddle diddle
darling?) Diamonds and mahogany, my dear! think what an
advantageous contrast--and the white feathers in her hair--I mean in
her wool. She had earrings like chandeliers; you might have lighted
'em up, by Jove--and a yellow satin train that streeled after her
like the tail of a cornet."

"How old is she?" asked Emmy, to whom George was rattling away
regarding this dark paragon, on the morning of their reunion--
rattling away as no other man in the world surely could.

"Why the Black Princess, though she has only just left school, must
be two or three and twenty. And you should see the hand she writes!
Mrs. Colonel Haggistoun usually writes her letters, but in a moment
of confidence, she put pen to paper for my sisters; she spelt satin
satting, and Saint James's, Saint Jams."

"Why, surely it must be Miss Swartz, the parlour boarder," Emmy
said, remembering that good-natured young mulatto girl, who had been
so hysterically affected when Amelia left Miss Pinkerton's academy.

"The very name," George said. "Her father was a German Jew--a
slave-owner they say--connected with the Cannibal Islands in some
way or other. He died last year, and Miss Pinkerton has finished
her education. She can play two pieces on the piano; she knows
three songs; she can write when Mrs. Haggistoun is by to spell for
her; and Jane and Maria already have got to love her as a sister."

"I wish they would have loved me," said Emmy, wistfully. "They were
always very cold to me."

"My dear child, they would have loved you if you had had two hundred
thousand pounds," George replied. "That is the way in which they
have been brought up. Ours is a ready-money society. We live among
bankers and City big-wigs, and be hanged to them, and every man, as
he talks to you, is jingling his guineas in his pocket. There is
that jackass Fred Bullock is going to marry Maria--there's Goldmore,
the East India Director, there's Dipley, in the tallow trade--OUR
trade," George said, with an uneasy laugh and a blush. "Curse the
whole pack of money-grubbing vulgarians! I fall asleep at their
great heavy dinners. I feel ashamed in my father's great stupid
parties. I've been accustomed to live with gentlemen, and men of
the world and fashion, Emmy, not with a parcel of turtle-fed
tradesmen. Dear little woman, you are the only person of our set
who ever looked, or thought, or spoke like a lady: and you do it
because you're an angel and can't help it. Don't remonstrate. You
are the only lady. Didn't Miss Crawley remark it, who has lived in
the best company in Europe? And as for Crawley, of the Life Guards,
hang it, he's a fine fellow: and I like him for marrying the girl he
had chosen."

Amelia admired Mr. Crawley very much, too, for this; and trusted
Rebecca would be happy with him, and hoped (with a laugh) Jos would
be consoled. And so the pair went on prattling, as in quite early
days. Amelia's confidence being perfectly restored to her, though
she expressed a great deal of pretty jealousy about Miss Swartz, and
professed to be dreadfully frightened--like a hypocrite as she was--
lest George should forget her for the heiress and her money and her
estates in Saint Kitt's. But the fact is, she was a great deal too
happy to have fears or doubts or misgivings of any sort: and having
George at her side again, was not afraid of any heiress or beauty,
or indeed of any sort of danger.

When Captain Dobbin came back in the afternoon to these people--
which he did with a great deal of sympathy for them--it did his
heart good to see how Amelia had grown young again--how she laughed,
and chirped, and sang familiar old songs at the piano, which were
only interrupted by the bell from without proclaiming Mr. Sedley's
return from the City, before whom George received a signal to
retreat.

Beyond the first smile of recognition--and even that was an
hypocrisy, for she thought his arrival rather provoking--Miss Sedley
did not once notice Dobbin during his visit. But he was content, so
that he saw her happy; and thankful to have been the means of making
her so.



CHAPTER XXI

A Quarrel About an Heiress


Love may be felt for any young lady endowed with such qualities as
Miss Swartz possessed; and a great dream of ambition entered into
old Mr. Osborne's soul, which she was to realize. He encouraged,
with the utmost enthusiasm and friendliness, his daughters' amiable
attachment to the young heiress, and protested that it gave him the
sincerest pleasure as a father to see the love of his girls so well
disposed.

"You won't find," he would say to Miss Rhoda, "that splendour and
rank to which you are accustomed at the West End, my dear Miss, at
our humble mansion in Russell Square. My daughters are plain,
disinterested girls, but their hearts are in the right place, and
they've conceived an attachment for you which does them honour--I
say, which does them honour. I'm a plain, simple, humble British
merchant--an honest one, as my respected friends Hulker and Bullock
will vouch, who were the correspondents of your late lamented
father. You'll find us a united, simple, happy, and I think I may
say respected, family--a plain table, a plain people, but a warm
welcome, my dear Miss Rhoda--Rhoda, let me say, for my heart warms
to you, it does really. I'm a frank man, and I like you. A glass
of Champagne! Hicks, Champagne to Miss Swartz."

There is little doubt that old Osborne believed all he said, and
that the girls were quite earnest in their protestations of
affection for Miss Swartz. People in Vanity Fair fasten on to rich
folks quite naturally. If the simplest people are disposed to look
not a little kindly on great Prosperity (for I defy any member of
the British public to say that the notion of Wealth has not
something awful and pleasing to him; and you, if you are told that
the man next you at dinner has got half a million, not to look at
him with a certain interest)--if the simple look benevolently on
money, how much more do your old worldlings regard it! Their
affections rush out to meet and welcome money. Their kind
sentiments awaken spontaneously towards the interesting possessors
of it. I know some respectable people who don't consider themselves
at liberty to indulge in friendship for any individual who has not a
certain competency, or place in society. They give a loose to their
feelings on proper occasions. And the proof is, that the major part
of the Osborne family, who had not, in fifteen years, been able to
get up a hearty regard for Amelia Sedley, became as fond of Miss
Swartz in the course of a single evening as the most romantic
advocate of friendship at first sight could desire.

What a match for George she'd be (the sisters and Miss Wirt agreed),
and how much better than that insignificant little Amelia! Such a
dashing young fellow as he is, with his good looks, rank, and
accomplishments, would be the very husband for her. Visions of
balls in Portland Place, presentations at Court, and introductions
to half the peerage, filled the minds of the young ladies; who
talked of nothing but George and his grand acquaintances to their
beloved new friend.

Old Osborne thought she would be a great match, too, for his son.
He should leave the army; he should go into Parliament; he should
cut a figure in the fashion and in the state. His blood boiled with
honest British exultation, as he saw the name of Osborne ennobled in
the person of his son, and thought that he might be the progenitor
of a glorious line of baronets. He worked in the City and on
'Change, until he knew everything relating to the fortune of the
heiress, how her money was placed, and where her estates lay. Young
Fred Bullock, one of his chief informants, would have liked to make
a bid for her himself (it was so the young banker expressed it),
only he was booked to Maria Osborne. But not being able to secure
her as a wife, the disinterested Fred quite approved of her as a
sister-in-law. "Let George cut in directly and win her," was his
advice. "Strike while the iron's hot, you know--while she's fresh
to the town: in a few weeks some d--- fellow from the West End will
come in with a title and a rotten rent-roll and cut all us City men
out, as Lord Fitzrufus did last year with Miss Grogram, who was
actually engaged to Podder, of Podder & Brown's. The sooner it is
done the better, Mr. Osborne; them's my sentiments," the wag said;
though, when Osborne had left the bank parlour, Mr. Bullock
remembered Amelia, and what a pretty girl she was, and how attached
to George Osborne; and he gave up at least ten seconds of his
valuable time to regretting the misfortune which had befallen that
unlucky young woman.

While thus George Osborne's good feelings, and his good friend and
genius, Dobbin, were carrying back the truant to Amelia's feet,
George's parent and sisters were arranging this splendid match for
him, which they never dreamed he would resist.

When the elder Osborne gave what he called "a hint," there was no
possibility for the most obtuse to mistake his meaning. He called
kicking a footman downstairs a hint to the latter to leave his
service. With his usual frankness and delicacy he told Mrs.
Haggistoun that he would give her a cheque for five thousand pounds
on the day his son was married to her ward; and called that proposal
a hint, and considered it a very dexterous piece of diplomacy. He
gave George finally such another hint regarding the heiress; and
ordered him to marry her out of hand, as he would have ordered his
butler to draw a cork, or his clerk to write a letter.

This imperative hint disturbed George a good deal. He was in the
very first enthusiasm and delight of his second courtship of Amelia,
which was inexpressibly sweet to him. The contrast of her manners
and appearance with those of the heiress, made the idea of a union
with the latter appear doubly ludicrous and odious. Carriages and
opera-boxes, thought he; fancy being seen in them by the side of
such a mahogany charmer as that! Add to all that the junior Osborne
was quite as obstinate as the senior: when he wanted a thing, quite
as firm in his resolution to get it; and quite as violent when
angered, as his father in his most stern moments.

On the first day when his father formally gave him the hint that he
was to place his affections at Miss Swartz's feet, George temporised
with the old gentleman. "You should have thought of the matter
sooner, sir," he said. "It can't be done now, when we're expecting
every day to go on foreign service. Wait till my return, if I do
return"; and then he represented, that the time when the regiment
was daily expecting to quit England, was exceedingly ill-chosen:
that the few days or weeks during which they were still to remain at
home, must be devoted to business and not to love-making: time
enough for that when he came home with his majority; "for, I promise
you," said he, with a satisfied air, "that one way or other you
shall read the name of George Osborne in the Gazette."

The father's reply to this was founded upon the information which he
had got in the City: that the West End chaps would infallibly catch
hold of the heiress if any delay took place: that if he didn't marry
Miss S., he might at least have an engagement in writing, to come
into effect when he returned to England; and that a man who could
get ten thousand a year by staying at home, was a fool to risk his
life abroad.

"So that you would have me shown up as a coward, sir, and our name
dishonoured for the sake of Miss Swartz's money," George interposed.

This remark staggered the old gentleman; but as he had to reply to
it, and as his mind was nevertheless made up, he said, "You will
dine here to-morrow, sir, and every day Miss Swartz comes, you will
be here to pay your respects to her. If you want for money, call
upon Mr. Chopper." Thus a new obstacle was in George's way, to
interfere with his plans regarding Amelia; and about which he and
Dobbin had more than one confidential consultation. His friend's
opinion respecting the line of conduct which he ought to pursue, we
know already. And as for Osborne, when he was once bent on a thing,
a fresh obstacle or two only rendered him the more resolute.

The dark object of the conspiracy into which the chiefs of the
Osborne family had entered, was quite ignorant of all their plans
regarding her (which, strange to say, her friend and chaperon did
not divulge), and, taking all the young ladies' flattery for genuine
sentiment, and being, as we have before had occasion to show, of a
very warm and impetuous nature, responded to their affection with
quite a tropical ardour. And if the truth may be told, I dare say
that she too had some selfish attraction in the Russell Square
house; and in a word, thought George Osborne a very nice young man.
His whiskers had made an impression upon her, on the very first
night she beheld them at the ball at Messrs. Hulkers; and, as we
know, she was not the first woman who had been charmed by them.
George had an air at once swaggering and melancholy, languid and
fierce. He looked like a man who had passions, secrets, and private
harrowing griefs and adventures. His voice was rich and deep. He
would say it was a warm evening, or ask his partner to take an ice,
with a tone as sad and confidential as if he were breaking her
mother's death to her, or preluding a declaration of love. He
trampled over all the young bucks of his father's circle, and was
the hero among those third-rate men. Some few sneered at him and
hated him. Some, like Dobbin, fanatically admired him. And his
whiskers had begun to do their work, and to curl themselves round
the affections of Miss Swartz.

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