Vanity Fair (105 page)

The men, as usual, liked her artless kindness and simple refined
demeanour. The gallant young Indian dandies at home on furlough—
immense dandies these—chained and moustached—driving in tearing
cabs, the pillars of the theatres, living at West End hotels—
nevertheless admired Mrs. Osborne, liked to bow to her carriage in
the park, and to be admitted to have the honour of paying her a
morning visit. Swankey of the Body Guard himself, that dangerous
youth, and the greatest buck of all the Indian army now on leave,
was one day discovered by Major Dobbin tete-a-tete with Amelia, and
describing the sport of pig-sticking to her with great humour and
eloquence; and he spoke afterwards of a d—d king's officer that's
always hanging about the house—a long, thin, queer-looking, oldish
fellow—a dry fellow though, that took the shine out of a man in the
talking line.

Had the Major possessed a little more personal vanity he would have
been jealous of so dangerous a young buck as that fascinating Bengal
Captain. But Dobbin was of too simple and generous a nature to have
any doubts about Amelia. He was glad that the young men should pay
her respect, and that others should admire her. Ever since her
womanhood almost, had she not been persecuted and undervalued? It
pleased him to see how kindness bought out her good qualities and
how her spirits gently rose with her prosperity. Any person who
appreciated her paid a compliment to the Major's good judgement—
that is, if a man may be said to have good judgement who is under
the influence of Love's delusion.

After Jos went to Court, which we may be sure he did as a loyal
subject of his Sovereign (showing himself in his full court suit at
the Club, whither Dobbin came to fetch him in a very shabby old
uniform) he who had always been a staunch Loyalist and admirer of
George IV, became such a tremendous Tory and pillar of the State
that he was for having Amelia to go to a Drawing-room, too. He
somehow had worked himself up to believe that he was implicated in
the maintenance of the public welfare and that the Sovereign would
not be happy unless Jos Sedley and his family appeared to rally
round him at St. James's.

Emmy laughed. "Shall I wear the family diamonds, Jos?" she said.

"I wish you would let me buy you some," thought the Major. "I
should like to see any that were too good for you."

In Which Two Lights are Put Out

There came a day when the round of decorous pleasures and solemn
gaieties in which Mr. Jos Sedley's family indulged was interrupted
by an event which happens in most houses. As you ascend the
staircase of your house from the drawing towards the bedroom floors,
you may have remarked a little arch in the wall right before you,
which at once gives light to the stair which leads from the second
story to the third (where the nursery and servants' chambers
commonly are) and serves for another purpose of utility, of which
the undertaker's men can give you a notion. They rest the coffins
upon that arch, or pass them through it so as not to disturb in any
unseemly manner the cold tenant slumbering within the black ark.

That second-floor arch in a London house, looking up and down the
well of the staircase and commanding the main thoroughfare by which
the inhabitants are passing; by which cook lurks down before
daylight to scour her pots and pans in the kitchen; by which young
master stealthily ascends, having left his boots in the hall, and
let himself in after dawn from a jolly night at the Club; down which
miss comes rustling in fresh ribbons and spreading muslins,
brilliant and beautiful, and prepared for conquest and the ball; or
Master Tommy slides, preferring the banisters for a mode of
conveyance, and disdaining danger and the stair; down which the
mother is fondly carried smiling in her strong husband's arms, as he
steps steadily step by step, and followed by the monthly nurse, on
the day when the medical man has pronounced that the charming
patient may go downstairs; up which John lurks to bed, yawning, with
a sputtering tallow candle, and to gather up before sunrise the
boots which are awaiting him in the passages—that stair, up or down
which babies are carried, old people are helped, guests are
marshalled to the ball, the parson walks to the christening, the
doctor to the sick-room, and the undertaker's men to the upper
floor—what a memento of Life, Death, and Vanity it is—that arch
and stair—if you choose to consider it, and sit on the landing,
looking up and down the well! The doctor will come up to us too for
the last time there, my friend in motley. The nurse will look in at
the curtains, and you take no notice—and then she will fling open
the windows for a little and let in the air. Then they will pull
down all the front blinds of the house and live in the back rooms—
then they will send for the lawyer and other men in black, &c. Your
comedy and mine will have been played then, and we shall be removed,
oh, how far, from the trumpets, and the shouting, and the posture-
making. If we are gentlefolks they will put hatchments over our
late domicile, with gilt cherubim, and mottoes stating that there is
"Quiet in Heaven." Your son will new furnish the house, or perhaps
let it, and go into a more modern quarter; your name will be among
the "Members Deceased" in the lists of your clubs next year.
However much you may be mourned, your widow will like to have her
weeds neatly made—the cook will send or come up to ask about
dinner—the survivor will soon bear to look at your picture over the
mantelpiece, which will presently be deposed from the place of
honour, to make way for the portrait of the son who reigns.

Which of the dead are most tenderly and passionately deplored? Those
who love the survivors the least, I believe. The death of a child
occasions a passion of grief and frantic tears, such as your end,
brother reader, will never inspire. The death of an infant which
scarce knew you, which a week's absence from you would have caused
to forget you, will strike you down more than the loss of your
closest friend, or your first-born son—a man grown like yourself,
with children of his own. We may be harsh and stern with Judah and
Simeon—our love and pity gush out for Benjamin, the little one.
And if you are old, as some reader of this may be or shall be old
and rich, or old and poor—you may one day be thinking for yourself—
"These people are very good round about me, but they won't grieve
too much when I am gone. I am very rich, and they want my
inheritance—or very poor, and they are tired of supporting me."

The period of mourning for Mrs. Sedley's death was only just
concluded, and Jos scarcely had had time to cast off his black and
appear in the splendid waistcoats which he loved, when it became
evident to those about Mr. Sedley that another event was at hand,
and that the old man was about to go seek for his wife in the dark
land whither she had preceded him. "The state of my father's
health," Jos Sedley solemnly remarked at the Club, "prevents me from
giving any LARGE parties this season: but if you will come in
quietly at half-past six, Chutney, my boy, and fake a homely dinner
with one or two of the old set—I shall be always glad to see you."
So Jos and his acquaintances dined and drank their claret among
themselves in silence, whilst the sands of life were running out in
the old man's glass upstairs. The velvet-footed butler brought them
their wine, and they composed themselves to a rubber after dinner,
at which Major Dobbin would sometimes come and take a hand; and Mrs.
Osborne would occasionally descend, when her patient above was
settled for the night, and had commenced one of those lightly
troubled slumbers which visit the pillow of old age.

The old man clung to his daughter during this sickness. He would
take his broths and medicines from scarcely any other hand. To tend
him became almost the sole business of her life. Her bed was placed
close by the door which opened into his chamber, and she was alive
at the slightest noise or disturbance from the couch of the
querulous invalid. Though, to do him justice, he lay awake many an
hour, silent and without stirring, unwilling to awaken his kind and
vigilant nurse.

He loved his daughter with more fondness now, perhaps, than ever he
had done since the days of her childhood. In the discharge of
gentle offices and kind filial duties, this simple creature shone
most especially. "She walks into the room as silently as a
sunbeam," Mr. Dobbin thought as he saw her passing in and out from
her father's room, a cheerful sweetness lighting up her face as she
moved to and fro, graceful and noiseless. When women are brooding
over their children, or busied in a sick-room, who has not seen in
their faces those sweet angelic beams of love and pity?

A secret feud of some years' standing was thus healed, and with a
tacit reconciliation. In these last hours, and touched by her love
and goodness, the old man forgot all his grief against her, and
wrongs which he and his wife had many a long night debated: how she
had given up everything for her boy; how she was careless of her
parents in their old age and misfortune, and only thought of the
child; how absurdly and foolishly, impiously indeed, she took on
when George was removed from her. Old Sedley forgot these charges
as he was making up his last account, and did justice to the gentle
and uncomplaining little martyr. One night when she stole into his
room, she found him awake, when the broken old man made his
confession. "Oh, Emmy, I've been thinking we were very unkind and
unjust to you," he said and put out his cold and feeble hand to her.
She knelt down and prayed by his bedside, as he did too, having
still hold of her hand. When our turn comes, friend, may we have
such company in our prayers!

Perhaps as he was lying awake then, his life may have passed before
him—his early hopeful struggles, his manly successes and
prosperity, his downfall in his declining years, and his present
helpless condition—no chance of revenge against Fortune, which had
had the better of him—neither name nor money to bequeath—a spent-
out, bootless life of defeat and disappointment, and the end here!
Which, I wonder, brother reader, is the better lot, to die
prosperous and famous, or poor and disappointed? To have, and to be
forced to yield; or to sink out of life, having played and lost the
game? That must be a strange feeling, when a day of our life comes
and we say, "To-morrow, success or failure won't matter much, and
the sun will rise, and all the myriads of mankind go to their work
or their pleasure as usual, but I shall be out of the turmoil."

So there came one morning and sunrise when all the world got up and
set about its various works and pleasures, with the exception of old
John Sedley, who was not to fight with fortune, or to hope or scheme
any more, but to go and take up a quiet and utterly unknown
residence in a churchyard at Brompton by the side of his old wife.

Major Dobbin, Jos, and Georgy followed his remains to the grave, in
a black cloth coach. Jos came on purpose from the Star and Garter
at Richmond, whither he retreated after the deplorable event. He
did not care to remain in the house, with the—under the
circumstances, you understand. But Emmy stayed and did her duty as
usual. She was bowed down by no especial grief, and rather solemn
than sorrowful. She prayed that her own end might be as calm and
painless, and thought with trust and reverence of the words which
she had heard from her father during his illness, indicative of his
faith, his resignation, and his future hope.

Yes, I think that will be the better ending of the two, after all.
Suppose you are particularly rich and well-to-do and say on that
last day, "I am very rich; I am tolerably well known; I have lived
all my life in the best society, and thank Heaven, come of a most
respectable family. I have served my King and country with honour.
I was in Parliament for several years, where, I may say, my speeches
were listened to and pretty well received. I don't owe any man a
shilling: on the contrary, I lent my old college friend, Jack
Lazarus, fifty pounds, for which my executors will not press him. I
leave my daughters with ten thousand pounds apiece—very good
portions for girls; I bequeath my plate and furniture, my house in
Baker Street, with a handsome jointure, to my widow for her life;
and my landed property, besides money in the funds, and my cellar of
well-selected wine in Baker Street, to my son. I leave twenty pound
a year to my valet; and I defy any man after I have gone to find
anything against my character." Or suppose, on the other hand, your
swan sings quite a different sort of dirge and you say, "I am a poor
blighted, disappointed old fellow, and have made an utter failure
through life. I was not endowed either with brains or with good
fortune, and confess that I have committed a hundred mistakes and
blunders. I own to having forgotten my duty many a time. I can't
pay what I owe. On my last bed I lie utterly helpless and humble,
and I pray forgiveness for my weakness and throw myself, with a
contrite heart, at the feet of the Divine Mercy." Which of these two
speeches, think you, would be the best oration for your own funeral?
Old Sedley made the last; and in that humble frame of mind, and
holding by the hand of his daughter, life and disappointment and
vanity sank away from under him.

"You see," said old Osborne to George, "what comes of merit, and
industry, and judicious speculations, and that. Look at me and my
banker's account. Look at your poor Grandfather Sedley and his
failure. And yet he was a better man than I was, this day twenty
years—a better man, I should say, by ten thousand pound."

Beyond these people and Mr. Clapp's family, who came over from
Brompton to pay a visit of condolence, not a single soul alive ever
cared a penny piece about old John Sedley, or remembered the
existence of such a person.