Vanity Fair (9 page)

His history since he left school, until the very moment when we have
the pleasure of meeting him again, although not fully narrated, has
yet, I think, been indicated sufficiently for an ingenious reader by
the conversation in the last page. Dobbin, the despised grocer, was
Alderman Dobbin—Alderman Dobbin was Colonel of the City Light
Horse, then burning with military ardour to resist the French
Invasion. Colonel Dobbin's corps, in which old Mr. Osborne himself
was but an indifferent corporal, had been reviewed by the Sovereign
and the Duke of York; and the colonel and alderman had been
knighted. His son had entered the army: and young Osborne followed
presently in the same regiment. They had served in the West Indies
and in Canada. Their regiment had just come home, and the
attachment of Dobbin to George Osborne was as warm and generous now
as it had been when the two were schoolboys.

So these worthy people sat down to dinner presently. They talked
about war and glory, and Boney and Lord Wellington, and the last
Gazette. In those famous days every gazette had a victory in it,
and the two gallant young men longed to see their own names in the
glorious list, and cursed their unlucky fate to belong to a regiment
which had been away from the chances of honour. Miss Sharp kindled
with this exciting talk, but Miss Sedley trembled and grew quite
faint as she heard it. Mr. Jos told several of his tiger-hunting
stories, finished the one about Miss Cutler and Lance the surgeon;
helped Rebecca to everything on the table, and himself gobbled and
drank a great deal.

He sprang to open the door for the ladies, when they retired, with
the most killing grace—and coming back to the table, filled himself
bumper after bumper of claret, which he swallowed with nervous
rapidity.

"He's priming himself," Osborne whispered to Dobbin, and at length
the hour and the carriage arrived for Vauxhall.

Vauxhall

I know that the tune I am piping is a very mild one (although there
are some terrific chapters coming presently), and must beg the good-
natured reader to remember that we are only discoursing at present
about a stockbroker's family in Russell Square, who are taking
walks, or luncheon, or dinner, or talking and making love as people
do in common life, and without a single passionate and wonderful
incident to mark the progress of their loves. The argument stands
thus—Osborne, in love with Amelia, has asked an old friend to
dinner and to Vauxhall—Jos Sedley is in love with Rebecca. Will he
marry her? That is the great subject now in hand.

We might have treated this subject in the genteel, or in the
romantic, or in the facetious manner. Suppose we had laid the scene
in Grosvenor Square, with the very same adventures—would not some
people have listened? Suppose we had shown how Lord Joseph Sedley
fell in love, and the Marquis of Osborne became attached to Lady
Amelia, with the full consent of the Duke, her noble father: or
instead of the supremely genteel, suppose we had resorted to the
entirely low, and described what was going on in Mr. Sedley's
kitchen—how black Sambo was in love with the cook (as indeed he
was), and how he fought a battle with the coachman in her behalf;
how the knife-boy was caught stealing a cold shoulder of mutton, and
Miss Sedley's new femme de chambre refused to go to bed without a
wax candle; such incidents might be made to provoke much delightful
laughter, and be supposed to represent scenes of "life." Or if, on
the contrary, we had taken a fancy for the terrible, and made the
lover of the new femme de chambre a professional burglar, who bursts
into the house with his band, slaughters black Sambo at the feet of
his master, and carries off Amelia in her night-dress, not to be let
loose again till the third volume, we should easily have constructed
a tale of thrilling interest, through the fiery chapters of which
the reader should hurry, panting. But my readers must hope for no
such romance, only a homely story, and must be content with a
chapter about Vauxhall, which is so short that it scarce deserves to
be called a chapter at all. And yet it is a chapter, and a very
important one too. Are not there little chapters in everybody's
life, that seem to be nothing, and yet affect all the rest of the
history?

Let us then step into the coach with the Russell Square party, and
be off to the Gardens. There is barely room between Jos and Miss
Sharp, who are on the front seat. Mr. Osborne sitting bodkin
opposite, between Captain Dobbin and Amelia.

Every soul in the coach agreed that on that night Jos would propose
to make Rebecca Sharp Mrs. Sedley. The parents at home had
acquiesced in the arrangement, though, between ourselves, old Mr.
Sedley had a feeling very much akin to contempt for his son. He
said he was vain, selfish, lazy, and effeminate. He could not
endure his airs as a man of fashion, and laughed heartily at his
pompous braggadocio stories. "I shall leave the fellow half my
property," he said; "and he will have, besides, plenty of his own;
but as I am perfectly sure that if you, and I, and his sister were
to die to-morrow, he would say 'Good Gad!' and eat his dinner just
as well as usual, I am not going to make myself anxious about him.
Let him marry whom he likes. It's no affair of mine."

Amelia, on the other hand, as became a young woman of her prudence
and temperament, was quite enthusiastic for the match. Once or
twice Jos had been on the point of saying something very important
to her, to which she was most willing to lend an ear, but the fat
fellow could not be brought to unbosom himself of his great secret,
and very much to his sister's disappointment he only rid himself of
a large sigh and turned away.

This mystery served to keep Amelia's gentle bosom in a perpetual
flutter of excitement. If she did not speak with Rebecca on the
tender subject, she compensated herself with long and intimate
conversations with Mrs. Blenkinsop, the housekeeper, who dropped
some hints to the lady's-maid, who may have cursorily mentioned the
matter to the cook, who carried the news, I have no doubt, to all
the tradesmen, so that Mr. Jos's marriage was now talked of by a
very considerable number of persons in the Russell Square world.

It was, of course, Mrs. Sedley's opinion that her son would demean
himself by a marriage with an artist's daughter. "But, lor',
Ma'am," ejaculated Mrs. Blenkinsop, "we was only grocers when we
married Mr. S., who was a stock-broker's clerk, and we hadn't five
hundred pounds among us, and we're rich enough now." And Amelia was
entirely of this opinion, to which, gradually, the good-natured Mrs.
Sedley was brought.

Mr. Sedley was neutral. "Let Jos marry whom he likes," he said;
"it's no affair of mine. This girl has no fortune; no more had Mrs.
Sedley. She seems good-humoured and clever, and will keep him in
order, perhaps. Better she, my dear, than a black Mrs. Sedley, and
a dozen of mahogany grandchildren."

So that everything seemed to smile upon Rebecca's fortunes. She
took Jos's arm, as a matter of course, on going to dinner; she had
sate by him on the box of his open carriage (a most tremendous
"buck" he was, as he sat there, serene, in state, driving his
greys), and though nobody said a word on the subject of the
marriage, everybody seemed to understand it. All she wanted was the
proposal, and ah! how Rebecca now felt the want of a mother!—a
dear, tender mother, who would have managed the business in ten
minutes, and, in the course of a little delicate confidential
conversation, would have extracted the interesting avowal from the
bashful lips of the young man!

Such was the state of affairs as the carriage crossed Westminster
bridge.

The party was landed at the Royal Gardens in due time. As the
majestic Jos stepped out of the creaking vehicle the crowd gave a
cheer for the fat gentleman, who blushed and looked very big and
mighty, as he walked away with Rebecca under his arm. George, of
course, took charge of Amelia. She looked as happy as a rose-tree
in sunshine.

"I say, Dobbin," says George, "just look to the shawls and things,
there's a good fellow." And so while he paired off with Miss Sedley,
and Jos squeezed through the gate into the gardens with Rebecca at
his side, honest Dobbin contented himself by giving an arm to the
shawls, and by paying at the door for the whole party.

He walked very modestly behind them. He was not willing to spoil
sport. About Rebecca and Jos he did not care a fig. But he thought
Amelia worthy even of the brilliant George Osborne, and as he saw
that good-looking couple threading the walks to the girl's delight
and wonder, he watched her artless happiness with a sort of fatherly
pleasure. Perhaps he felt that he would have liked to have
something on his own arm besides a shawl (the people laughed at
seeing the gawky young officer carrying this female burthen); but
William Dobbin was very little addicted to selfish calculation at
all; and so long as his friend was enjoying himself, how should he
be discontented? And the truth is, that of all the delights of the
Gardens; of the hundred thousand extra lamps, which were always
lighted; the fiddlers in cocked hats, who played ravishing melodies
under the gilded cockle-shell in the midst of the gardens; the
singers, both of comic and sentimental ballads, who charmed the ears
there; the country dances, formed by bouncing cockneys and
cockneyesses, and executed amidst jumping, thumping and laughter;
the signal which announced that Madame Saqui was about to mount
skyward on a slack-rope ascending to the stars; the hermit that
always sat in the illuminated hermitage; the dark walks, so
favourable to the interviews of young lovers; the pots of stout
handed about by the people in the shabby old liveries; and the
twinkling boxes, in which the happy feasters made-believe to eat
slices of almost invisible ham—of all these things, and of the
gentle Simpson, that kind smiling idiot, who, I daresay, presided
even then over the place—Captain William Dobbin did not take the
slightest notice.

He carried about Amelia's white cashmere shawl, and having attended
under the gilt cockle-shell, while Mrs. Salmon performed the Battle
of Borodino (a savage cantata against the Corsican upstart, who had
lately met with his Russian reverses)—Mr. Dobbin tried to hum it as
he walked away, and found he was humming—the tune which Amelia
Sedley sang on the stairs, as she came down to dinner.

He burst out laughing at himself; for the truth is, he could sing no
better than an owl.

It is to be understood, as a matter of course, that our young
people, being in parties of two and two, made the most solemn
promises to keep together during the evening, and separated in ten
minutes afterwards. Parties at Vauxhall always did separate, but
'twas only to meet again at supper-time, when they could talk of
their mutual adventures in the interval.

What were the adventures of Mr. Osborne and Miss Amelia? That is a
secret. But be sure of this—they were perfectly happy, and correct
in their behaviour; and as they had been in the habit of being
together any time these fifteen years, their tete-a-tete offered no
particular novelty.

But when Miss Rebecca Sharp and her stout companion lost themselves
in a solitary walk, in which there were not above five score more of
couples similarly straying, they both felt that the situation was
extremely tender and critical, and now or never was the moment Miss
Sharp thought, to provoke that declaration which was trembling on
the timid lips of Mr. Sedley. They had previously been to the
panorama of Moscow, where a rude fellow, treading on Miss Sharp's
foot, caused her to fall back with a little shriek into the arms of
Mr. Sedley, and this little incident increased the tenderness and
confidence of that gentleman to such a degree, that he told her
several of his favourite Indian stories over again for, at least,
the sixth time.

"How I should like to see India!" said Rebecca.

"SHOULD you?" said Joseph, with a most killing tenderness; and was
no doubt about to follow up this artful interrogatory by a question
still more tender (for he puffed and panted a great deal, and
Rebecca's hand, which was placed near his heart, could count the
feverish pulsations of that organ), when, oh, provoking! the bell
rang for the fireworks, and, a great scuffling and running taking
place, these interesting lovers were obliged to follow in the stream
of people.

Captain Dobbin had some thoughts of joining the party at supper: as,
in truth, he found the Vauxhall amusements not particularly lively—
but he paraded twice before the box where the now united couples
were met, and nobody took any notice of him. Covers were laid for
four. The mated pairs were prattling away quite happily, and Dobbin
knew he was as clean forgotten as if he had never existed in this
world.

"I should only be de trop," said the Captain, looking at them rather
wistfully. "I'd best go and talk to the hermit,"—and so he
strolled off out of the hum of men, and noise, and clatter of the
banquet, into the dark walk, at the end of which lived that well-
known pasteboard Solitary. It wasn't very good fun for Dobbin—and,
indeed, to be alone at Vauxhall, I have found, from my own
experience, to be one of the most dismal sports ever entered into by
a bachelor.

The two couples were perfectly happy then in their box: where the
most delightful and intimate conversation took place. Jos was in
his glory, ordering about the waiters with great majesty. He made
the salad; and uncorked the Champagne; and carved the chickens; and
ate and drank the greater part of the refreshments on the tables.
Finally, he insisted upon having a bowl of rack punch; everybody had
rack punch at Vauxhall. "Waiter, rack punch."

That bowl of rack punch was the cause of all this history. And why
not a bowl of rack punch as well as any other cause? Was not a bowl
of prussic acid the cause of Fair Rosamond's retiring from the
world? Was not a bowl of wine the cause of the demise of Alexander
the Great, or, at least, does not Dr. Lempriere say so?—so did this
bowl of rack punch influence the fates of all the principal
characters in this "Novel without a Hero," which we are now
relating. It influenced their life, although most of them did not
taste a drop of it.