33

The day after the meeting at the play-table, Jos had himself arrayed with unusual care and splendour, and without thinking it necessary to say a word to any member of his family, he sallied forth at an early hour, and was presently seen making inquiries at the door of the Elephant Hotel.

Jos was surveying the queer little apartment in which he found his old flame.

One of her gowns hung over the bed, another depending from a hook of the door; a

French novel was on the table by the bedside, with a candle. Becky thought of popping that into the bed too, but she only put in the little paper night-cap with which she had put the candle out on going to sleep.

“I should have known you anywhere,” she continued; “a woman never forgets some things. And you were the first man I ever – I ever saw.”

“Was I really?” said Jos. “God bless my soul, you – you don’t say so.”

“When I came with your sister from Chiswick, I was scarcely more than a child,” Becky said. “How is that, dear love? Oh, her husband was a sad wicked man, and of course it was of me that the poor dear was jealous”; and she passed her handkerchief with the tattered lace across her eyelids.

“Is not this a strange place,” she continued, “for a woman, who has lived in a very different world too, to be found in? I have had so many griefs and wrongs, Joseph Sedley; I have been made to suffer so cruelly that I am almost made mad sometimes. I can’t stay still in any place, but wander about always restless and unhappy. All my friends have been false to me – all. There is no such thing as an honest man in the world.”

They had a very long, amicable, and confidential talk there, in the course of which Jos Sedley was somehow made aware that Becky’s heart had first learned to beat at his enchanting presence; and that she had never ceased to think about Jos from the very first day she had seen him, though, of course, her duties as a married woman were paramount – duties which she had always preserved, and would, to her dying day, or until the proverbially bad climate in which Colonel Crawley was living should release her from a yoke which his cruelty had rendered odious to her.

Jos went away, convinced that she was the most virtuous, as she was one of the most fascinating of women, and revolving in his mind all sorts of benevolent schemes for her welfare.

Jos walked over to Dobbin’s lodgings with great solemnity and there imparted to him the affecting history with which he had just been made acquainted, without, however, mentioning the play business of the night before.

As for Mrs. Amelia, she was a woman of such a soft and foolish disposition that when she heard of anybody unhappy, her heart straightway melted towards the sufferer. Dobbin’s excitement was quite the reverse from a pleasurable one; he made use of a brief but improper expression regarding a poor woman in distress, saying, in fact, “The little minx, has she come to light again?” He never had had the slightest liking for her, but had heartily mistrusted her from the very first moment when her green eyes had looked at, and turned away from, his own.

“That little devil brings mischief wherever she goes,” the Major said disrespectfully. “Who knows what sort of life she has been leading? And what business has she here abroad and alone? I say at once, let us go and ask

Emmy if this woman ought to be visited or not – I will be content with her verdict.”

Jos opened the business with his usual pomp of words. “Amelia, my dear,” said he, “I have just had the most extraordinary – yes – God bless my soul! the most extraordinary adventure – an old friend – yes, a most interesting old friend of yours, and I may say in old times, has just arrived here, and I should like you to see her.”

“Her!” said Amelia, “who is it? Major Dobbin, if you please not to break my scissors.”

It is a woman whom I dislike very much,” said the Major, “and whom you have no cause to love.”

“It is Rebecca, I’m sure it is Rebecca,” Amelia said, blushing and being very much agitated. “Don’t let me see her,” Emmy continued. “I couldn’t see her.”

“I told you so,” Dobbin said to Jos.

“She is very unhappy, and – and that sort of thing,” Jos urged.

“Ah!” said Amelia.

“She hasn’t a friend in the world,” Jos went on, “and she said she thought she might trust in you. She’s so miserable, Emmy.”

“Poor creature!” Amelia said.

“And if she can get no friend, she says she thinks she’ll die,” Jos proceeded in a low voice. “God bless my soul! do you know that she tried to kill herself?”

This did not seem to affect Emmy. She even smiled a little.

“She’s beside herself with grief,” he resumed. “The agonies that woman has endured are quite frightful to hear of. She had a little boy, of the same age as Georgy.”

“Yes, yes, I think I remember,” Emmy remarked. “Well?”

“The most beautiful child ever seen,” Jos said, who was very fat, and easily moved, and had been touched by the story Becky told; “a perfect angel, who adored his mother. The ruffians tore him shrieking out of her arms, and have never allowed him to see her.”

“Dear Joseph,” Emmy cried out, starting up at once, “let us go and see her this minute.”

“Who is it?” Becky said, putting out her head, and she gave a little scream. There stood Emmy in a tremble, and Dobbin, the tall Major, with his cane.

He stood still watching, and very much interested at the scene; but Emmy sprang forward with open arms towards Rebecca, and forgave her at that moment, and embraced her and kissed her with all her heart. Ah, poor wretch, when was your lip pressed before by such pure kisses?

34

Frankness and kindness like Amelia’s were likely to touch even such a hardened little reprobate as Becky. She returned Emmy’s caresses and kind speeches with something very like gratitude, and an emotion which, if it was not lasting, for a moment was almost genuine.

And so the two women continued talking for an hour or more, during which Becky had the opportunity of giving her new friend a full and complete version of her private history. She showed how her marriage with Rawdon Crawley had always been viewed by the family with feelings of the utmost hostility; how her sister-in-law had poisoned her husband’s mind against her; how he had formed odious connections, which had estranged his affections from her: how she had borne everything – poverty, neglect, coldness from the being whom she most loved – and all for the sake of her child; how, finally, she had been driven into demanding a separation from her husband, when the wretch did not scruple to ask that she should sacrifice her own fair fame so that he might have advancement through the means of a very great and powerful but unprincipled man – the Marquis of Steyne, indeed.

“And so this devil is still going on with her intrigues,” thought William. “I wish she were a hundred miles from here. She brings mischief wherever she goes.”

After some hours the whole party left the room of the sufferer.

“Well?” said Dobbin.

“The poor dear creature, how she has suffered!” Emmy said.

“God bless my soul, yes,” Jos said, wagging his head.

“She may have a servant’s room, who can go upstairs,” Emmy continued.

“Why, you don’t mean to say you are going to have that woman into the house?” bounced out the Major, jumping up.

“Of course we are,” said Amelia in the most innocent way in the world. “Don’t be angry and break the furniture, Major Dobbin. Of course we are going to have her here.”

“Of course, my dear,” Jos said.

“Take lessons, my dear Mrs. George,” cried the Major, “but don’t have her in the house. I implore you don’t. She was not always your friend, Amelia.”

This allusion was too much for Emmy, who, looking the Major almost fiercely in the face, said, “For shame, Major Dobbin!” and after having fired this shot, she walked out of the room with a most majestic air and shut her own door briskly on herself and her outraged dignity.

At last Becky arrived with her great baggage. Her arrival brought Amelia out of her room. Emmy went up and embraced her guest with the greatest warmth, and took no notice of the Major, except to fling him an angry look – the most unjust and scornful glance that had perhaps ever appeared in that poor little woman’s face since she was born.

And Dobbin, indignant at the injustice, not at the defeat, went off, making her a bow quite as haughty as the killing curtsey with which the little woman chose to bid him farewell.

When at length, in the afternoon, the Major gained admission to Amelia, instead of the cordial and affectionate greeting, to which he had been accustomed now for many a long day, he received the salutation of a curtsey, and of a little gloved hand.

Rebecca, too, was in the room, and advanced to meet him with a smile and an extended hand. Dobbin drew back rather confusedly, "I–I beg your pardon, m'am," he said; "but I am bound to tell you that it is not as your friend that I am come here now. I came to say – and as you stay, Mrs. Crawley, I must say it in your presence – that I think you – you ought not to form a member of the family of my friends. A lady who is separated from her husband, who travels not under her own name, who frequents public gaming-tables —"

"It was to the ball I went," cried out Becky.

" – is not a fit companion for Mrs. Osborne and her son," Dobbin went on: "and I may add that there are people here who know you, and who profess to know that regarding your conduct about which I don't even wish to speak before – before

Mrs. Osborne."

"Major Dobbin," Rebecca said. "You leave me under the weight of an accusation which, after all, is unsaid. Amelia, let me go: my stay here interferes with the plans of this gentleman.”

“Indeed it does, madam,” said the Major. “If I have any authority in this house – ”

“Authority, none!” broke out Amelia. “Rebecca, you stay with me. I won’t desert you because you have been persecuted, or insult you because – because Major Dobbin chooses to do so. Come away, dear.” And the two women made towards the door.

William opened it. As they were going out, however, he took Amelia’s hand and said – ”Will you stay a moment and speak to me?”

“He wishes to speak to you away from me,” said Becky, looking like a martyr. Amelia gripped her hand in reply.

“Upon my honour it is not about you that I am going to speak,” Dobbin said. “Come back, Amelia,” and she came.

“I was confused when I spoke just now,” the Major said after a pause, “and I misused the word authority.”

“You did,” said Amelia with her teeth chattering.

“At least I have claims to be heard,” Dobbin continued.

“It is generous to remind me of our obligations to you,” the woman answered.

“The claims I mean are those left me by George’s father,” William said.

“Yes, and you insulted his memory. You did yesterday. You know you did. And I will never forgive you. Never!” said Amelia.

“You don’t mean that, Amelia?” William said sadly. “You don’t mean that these words are to weigh against a whole life’s devotion?”

Amelia held down her head.

“It is not that speech of yesterday,” he continued, “which moves you. That is but the pretext, Amelia, or I have loved you and watched you for fifteen years in vain.

No, you are not worthy of the love which I have devoted to you. I knew all along that the prize I had set my life on was not worth the winning; I will bargain no more: I withdraw. I find no fault with you. You are very good-natured, and have done your best, but you couldn’t – you couldn’t reach up to the height of the attachment which I bore you. Good-bye, Amelia! I have watched your struggle. Let it end. We are both weary of it.”

Amelia stood scared and silent as William thus suddenly broke the chain by which she held him and declared his independence and superiority. She didn’t wish to marry him, but she wished to keep him.

“Am I to understand then, that you are going – away, William?” she said.

He gave a sad laugh. “I went once before,” he said, “and came back after twelve years. We were young then, Amelia. Good-bye. I have spent enough of my life at this play.”

Whilst they had been talking, the door into Mrs. Osborne’s room had opened ever so little; indeed, Becky had kept a hold of the handle and had turned it on the instant when Dobbin quitted it, and she heard every word of the conversation that had passed between these two. “What a noble heart that man has,” she thought, “and how shamefully that woman plays with it!” She admired Dobbin.

“Give him this,” said Becky to George, quite interested, and put a paper into the boy’s hand. William had got into the carriage, George bounded in afterwards, and flung his arms round the Major’s and began asking him multiplied questions. Then he felt in his waistcoat pocket and gave him a note. William seized at it rather eagerly, he opened it trembling, but instantly his countenance changed, and he tore the paper in two and dropped it out of the carriage. He kissed Georgy on the head, and the boy got out, doubling his fists into his eyes.

As for Emmy, had she not done her duty? She had her picture of George for a consolation.