35

Whatever Becky’s private plan might be by which Dobbin’s true love was to be crowned with success, the little woman thought that the secret might keep. Emmy was not very happy after her heroic sacrifice. She was very nervous, silent, and ill to please. She grew pale and ill.

Not caring for society, and moping there a great deal, Emmy’s chief pleasure in the summer evenings was to take long walks with Georgy and then the mother and son used to talk about the Major in a way which even made the boy smile. She told him that she thought Major William was the best man in all the world – the gentlest and the kindest, the bravest and the humblest.

At last Becky’s much-bragged-about boxes arrived. Out of one, which contained a mass of her papers, she took a picture with great glee, which she pinned up in her room.

“God bless my soul, it is my portrait,” Jos cried out. It was he indeed, blooming in youth and beauty.

“I bought it,” said Becky in a voice trembling with emotion; “I went to see if I could be of any use to my kind friends. I have never parted with that picture – I never will.”

The correspondence between George and his guardian had not ceased by any means: William had even written once or twice to her since his departure, but in a manner so cold that the poor woman felt now in her turn that she had lost her power over him and that, as he had said, he was free.

Amelia began to take baths and get what good she could from them. Some of Mrs. Rawdon Crawley’s acquaintances, however, acknowledged her readily enough, – perhaps more readily than she would have desired.

At last Becky took a great resolution – made the great plunge. She wrote off a letter to a friend whom she had on the other side of the water, a letter about which she did not speak a word to anybody.

“She mustn’t stop here,” Becky reasoned with herself. “She must go away, the silly little fool. She shan’t marry either of these men. No; she shall marry the bamboo cane, I’ll settle it this very night.”

So Becky took a cup of tea to Amelia in her private apartment and found that lady in a most melancholy and nervous condition.

“I tried – I tried my best, indeed I did, Rebecca,” said Amelia, “but I couldn’t forget – ”; and she finished the sentence by looking up at the portrait.

“Couldn’t forget HIM!” cried out Becky, “that selfish humbug, that low-bred cockney dandy, that padded booby, who had neither wit, nor manners, nor heart, and was no more to be compared to your friend with the bamboo cane than you are to Queen Elizabeth. Why, the man was weary of you, and would have jilted you, but that Dobbin forced him to keep his word. He owned it to me. He never cared for you. He used to sneer about you to me, time after time, and made love to me the week after he married you.”

“It’s false! It’s false! Rebecca,” cried out Amelia, starting up.

“Look there, you fool,” Becky said, still with provoking good humour, and taking a little paper out of her belt, she opened it and flung it into Emmy’s lap. “You know his handwriting. He wrote that to me – wanted me to run away with him – gave it me under your nose, the day before he was shot – and served him right!” Becky repeated.

Emmy did not hear her; she was looking at the letter. It was that which George had put into the bouquet and given to Becky on the night of the ball. It was as she said: the foolish young man had asked her to fly. Emmy’s head sank down, and for almost the last time in which she shall be called upon to weep in this history, she commenced that work.

“There is nothing to forbid me now,” she thought. “I may love him with all my heart now. Oh, I will, I will, if he will but let me and forgive me.”

Indeed, she did not cry so much as Becky expected – the other soothed and kissed her – a rare mark of sympathy with Mrs. Becky. She treated Emmy like a child and patted her head. “And now let us get pen and ink and write to him to come this minute,” she said.

“I–I wrote to him this morning,” Emmy said, blushing exceedingly.

Two mornings after this little scene, although the day was rainy and gusty, she got up early and insisted upon taking a walk on the Dike with Georgy. The boat followed the smoke into sight. Georgy had a dandy telescope and got the vessel under view in the most skillful manner. The ship came swiftly nearer and nearer. As they went in to meet her at the landing-place at the quay, Emmy’s knees trembled so that she scarcely could run.

She was murmuring something about – forgive – dear William – dear, dear, dearest friend – kiss kiss, kiss, and so forth – and in fact went on under the cloak in an absurd manner.

When Emmy emerged from it, she still kept tight hold of one of William’s hands, and looked up in his face. It was full of sadness and tender love and pity. She understood its reproach and hung down her head.

“It was time you sent for me, dear Amelia,” he said.

“You will never go again, William?”

“No, never,” he answered, and pressed the dear little soul once more to his heart.

36

Emmy was very glad in her heart to think that she had written to her husband before she read or knew of that letter of George’s. “I knew it all along,” William said; “but could I use that weapon against the poor fellow’s memory?”

When Colonel Dobbin quitted the service, which he did immediately after his marriage, he rented a pretty little country place in Hampshire, not far from Queen’s Crawley, where, after the passing of the Reform Bill, Sir Pitt and his family constantly resided now. Lady Jane and Mrs. Dobbin became great friends.

Her Ladyship was godmother to Mrs. Dobbin’s child, which bore her name, and and a pretty close friendship subsisted between the two lads, George and Rawdon, who hunted and shot together in the vacations, were both entered of the same college at Cambridge, and quarrelled with each other about Lady Jane’s daughter, with whom they were both, of course, in love.

Mrs. Rawdon Crawley’s name was never mentioned by either family. There were reasons why all should be silent regarding her. For wherever Mr. Joseph Sedley went, she travelled likewise, and that infatuated man seemed to be entirely her slave.

The Colonel’s lawyers informed him that his brother-in-law had effected a heavy insurance upon his life, whence it was probable that he had been raising money to discharge debts. He procured prolonged leave of absence from the East India

House, and indeed, his infirmities were daily increasing. On hearing the news about the insurance, Amelia, in a good deal of alarm, entreated her husband to go to Brussels, where Jos then was, and inquire into the state of his affairs. The Colonel quitted home with reluctance and went to Brussels and found Jos living at one of the enormous hotels in that city. Mrs. Crawley, who had her carriage, gave entertainments, and lived in a very genteel manner, occupied another suite of apartments in the same hotel.

Jos begged the Colonel to come and see him that night, when Mrs. Crawley would be at a soiree, and when they could meet alone. He found his brother-in-law in a condition of pitiable infirmity – and dreadfully afraid of Rebecca, though eager in his praises of her.

She had been a daughter to him. “But – but – oh, for God’s sake, do come and live near me, and – and – see me sometimes,” whimpered out the unfortunate man.

The Colonel’s brow darkened at this. “We can’t, Jos,” he said. “Considering the circumstances, Amelia can’t visit you.”

“I swear to you – I swear to you on the Bible,” gasped out Joseph, wanting to kiss the book, “that she is as innocent as a child, as spotless as your own wife.”

“It may be so,” said the Colonel gloomily, “but Emmy can’t come to you. Be a man, Jos: break off this disreputable connection. Come home to your family. We hear your affairs are involved. You are not in debt, then? Why did you insure your life?”

“I thought – a little present to her – in case anything happened; and you know my health is so delicate – common gratitude you know – and I intend to leave all my money to you – and I can spare it out of my income, indeed I can,” cried out William’s weak brother-in-law.

Jos clasped his hands and cried, “He would go back to India. He would do anything, only he must have time: they mustn’t say anything to Mrs. Crawley – she’d – she’d kill me if she knew it. You don’t know what a terrible woman she is,” the poor wretch said.

“Then, why not come away with me?” said Dobbin in reply; but Jos had not the courage.

He never saw Jos more. Three months afterwards Joseph Sedley died at Aix-la-Chapelle. It was found that all his property had been muddled away in speculations, and was represented by valueless shares in different bubble companies. All his available assets were the two thousand pounds for which his

life was insured, and which were left equally between his beloved “sister Amelia and his friend and invaluable attendant during sickness, Rebecca”.

* * *

She never was Lady Crawley, though she continued so to call herself. His Excellency Colonel Rawdon Crawley died of yellow fever at Coventry Island, most deeply beloved and deplored, and six weeks before the demise of his brother, Sir Pitt. The estate consequently devolved upon the present Sir Rawdon Crawley, Bart. He, too, has declined to see his mother, to whom he makes a liberal allowance, and who, besides, appears to be very wealthy. The Baronet lives entirely at Queen’s Crawley, with Lady Jane and her daughter, whilst Rebecca, Lady Crawley, chiefly hangs about Bath and Cheltenham, where a very strong party of excellent people consider her to be a most injured woman. She has her enemies. Who has not? Her life is her answer to them. She busies herself in works of piety. She goes to church, and never without a footman. Her name is in all the

Charity Lists. The destitute orange-girl, the neglected washerwoman, the distressed muffin-man find in her a fast and generous friend. She is always having stalls at Fancy Fairs for the benefit of these hapless beings.

Emmy, her children, and the Colonel, coming to London some time back, found themselves suddenly before her at one of these fairs. She cast down her eyes demurely and smiled as they started away from her; Emmy scurrying off on the arm of George (now grown a dashing young gentleman) and the Colonel seizing up his little Janey, of whom he is fonder than of anything in the world. “Fonder than he is of me,” Emmy thinks with a sigh. But he never said a word to Amelia that was not kind and gentle, or thought of a want of hers that he did not try to gratify.

Ah! Vanitas Vanitatum! which of us is happy in this world? Which of us has his desire? or, having it, is satisfied? – come, children, let us shut up the box and the puppets, for our play is played out.